In part one of this post, I confessed that although I consider, most of the time, Anarchism to be the ideal political theory we have yet thought up, there are times when I think that some new, computerized, "New Age" Fascism might be eerily necessary and, sadly, perhaps more appropriate in the current global social climate.
In this post, part 2, I wish to explore Fascism, what its primary ideological facets are, and why I might think it to be a necessary, or inevitable, evil at the present time.
In Part 3 of this post, I will explain why this is so, why all of this one world government, "new world order," global fascism thing might actually be necessary, given our current straits. I am as against the idea of this as anyone else is, and has had my thumb on the pulse of the "new world order," in all of its forms, for many years now, but it is starting to look like it will be necessary...like we asked for it, or enough of us did. And now its happening. I will be examining the ways that political and cultural power is manifesting and conglomerating itself right now, and how various sub-cultures are dealing with it; some aligning themselves to it, some vigorously fighting it, and many blissfully unaware.
First, I need to define what I mean by "Fascism." In common parlance, the term "Fascist" is usually used as a common insult, such as towards someone who tries to control or dominate someone else, which is vaguely correct but distorts the truth. Also, it is usually thought that Fascism and Nazism are coterminous, but this is not the truth either. Nazism was a particularized form of Fascism which realized itself from the years of 1933-1945 in Germany. For these reason, widespread understanding of the term is virtually nonexistent.
A good, clean definition of Fascism is something which has been hard to discern by historians, political theorists, and the social sciences in general. However, there are several key characteristics of Fascism that have been adequately located by several scholars, chief among them Italian semanticist Umberto Eco, and American academic Robert Paxton. According to Eco, Fascism has these key facets:
1) It has an obsession with tradition. The ways of the past are held as being more informed, and more correct, than any kind of progressive ideological, philosophical, or spiritual advancement. The old informs the new, and "as a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all."
2) Modernism is rejected, an obvious development of an obsession with tradition. In other words, to advance on an already present technology is considered insulting to tradition, and those that came before. Cognitive dissonance alert: The Nazis were famously technocratic, and developed many of the technologies which we take for granted today, such as plastics, television, air travel, and propaganda. However, as we said, the Nazis do not fit the perfect mold of Fascism any more than any of its other permutations do. The important point Eco makes is that while extolling the virtues of technological innovation, they primarily worshiped "blood and earth," or blut und boden, and considered removal of humanity's focus from the primeval technology of nature itself as being, basically heretical. In other words, the trees and streams have provided us with all we need; clocks only take us away from our terrestrially-based consciousness.
3) Fascism holds that action exists as an end in and of itself, or "action for action's sake." We do things because we are called to, because we must, because only action can yield life. Any kind of activity which has no kind of utility in space-time, in waking life, is uselessness. So, art, or meditation, or sexual pleasure, or rest itself become obsolete within the Fascist mindset. Only that which has observable, tangible, material results is worthy of doing. As Eco says, according to the Fascist mindset, "thinking is a form of emasculation." We are not to ask why, or to what end, we are doing something; we are simply to do, do, do...to work, work, work.
4) Making distinctions, or comparing and contrasting, are a waste of time, as well as mental energy. This follows from number three. The qualitative, or aesthetic, difference is unimportant and ultimately unreal. It does not matter how one feels, or how one perceives something, or if one feels something different to be true: if it is commonly held that 2+2=5, then 2+2 absolutely equals five.
5) Building on number four, to actively perceive differences between different things is a sign of a mind which can potentially hold diverse ideas about the same thing, and this is not allowed within the Fascist mindset. Diversity is dangerous; the ONE reigns. There is ONE idea, ONE leader, ONE way of looking at things, ONE kind of right, ONE right action at all times. It comes from an obsession with reduction, of reducing the multiplicity of seen and unseen creations to one possible explanation. There are no moral quandaries, or difficult questions; there is just one right answer to every problem.
6) Fascism finds its power in the frustration of a particular class, or ethnicity, or persuasion, of a group of people. Some group has to be pissed off for Fascism to become a reality. Historically, Fascism derived its efficacy from the anger of middle class groups at the lower class under, encroaching upon them, and the upper class above, enjoying fruits which they could only dream of. Fascism is not borne out of contentment, or apathy, or social harmony. One group, or groups, must be pitted against another for Fascism to occur. Interests must be de-harmonized, and unfortunate circumstances within the whole community must be present. Fear is also a very influential factor in the fomenting of the Fascist mindset. The grass must ALWAYS be greener on the other side of the fence, and for seemingly introvertible reasons. You must not be content with what you have. Taking action against your social discomfort is the ailment to inner, unspoken inferiorities.
7) NATIONALISM IS THE ONLY REAL IDENTIFYING FACTOR FOR THE PERSON. Your country, and the acceptable occupants within its borders, are the most trustworthy and real of your brethren. Those whose domicile lies outside those borders are fundamentally different, weird, other, and untrustworthy. This is called xenophobia. If you are Norwegian, then only Norwegians are "real," "good" people. All others are odd, and most likely out to get you.
8) THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CLASS DIVIDE. The wealth of others must horrify, and incense, you. You must be obsessed with the wealth of others, with the more upwardly mobile segments of the population of which you are in some way not a member, and they must be made enemies. It is unacceptable that someone else should make more, or be financially worth more, than you. This is one of the more seemingly socialist or communist aspects of Fascism, except it really just has to do more with old-fashioned jealousy. The wealth of others matters, in this case, in a deeply emotional sense, because in a Fascist culture, material wealth is an omni-powerful yardstick for measuring self worth. The idea of accepting the wealth of others in plain sight of one's own potential squalor is not found in a Fascist worldview. There shall never rightly be rich, or poor, or monk, or tycoon, but only an (ultimately impossible) perpetually self-maintaining middle class.
9) Fascism implies the paradigm that life is struggle, that "there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle." Struggle is not a means to an end, but an end in itself. It is similar to the Social Darwinist view that competition is the rule of nature, and that cooperation can have no place in culture except amongst those whom one considers oneself to be in the same petty struggle as oneself, i.e. a nationalist war. The ideal is eternal struggle, for the sake of struggling.
10) ELITISM AND THE "CONTEMPT FOR THE WEAK." A Fascistic worldview inevitably will see a certain group or other groups as being weaker, or see themselves as being forever alienated from the weak, because there is no perennial equality amongst people within a paradigm which thrives on elitism. Also, as Eco notes, a Fascist leader's, or dictator's, power is not earned but taken by force, so the masses "are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler." The power of those in charge is dependent upon the ostensible weakness of those under their rule.
11) Heroism is gauged by how heroic of a death a person strives towards. Living a heroic life is not really the driving motive in a Fascist worldview; it is dying a heroic death that is important. There is a serious difference between these two. The former advocates life and the realm of the living as being the paramount seat of moral efficacy. The latter worships death, and as Eco writes, "the Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."
12) Worship of permanent war and heroism are simultaneously paramount, yet entirely difficult to maintain beside one another, so the Fascist transfers his worship of power often enough to the sexual domain. It is this psychological countenance which allows for 'machismo' and a fundamental hatred for women and the feminine, as well as "intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality." It is the emotional, dreamy, sensuous, liminal, and receptive aspects of the feminine which Fascism will always be fundamentally at war with, as it is at war with the external always, so it is the feminine within all that Fascism finds itself psychologically, and sexually, at war with.
13) In Fascism, the individual is nothing, and "the People" are important only qualitatively. In a democracy, "the People" are important in a quantitative sense ("one dollar one vote"), ("one person one voice"), but in a Fascist culture, "the People" only exist as a monolithic phenomenon who are always expected to merely actuate the whims of the Zeitgeist, regardless of internal opposition or diversity of opinion.
14) Fascism relies on what George Orwell called "Newspeak." According to Eco, "all the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning." We see this everyday, in the coinage of civilian causalties as "collateral damage," of the use of force as "terrorism," in corporate media conglomerates calling themselves "fair and balanced." Indeed, "we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show."
In Part 3 of this post, we will examine why it is that Fascism seems to be an inevitable, and therefore somehow acceptable, political and cultural form of viability. It is a difficult, and thorny, discussion. And, I must say, by posting these pieces, I am coursing through these ideas for my own clarity. This is far from the pledging of a manifesto, or edified philosophical/spiritual worldview.
I will just leave you with this. At about the same time that we started saying "One Love, One Heart, Let's Get Together and Feel Alright," we started seeing the real machinery of a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, or NEW WORLD ORDER, come into place. A curious fact? I think so! An unfounded coincidence? Well, after night after night of reflection, no, I don't think so...
Keep yourself posted!
Happy Trails!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment