The Nature of Fascism

[droqen]

   (v)
"An ideology is intrinsically irrational"
". . . [the fascist world-view's] affective power is rooted in irrational drives and mythical assumptions."
ideology's affective power is rooted in irrational drives and mythical assumptions.

i suppose that i believe this is the value, too, of ideologies in general: they satisfy humans' irrational drives and mythical assumptions. rather than rejecting them, they accept them. (it's not clear to me yet what the author believes regarding these drives & assumptions, if anything. perhaps it is not relevant.)

   (vi)
"There are varying levels of commitment"
i don't care about this one

   (vii)
"Commitment to an ideology is largely determined by self-interest"
"Genuine (as opposed to feigned or tactical) support for fascism stems . . ."
interrupting Griffin, here: i think his use of 'Genuine' is Scotsman-ish. let me edit his words.
". . . support for fascism stems in each individual case from . . "
1. "tactical" goals, or
2. "a largely subliminal elective affinity to it based on material and psychological interests."
honestly i dont really know what he's saying here. like, what is the alternative i guess?

[droqen]

   (viii)
"Ideologies are not homogenous at a lived level"
"Though a fascist movement may appear a cohesive ideological community and present itself as such, on closer inspection its support will prove to derive from a myriad personal motivations for joining it and idiosyncratic conceptions of the movement's goals."
there is no such thing as a cohesive ideological community.
- everyone has different personal motivations for joining the "community"
- everyone has an idiosyncratic personal conception of the "community's" goals
- and finally, everyone has their own idea of what the "cohesive ideological community" even is.

[droqen]

   (ix)
"Ideologies are not located in individuals as such"
"Fascist ideology . . . is not reducible to the theories and policies of any one ideologue or leader. . . [its] emergence and success are conditioned by its interaction with other structures both ideological and non-ideological."
it's this last bit that hits me. the ideology "emerges" only in interaction with 'other structures', as in, other collective structures, which may or may not be ideologies themselves. the ideology is a thing with its own shape and it is not only constructed of the beliefs of one individual. the ideology interacts with the world at large, and changes outside of our control.

   (x)
"Each ideology can be defined ideal-typically in terms of a core of values and perceptions of history"
"Generic fascism . . . [has an] ideological core."

[droqen]

[AB]

(summarize the 'political ideology' aspect, what is an ideology? feel like i learned a lot, but need to revisit)

[droqen]

what is fascism's MYTHIC CORE?

p28

what gives any religious or political creed its power to inspire revolutionary transformations in history are its core myths, namely those simple visionary principles:

which enclose with them all the strongest inclinations of a people, of a party or a class, inclinations which recur to the mind with the insistence of instincts in all the circumstances of life; and which give an aspect of complete reality to the hopes of immediate action in which . . . men can reform their desires, passions and mental activity.

hmm

. . . in each case it 'must be judged as a means of acting on the present; any attempt to discuss how far it can be taken literally as future history is devoid of sense. It is the myth in its entirety which is important: its parts are only of interest in so far as they bring out the main idea'.

p29

. . . both the conservative and transforming power of every ideology resides in its mythic dimension

yes, i knew this, but what is fascism's? ah- we have to get to the next bit. to ask what fascism's mythic core is, of course the answer is "a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism". the next sections will cover what those are.

[droqen]

palingenesis ['palin' (again, anew) + 'genesis' (creation, birth)] "refers to the sense of a new start or of regeneration after a phase of crisis or decline" (p33). pretty simple.

populist is "a generic term for political forces which . . . depend on 'people power' as the basis of their legitimacy" (p36-37)

ultra-nationalism refers to "forms of nationalism which 'go beyond, and hence reject, anything compatible with liberal institutions or with the tradition of Enlightenment humanism which underpins them. . . 'integral' (Alter, 1989) or 'radical' (Eley, 1980) nationalism." (p37) (there is more about nationalism but i'm going to skip them, it's a lot)

p37

Combined into a single expression, 'populist ultra-nationalism' precludes the nationalism of dynastic rulers and imperial powers before the rise of mass politics and democratic forces. . . as well as the populist (liberal) nationalism which overthrows a colonial power to institute representative democracy. . .

In other words, populist ultra-nationalism rejects the principles both of absolutism [monarchy, dictatorship] and of pluralist representative government [democracy]. . . .

. . . it thus repudiates both 'traditional' and 'legal/rational' forms of politics in favour of prevalently 'charismatic' ones

i see here that what's happening is the consequence of what the ideology rejects, rather than of the ideology's positive goal; that is, it isn't the ideological goal of fascism to replace politics with charisma, however the natural consequence of what fascism does want (leadership should be determined by the people, but 'not like that') is this return to a default form of politics; if we remove 'absolutism' and 'pluralist representative government' then what happens to win out is rule by charisma (i.e. "the capacity of their leaders to inspire loyalty and action").

[droqen]

"decadence" as enemy has come up more than once. i think im done trying to exhaustively read this book from cover to cover... i am focusing on the topic which brought me here in the first place, and a major component of that is decadence, and "degenerate art". how does decadence appear worthy of destruction to the fascist ideology?

[droqen]

p201

. . . (iii) the myth of decadence.

. . . there is a degree of consensus on the notion that populist nationalism of a tendentially illiberal or anti-liberal complexion emerged to fill the nomic vacuum left on the lives of millions of 'ordinary' citizens by the decay of traditional religion and community.

[droqen]

p202

. . . the moment populist nationalism coincided with a climate of palingenetic expectancy fascism was 'bound' to appear. Yet [our ideal type [of fascism]] also suggests that it was only likely to gain any sort of mass following in conditions of objective structural dysfunction profound enough to create a wide-spread sense-making crisis.

[droqen]

i learned a new word, "nomic."

[droqen]

so comes to an end my time with this book. i come away with a better understanding, as desired, of what fascism is and what it is not. there are certainly aspects which give me pause; am i perceiving the re-creation of certain undesirable dynamics? but to say "X is like fascism's Y" is not to proclaim its negativity... "rising like bread rises" does not suggest that the thing that rises-like-bread is actually bread-like in any other way.

still, the hazy associations cloud direct meaning with indirect implication.

one may equally describe a riser as "rising like fascism [in such and such a time]", but unrelated to the quality of the rise (did it rise quickly? gradually?), we may also perceive certain other free-floating comparisons.

[droqen]

my reading of this book comes from, and speaks to, disparagement. but words are so weakened when we use them in this way. if i should compare X to Y, then it is on me to provide a justification Z for such comparison and it had better be a good one — a justification which justifies not the usage of Y but the specific usage of Y from among many choices, along every axis.

[droqen]

"it's fascist" as shorthand for "i don't like it, and i don't like fascism, and the two have a quality in common".

[droqen]

not every quality of fascism is bad. this isn't a defense of fascism: it's a simple claim that being capable of relating one quality of fascism to one quality of another thing is insufficient ground upon which to stake a complaint. the quality itself must be flawed in a way that goes beyond "it is associated with fascism."