How Fascism Works

[Emerald]

I just finished reading the book “How Fascism Works”

And I wanted to share the main components of Fascism… mostly because it can be important to spot these warning signs.

And most people don’t know the full scope of what Fascism entails when asked to define it.

Humanity has had 49 genocides in the past 50 years. So, education is one of the best preventatives.

So, here are the components of Fascism…

1. The Mythic Past - Fascists believe in an idealized mythic past for their nation. And they view ethnicity and nation as the primary identity. And with the Mythic Past, it’s the notion that WE used to be great… but then THEY came along and destroyed OUR greatness. And WE will defeat THEM and be great again.
2. Propaganda - It’s difficult to sell hatred and genocide to the majority of people. So, they cloak the goals of ethnic cleansing and genocide in idealistic propaganda. They might sell their movement as necessary for achieving popular goals like freedom.
3. Anti-Intellectual - In Fascism, the the Mythic Past is the foundation. But this myth is an idealized and untrue imagining of the past. And so, this puts Fascism directly at odds with expertise and higher education. So, it is common for Fascists to spread the notion that institutions of higher learning are propaganda machines that are designed to undermine the “truth” of the Mythic Past.
4. Unreality - Dovetailing off the last point… reality and truth is very threatening to Fascism because Fascism is rooted in myth. So, the Fascist must go to war with truth itself to preserve that myth. And so empiricism is something Fascist movements seek to undermine. They try to simultaneously give the sense that there is no such thing as truth… just differing opinions… while also claiming that their mythos is the only truth. It depends on which suits them in the moment.
5. Hierarchy - Fascism subscribes to the notion of absolute hierarchies to justify inequalities. It has the notion that WE are superior to THEM based mostly off of the mythic foundation. Though Fascists might also use cherry-picked science and use Social Darwinism to add a more rational facade to their emotional attachment to the belief in absolute hierarchy. And this gets used as the justification for why WE get to exploit/harm/kill THEM. 
6. Victimhood - A big part of Fascist propaganda is the convince the dominant ethnic group that they are victims or potentially victims of minority ethnic groups. So, Fascism constructs collective victim narratives about how the other groups are stealing all the jobs, leeching off the system… and pillaging and raping… and otherwise degrading the society. 
7. Law and Order - Dovetailing off of the victim narrative constructed in Fascism, there is also the promise to “restore” law and order and end the victimization caused by THEM. And this is typically one of the selling points of paternalistic authoritarian Fascistic leaders to say “Hey… you may not agree with some of my views. But you need me to take control to protect you from THEM”
8. Sexual Anxiety - The notion of the patriarchal familial ideal is central to the Fascistic mythos where the authoritarian father rules over the land, and the man rules over his wife and children. And the notion of absolute hierarchy also comes into play with this. So, one of the ways to malign THEM is to spread narratives that the men of the other ethnicities/nationalities are savage rapists looking to defile OUR pure unspoiled women. This also comes with an underlying fear of OUR women preferring THEIR men and spoiling the bloodline with miscegenation.
9. Rural over Urban (Sodom and Gomorrah) - Fascism tends to present its rhetoric as very pro-rural and very anti-urban. This is because cities are more cosmopolitan and diversity is the norm there. And that weakens people’s susceptibility to Fascist rhetoric against THEM. But in rural areas, there are very many of US and very few of THEM. And it becomes easier to malign THEM to people who don’t interact much with THEM. So, Fascist rhetoric presents cities as cesspools of miscegenation and degeneracy. And the false notion is floated that the funding for cities comes primarily out of the pockets of those in rural areas (often framed as a handout for THEM), when in fact the opposite is the case as tax dollars taken in from cities tend to flow outward.
10. Arbeit Macht Frei - Arbeit Macht Frei means “Work shall set you free” in German. And this motto was on the signage of many concentration camps. In Nazi Germany, one of the reasons they gave for rounding up Jews is the notion that Jews have lots of money that they didn’t properly work for and essentially stole from the hard-working German people. This rhetoric eventually became the rationale for why Jews needed to be sent to labor camps. So, a lot of Fascist rhetoric frames the situation as THEY are getting special handouts and privileges that THEY didn’t work for, while WE got everything by the merits of OUR work and the sweat of OUR brow. And there is also a push to punish THEM for stealing from US.

I hope this is helpful to all who want to learn about Fascism.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Emerald

[DocWatts]

25 minutes ago, Emerald said:

I just finished reading the book “How Fascism Works”

And I wanted to share the main components of Fascism… mostly because it can be important to spot these warning signs.

And most people don’t know the full scope of what Fascism entails when asked to define it.

...

It just so happens that I'm in the middle of reading this very book, and I can't commend it enough for laying out the characteristics of fascism in thorough yet approachable way.

I feel like I could hand this book to someone who hasn't spent a significant period of time studying sociology and have it be understood. Which is valuable precisely because in a place like America, a typical person has only a very surface level understanding of fascist ideology, often nothing more than a vague association with Nazi iconography they've seen in entertainment media. Which prevents them from being able to see examples of fascism in their own society.

Edited March 3, 2023 by DocWatts

[Emerald]

Just now, DocWatts said:

It just so happens that I'm in the middle of reading this very book, and I can't commend it enough for laying out the characteristics of fascism in thorough yet approachable way.

I feel like I could hand this book to someone who hasn't spend a significant period of time studying sociology and have it be understood, which is valuable precisely because (at least in America) for your typical person fascism tends to be understood on a very surface level, often not beyond the iconography of its most obvious examples (ie Nazi Germany).

I totally agree. It’s a very informative and easy-to-understand read.

And I decided to post about it because a lot of people are unaware of the warning signs and end up accidentally playing into the hands of Fascist movements… or even potentially ending up in varying levels of reactionary political pipelines that are a funnel to into Neo-Nazi movements.

[Emerald]

Also, I’ll post a videos below that’s super helpful for understanding Fascism… or what is called by some experts as Palingenic Ultra-Nationalism.

 

[aurum]

It really seems to be like fascism is just conservatism taken to its most extreme.

Almost all of these points could be made of standard republican conservatives we have in the US. And yet I don’t see them necessarily as fascists. It’s more like fascism-lite.

Edited March 4, 2023 by aurum

[Emerald]

1 minute ago, aurum said:

It really seems to be like fascism is just conservatism taken to its must extreme.

Almost all of these points could be made of standard republican conservatives we have in the US. And yet I don’t see them necessarily as fascists. It’s more like fascism-lite.

Fascism mostly is Conservatism taken to the extreme.

Some people call Conservatism “Diet Fascism”

But what differentiates a Fascist from a Conservative is that Fascists have the deliberate goal of ethnic cleansing and creating ethno-states. This is the desired end goal of their attempt to recreate their Mythic Past.

And most Conservatives would not like to be associated with the optics of that. And a majority would disagree with that goal as well if you asked them without any propagandistic priming.

So, it’s useful for the self-identified Fascist to cloak themselves as more mainstream Conservatives to give themselves a normie touch.

Or they’ll lampshade themselves as free speech warriors who are just edgy people telling edgy jokes. That way, they can normalize their talking points to a wider audience through a joke to give themselves plausible deniability.

And when you call them out on it, they accuse you of being a humorless woke-scold who can’t take a joke or infringing upon their free speech.

And to the majority of people who aren’t wise to Fascist tactics, it makes the one that calls them out look bad. And the Fascist can drum up more rapport with their audience by coming across as the one who supports free speech. But the Fascist does not support free speech of course. They just use that defense opportunistically.

The issue with Fascism is that mainstream Conservatives (and even moderates and moderate Liberals), can unknowingly spread Fascist talking points because the Fascists hide the pill in the peanut butter pretty well. And most people don’t pick up on their dog whistles.

This is why mainstream Conservativism is starting to resemble this new internet brand of Fascism more and more.

But their main target right now is legalistically attacking Trans people. And if they’re successful their next target will be gay people. And if their successful their next target will be ethnic and religious minorities. And so on and so on.

And they get otherwise accepting people to hate these groups by claiming that the LGBTQ community is grooming children.

In my state they’re banning books. And there are lots of local officials now that are associated with the Proud Boys and other groups like that.

So, Fascism has now found its way into the mainstream which make people see it as normal. And when you say, “Hey, this is Fascism.” People just roll their eyes because they don’t realize how mundane Fascism looks.

[DocWatts]

3 hours ago, aurum said:

It really seems to be like fascism is just conservatism taken to its must extreme.

Almost all of these points could be made of standard republican conservatives we have in the US. And yet I don’t see them necessarily as fascists. It’s more like fascism-lite.

In addition to @Emeralds points, another useful discernment for telling if you're dealing with a conservative or a fascist, is to assess the degree to which they've made peace with expansions of rights and social recognition that have been won in previous eras and are taken for granted these days.

The idea that today's conservatives are in some ways the liberals of a generation or two ago. This is also the gist of the philosophy of the patron saint of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, who saw conservativism's role in liberal democracies as protecting society from crazy social experiments by conserving existing institutions and implementing change in a slow, measured way.

A conservative will most likely be uneasy with expanding these rights and recognition further or extending them to other groups, but to the degree that their perspective is conservative rather than fascistic, they're generally not trying to eradicate basic human rights that have been extended to people of color, women, gay people, etc.

Of course the rub is that the cultural and media environment is such that fascistic rhetoric and social policy has been moving into mainstream politics and culture, so in practice contemporary conservatives who haven't completely disavowed the modern Republican Party (or its counterpart in other countries) will exist on a spectrum between Edmund Burke's conservatism and fascism.

Edited March 4, 2023 by DocWatts

[Emerald]

@DocWatts Great points ?

[aurum]

3 hours ago, DocWatts said:

A conservative will most likely be uneasy with expanding these rights and recognition further or extending them to other groups, but to the degree that their perspective is conservative rather than fascistic, they're generally not trying to eradicate basic basic human rights that have been extended to people of color, women, gay people, etc.

 

4 hours ago, Emerald said:

But their main target right now is legalistically attacking Trans people. And if they’re successful their next target will be gay people. And if their successful their next target will be ethnic and religious minorities. And so on and so on.

And they get otherwise accepting people to hate these groups by claiming that the LGBTQ community is grooming children.

In my state they’re banning books. And there are lots of local officials now that are associated with the Proud Boys and other groups like that.

I agree that we can and should make a distinction between fascism and conservatism. And that some of today’s modern conservatives have legitimately slid into a territory that should be labeled fascism.

I think what I am getting stuck on with this topic the degree of relativity when it comes to labeling things as fascism.

For instance, @DocWatts you say that normal conservatives will be open to basic human rights already extended within the overton window and not eradicate them. And I think that’s a good rule of thumb to distinguish between healthy and more toxic conservatism.

However, the whole problem is that progressives and conservatives do not sometimes agree on what is a “basic” human right in the first place.

A progressive might argue that LGBTQ marriage is a basic human right, while the conservative does not see it that way at all. Does that make the conservative a fascist? Whose relative definition of a “right” are we using?

The error I feel I see a lot of SD Green progressives make is that they are implicitly assuming that their relative definition of “rights” are political truths are actually absolute. And they are not.

This leads to a noticeable amount of progressives labeling conservatives “fascist” when that label really just doesn’t fit. Or, the label itself just become pointless because essentially conservatism = fascism in their mind.

@EmeraldTo use your example, if conservatives rolled back the majority of the progress that has been made for the LGBTQ community, I would appose it. But I would not generally call it fascism. I  would call it conservatism. Rolling back LGBTQ is precisely what conservatives are interested in.

We also saw this with the overturn of Roe V Wade. Many progressives called it fascist. When in reality, this is just what conservatives want. This is what conservatives fighting against “crazy social experiments” looks like. To them, abortion IS dangerous leftism out of control.

My concern here that a) we become unable to distinguish between conservatism and actual fascism and b) an increase in political polarization by labeling those who disagree with you as fascists. This labeling does not come without a cost and needs to be applied accurately.

 

[DocWatts]

1 hour ago, aurum said:

 

I agree that we can and should make a distinction between fascism and conservatism. And that some of today’s modern conservatives have legitimately slid into a territory that should be labeled fascism.

I think what I am getting stuck on with this topic the degree of relativity when it comes to labeling things as fascism.

For instance, @DocWatts you say that normal conservatives will be open to basic human rights already extended within the overton window and not eradicate them. And I think that’s a good rule of thumb to distinguish between healthy and more toxic conservatism.

However, the whole problem is that progressives and conservatives do not sometimes agree on what is a “basic” human right in the first place.

A progressive might argue that LGBTQ marriage is a basic human right, while the conservative does not see it that way at all. Does that make the conservative a fascist? Whose relative definition of a “right” are we using?

The error I feel I see a lot of SD Green progressives make is that they are implicitly assuming that their relative definition of “rights” are political truths are actually absolute. And they are not.

This leads to a noticeable amount of progressives labeling conservatives “fascist” when that label really just doesn’t fit. Or, the label itself just become pointless because essentially conservatism = fascism in their mind.

That's actually a very good point, as "Rights" by their very definition are intersubjectively constructed, and in a country as large and diverse as the United States it's to be expected that different value systems are going to have their own version of what entails a fundamental human right.  There's never going to be one definition that's going to be Absolutely valid for all people and contexts, as you correctly point out.

That said, even for a country as polarized as the current United States, there are a number of issues of which it can be said that we have reached a working consensus on as a society (or at least as close to one as it's possible to get in a very large and complex society). Whether women and minorities should be able to vote and hold political office is one of the more obvious examples, since anyone who believed otherwise would be well outside of the Overton window, and would have to use dog whistle rhetoric to make their position palatable within the public sphere (and mind you, this is exactly how modern fascism does work).

As for abortion, I'd argue that issue sits somewhere on the border of the Overton window, while a majority of people in a place like America do accept that abortion is something which should be protected, it's also fair to say that it's by no means a settled issue in the way that women's suffrage is.

The three far Right justices that Trump was able to appoint to the Supreme Court all had to lie that Roe v Wade was in their view 'a settled issue' during their confirmation hearings, which to me is good evidence that abortions rights are within Overton window (though perhaps near the edge). Had this not been the case, they should have been able to be direct about the fact that it was always thier intention to roll back rights that were in thier view illegitimate. The fact that they were only direct and explicit about this only after landing their positions with lifetime appointment is telling.

I also share your concerns about progressives conflating typical conservativism with fascism, which is why I do think it's important to be precise when we say that something is 'fascistic'.

A good litmus test to distinguish between the two, in addition to the Overton window aspect which I brought up earlier, is the degree to which the person or movement in question is willing overturn democratic norms in order to get their agenda passed (which consequentially, is why I have no problem labeling the MAGA movement as unequivocally fascistic).

Wanting to overturn Roe v Wade isn't necessarily fascistic; trying to forcibly drag the country back 100 years by burning democratic institutions to the ground absolutely is. Likewise, using either implicit or explicit rhetoric which advocates for political violence is another very clear indication that you're dealing with fascism rather than conservatism.

Edited March 5, 2023 by DocWatts

[aurum]

7 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

That said, even for a country as polarized as the current United States, there are a number of issues of which it can be said that we have reached a working consensus on as a society (or at least as close to one as it's possible to get in a very large and complex society). Whether women and minorities should be able to vote and hold political office is one of the more obvious examples, since anyone who believed otherwise would be well outside of the Overton window, and would have to use dog whistle rhetoric to make their position palatable within the public sphere (and mind you, this is exactly how modern fascism does work).

Yes.

8 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

An good litmus test to distinguish between the two, in addition to the Overton window aspect which I brought up earlier, is the degree to which the person or movement in question is willing overturn democratic norms in order to get their agenda passed (which consequentially, is why I have no problem labeling the MAGA movement as unequivocally fascistic). Wanting to overturn Roe v Wade isn't necessarily fascistic; trying to forcibly drag the country back 100 years by burning democratic institutions to the ground absolutely is. Likewise, using either implicit or explicit rhetoric which advocates for political violence is another very clear indication that you're dealing with fascism rather than conservatism.

I think those are some better pragmatic heuristics. Certainly democracy is more fundamental than any particular political opinion and crucial to maintain. And political violence should also be a clear sign that a line has been crossed.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, aurum said:

 

I agree that we can and should make a distinction between fascism and conservatism. And that some of today’s modern conservatives have legitimately slid into a territory that should be labeled fascism.

I think what I am getting stuck on with this topic the degree of relativity when it comes to labeling things as fascism.

@EmeraldTo use your example, if conservatives rolled back the majority of the progress that has been made for the LGBTQ community, I would appose it. But I would not generally call it fascism. I  would call it conservatism. Rolling back LGBTQ is precisely what conservatives are interested in.

The way that self-identified Fascists work is by targeting the groups that are the least accepted as legitimate within the Overton Window first. And then they work their way toward turning public sentiment against other groups.

So, given that being anti-trans is an acceptable position in society, the self-identified Fascists begin there because it just looks like normal Conservatism.

But it isn’t just normal conservatism because the goal is to cleanse society of anyone who doesn’t fit gender norms to go back to the ideal mythic past by purging society of degenerates.

So, you may not view the Anti-Trans stuff as Fascist. But self-identified Fascists are using the widespread dislike of Trans-people as the weak point where they can establish their foothold.

And through this foothold, they gain an in into the mainstream political discourse and can work towards shaping things in a generally Fascist direction.

We also saw this with the overturn of Roe V Wade. Many progressives called it fascist. When in reality, this is just what conservatives want. This is what conservatives fighting against “crazy social experiments” looks like. To them, abortion IS dangerous leftism out of control.

A significant portion of normie Conservatives are okay with abortion rights, according to polling data.

Then, you have Evangelicals that are anti-abortion because of religious reasons. (Though nothing stops them from being Fascists, they aren’t necessarily Fascist)

But the difference is that Fascists are trying to re-create the Mythic Past where the authoritarian father rules over the nation and the man rules over the wife and kids.

So, Fascists would seek to undermine women’s reproductive rights, voting rights, access to education, ability to divorce, etc

So the Fascist will go much further than a normie Conservative by going after rights that are already firmly planted in the Overton window.

It seeks to make what is normal, marginal once again.

My concern here that a) we become unable to distinguish between conservatism and actual fascism and b) an increase in political polarization by labeling those who disagree with you as fascists. This labeling does not come without a cost and needs to be applied accurately.

When I refer to Fascists, I’m referring to people who know that they’re Fascists.

I’m talking about self-avowed White Nationalists and Neo-Nazis.

But Fascist talking points can be accidentally spread by anyone.

Fascists are good at getting their viewpoints into the mainstream because they are trying to influence normie Conservatives, moderates, and generally apolitical people.

 

 

[Emerald]

@aurum This is a good video about distinguishing between a Fascist and a potential Fascist.

The potential Fascist won’t be Fascistic under normal situations, but can be influenced into it through demagogues, propaganda, and the right environment.

While the Fascist is the one who deliberately does the influencing of the potential Fascist.

 

[spiritual memes]

Honestly, a lot of trump supporters fit this description.

[Emerald]

14 minutes ago, spiritual memes said:

Honestly, a lot of trump supporters fit this description.

That’s true of some of them.

I think Trump himself is mostly an opportunist.

But he was willing to act like a demagogue to jiggle people’s latent Fascism buttons.

And this won him a great deal of support and adulation.

But despite him being purely focused toward his own power, this also opened the door to self-avowed Fascists getting more of a foothold in the Overton Window.

And now the government has a lot more extreme right wingers in it.

When Trump campaigned on “Mexicans are rapists” it emboldened a lot of Fascists. 

And over the years, the presence of their talking points get more and more normalized.

[aurum]

21 minutes ago, Emerald said:

The way that self-identified Fascists work is by targeting the groups that are the least accepted as legitimate within the Overton Window first. And then they work their way toward turning public sentiment against other groups.

So, given that being anti-trans is an acceptable position in society, the self-identified Fascists begin there because it just looks like normal Conservatism.

I agree with that.

21 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But it isn’t just normal conservatism because the goal is to cleanse society of anyone who doesn’t fit gender norms to go back to the ideal mythic past by purging society of degenerates.

 

This is where I think it gets hairy.

Most conservatives are interested in doing just what you described. Perhaps not through genocide or ethnic cleansing. Normie conservatives are not that extreme, and in that way we can draw a distinction. But nonetheless that is often part of the essence of conservatism. It’s a position many conservatives hold who I don’t think rightfully would be labeled fascist.

What else is MAGA but a mythical past that can be achieved by the purging of degenerates? This is not a fringe position. Yet not all trump supporters are fascists. Or if you want to say they are fascists, then I argue the term loses its value.

35 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But the difference is that Fascists are trying to re-create the Mythic Past where the authoritarian father rules over the nation and the man rules over the wife and kids.

Again, this sounds like a slightly more extreme version of the standard conservatism we have today.

Many conservatives are very happy with these traditional roles. But I wouldn’t label them fascists per say. 

38 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So the Fascist will go much further than a normie Conservative by going after rights that are already firmly planted in the Overton window.

It seeks to make what is normal, marginal once again.

I think that’s a good distinction. But one of my points was that this is all relative to how you define what is “normal”. And people do have different opinions on this. Different heuristics and epistemology for how we should even go about answering the question “what is normal?”

If you define normal solely through the lens of many progressives, it can start to seem like everything conservative is fascism. Abortion rollbacks become fascism because to some progressives, abortion is “normal” and “obvious”. LGBTQ rollbacks are fascism because LGBTQ rights are “normal” and “obvious”.

Of course not every progressive is thinking this way. But I’ve seen it enough that I think it’s worth mentioning.

55 minutes ago, Emerald said:

When I refer to Fascists, I’m referring to people who know that they’re Fascists.

I’m talking about self-avowed White Nationalists and Neo-Nazis.

But Fascist talking points can be accidentally spread by anyone.

Fascists are good at getting their viewpoints into the mainstream because they are trying to influence normie Conservatives, moderates, and generally apolitical people.

 

I agree with all that.

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

@aurum This is a good video about distinguishing between a Fascist and a potential Fascist.

The potential Fascist won’t be Fascistic under normal situations, but can be influenced into it through demagogues, propaganda, and the right environment.

While the Fascist is the one who deliberately does the influencing of the potential Fascist.

 

Good video, I think he has a real point about fascism being more about personality and motivation than particular opinions. I still find his heuristics for fascism vs conservatism lacking, but perfection is not necessary to pragmatically avoid fascist traps. It’s a solid explanation overall.

[Emerald]

On 3/4/2023 at 10:49 PM, aurum said:

I agree with that.

This is where I think it gets hairy.

Most conservatives are interested in doing just what you described. Perhaps not through genocide or ethnic cleansing. Normie conservatives are not that extreme, and in that way we can draw a distinction. But nonetheless that is often part of the essence of conservatism. It’s a position many conservatives hold who I don’t think rightfully would be labeled fascist.

What else is MAGA but a mythical past that can be achieved by the purging of degenerates? This is not a fringe position. Yet not all trump supporters are fascists. Or if you want to say they are fascists, then I argue the term loses its value.

Again, this sounds like a slightly more extreme version of the standard conservatism we have today.

Many conservatives are very happy with these traditional roles. But I wouldn’t label them fascists per say. 

I think that’s a good distinction. But one of my points was that this is all relative to how you define what is “normal”. And people do have different opinions on this. Different heuristics and epistemology for how we should even go about answering the question “what is normal?”

If you define normal solely through the lens of many progressives, it can start to seem like everything conservative is fascism. Abortion rollbacks become fascism because to some progressives, abortion is “normal” and “obvious”. LGBTQ rollbacks are fascism because LGBTQ rights are “normal” and “obvious”.

Of course not every progressive is thinking this way. But I’ve seen it enough that I think it’s worth mentioning.

I agree with all that.

Good video, I think he has a real point about fascism being more about personality and motivation than particular opinions. I still find his heuristics for fascism vs conservatism lacking, but perfection is not necessary to pragmatically avoid fascist traps. It’s a solid explanation overall.

One thing that I would say about all this is that the lines between Fascism and Conservatism have been deliberately blurred by the tactics of those in Fascist movements.

So, you won’t find any hard lines. And that’s by design. And these lines will only get blurrier and blurrier as Fascism gains more of a foothold in the mainstream discourse.

It creates a situation where you can’t name out Fascism as it’s happening without it sounding hyperbolic to most people. And it also makes it look like you’re demonizing average Conservatives.

And yet, if you don’t call a spade a spade when it comes to Fascism, it can get really ugly. Most people don’t recognize Fascism when they see it.

So, it’s a pickle.

[Ulax]

2 hours ago, Emerald said:

One thing that I would say about all this is that the lines between Fascism and Conservatism have been deliberately blurred by the tactics of those in Fascist movements.

So, you won’t find any hard lines. And that’s by design. And these lines will only get blurrier and blurrier as Fascism gains more of a foothold in the mainstream discourse.

It creates a situation where you can’t name out Fascism as it’s happening without it sounding hyperbolic to most people. And it also makes it look like you’re demonizing average Conservatives.

And yet, if you don’t call a spade a spade when it comes to Fascism, it can get really ugly. Most people don’t recognize Fascism when they see it.

So, it’s a pickle.

@Emerald Agree strongly with this.

I was shocked when I researched about what fascism was, and the prominent definitions seem to correlate with speakers who appeared on prominent conservative leaning shows like Fox. Trump too seemed to tick a fair few boxes.

Also, I think hidden political agendas, be they purposeful or accidental, can be found essentially in any view.  An example of this, to my mind, is the popular sentiment around the idea of how people should act in debates and discussions. Because even take the following example of an idea. What i see to be the idea that two figures in a debate ought to be respectful to each other, and not jump to conclusions about what the other is saying. It appears apolitical to a lot of folk that this should be the case. But i would argue its actually a view that caters to a conservative and far-right agenda because it allows for a lot of dog whistling going unchallenged. Further, I would argue that policing tone, i.e. you shouldn't be angry, gives more power to privileged groups because said groups are less likely to be traumatised. Therefore, in my view, privileged group members are generally less likely to 'act out' in discussions, and so less likely to have their views delegitimised compared to less privileged folks.

[aurum]

17 hours ago, Emerald said:

One thing that I would say about all this is that the lines between Fascism and Conservatism have been deliberately blurred by the tactics of those in Fascist movements.

So, you won’t find any hard lines. And that’s by design. And these lines will only get blurrier and blurrier as Fascism gains more of a foothold in the mainstream discourse.

It creates a situation where you can’t name out Fascism as it’s happening without it sounding hyperbolic to most people. And it also makes it look like you’re demonizing average Conservatives.

And yet, if you don’t call a spade a spade when it comes to Fascism, it can get really ugly. Most people don’t recognize Fascism when they see it.

So, it’s a pickle.

I can see all that. So let me offer a synthesis.

We can say that we have a spectrum of tolerance towards fascism.

On one end of the spectrum, we have fascists sneaking fascism under the radar with their fascist shenanigans.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have progressives (most likely SD Tier 1) who are unable to see outside their perspective and qualify almost anything outside their worldview as fascism.

Both ends of the spectrum produce problems, with progressives increasing political polarization on one side and fascists gaining ground on the other.

As well-intending and intelligent citizens, it's our job to stay somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I.e, call a spade a spade, but don't call a spade a shovel. And definitely don't call a spade a hammer.

Making these discernments requires good judgment and clear-seeing, which we can improve by:

1) Studying the history of fascism and why / how it occurs

2) Generating herustics to be able to spot fascism

3) Helping others to spot fascism, which improves our own seeing and helps clean up the epistemic commons

4) Healing trauma and shadow wounds that may unconsciously be causing us to bite on the hook fascism

5) Developing a SD Tier 2 mindset by studying developmental psychology, meta-modernism and integrating the conservative / liberal mind

6) Staying informed and educated on current issues, ideally from sources with steelman positions

with 4, 5 and 6 more so being part of an overall strategy of becoming more politically savvy.

 

@DocWatts feel free to chime in as well if you have any thoughts.

@Ulax good nuance about policing tone.

[Danioover9000]

@aurum , @Arcangelo , @Gesundheit2 and @StarStruck , Fascism is just basically you having an idea of fascia, which the name of the system of tendons and ligaments mostly around your body and musculature. They are also integral to how your body moves to begin with, and a crucial part, besides the muscle system and nervous system, in generating tension via FLEXING. This also involves a field of science, and scientists who are obsessed with facia are also called Fascists, and some of the old school body builders, Bruce Lee, Rocky Marciano, some of the most gifted men in strength and a few in speed and explosive movement, were the first pioneers, the first Fascists to engage with the FLEXING in the mirror, and maximizing the GENETIC POTENTIAL OF TENDONS AND MUSCLE, naturally, prior to steroid use. Just ask @Carl-Richard if you don't believe me, the human body is AMAZING.

   Of course, not the other Fascism, that one sucks, but the FLEXING Fascism is important for fitness and athletics!