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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27937 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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If no one else is going to link to Scott's latest CW-related post, I guess I'll try to meet the mods' wishes for a top level comment... (Though I didn't re-read it, so...)

Fascism Can't Mean Both A Specific Ideology And A Legitimate Target

I agree, inasmuch we stipulate "Political violence in America is morally unacceptable" means "literally, categorically unacceptable, due to our assessment of the threat of fascism" and "(at the current time)" ignores the possibility of near-future change in the threat-assessment. Though I emphatically oppose political violence, I don't think it would be logically incongruent to leave open the possibility that fascism is bad enough that we're near the point of political violence being acceptable. But I don't think Scott's doing a motte-and-bailey, by using a narrow denotation; just stating a motte, with the expectation his readers take it at face value.

Characteristic of Scott, the post is a neat exercise in logical tidiness. However, it only gestures at the bigger, scarier question: How do societies classify danger and determine when violence becomes permissible? The classification of threats is important, because names carry significant policy weight (e.g., Trump labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist organization...). Label something "fascism" as a distinct ideology, and you direct attention towards connotations and lineage. However, use the same term as a moral epithet (i.e., a catch-all for political enemies) and you alter the rhetorical perception.

Nobody even seems that interested in what fascism actually is.

Is Miller really a fascist because he wants to enforce immigration laws? Surely not, otherwise we would have to define Eisenhower of Operation Wetback fame as a fascist.

IMO, fascism is a combination of militarism, imperialism and racism within a social darwinist worldview. Not merely 'I don't like these backwater savages' but 'it's our job to subjugate them in the short term and maybe get rid of them outright, we need to tile the world with us and ours'. Nazism is fascism + anti-semitism.

Also, all violence is political to some extent. If a thief (poor) robs someone (rich) then there's a political angle to it. Some leftists would say it's justified, especially if its a big corporation. The whole point of the police is administering violence to baddies, how much violence and who is a baddy, that's a political question. Politics is about power and violence is the most important kind of power. Challenging the sovereignty and values of the state is very political violence.

Again, Scott links to his review of Mussolini's book in the post, using that as his reference for fascism, as an ideology.

In 1944, before the actual, everyone-can-agree-they're-fascist fascist states of Italy and Germany had been defeated, George Orwell wrote an article highlighting how the term had devolved into an insult and lost any useful, shared, descriptive meaning of any actual political system: https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.

From what I understand, Mussolini's fascism wasn't particularly racist by the standards of the time, at least not until his Italy had become utterly dependent on Nazi Germany during the war and he gave Hitler some racist policies as a concession.

I'm very far from an expert on Italian fascism, but to the extent that I know anything about it, to me it seems characterized by being a strongly collectivist nationalist ideology that is both a response to and a rejection of both capitalism and communism. This is reflected in Mussolini's own path of having been a socialist when younger, then turning away from mainstream socialism because he disliked its internationalism and was more interested in making Italy great again.

Perhaps the core concept of Italian fascism was the idea of using an extremely powerful nationalist state to overcome the conflict between capitalists and workers and forge both together into dynamic collaboration that could revitalize the nation without the total class upheaval or internationalism pursued by mainstream socialism.

Hitler pursued the same concept, and in that sense Nazi Germany was a fascist state. Both Mussolini's and Hitler's ideal was that the fascist party would become completely dominant over society and subordinate all other power groups - churches, capitalists, labor movements, intellectuals, etc. - to its own will. There could still be churches, capitalists, labor movements, and intellectuals, but they would be ruled by the party/the government (one and the same thing, in the fascist ideal). Any disagreements between those groups would be mediated by the government for the greater good of the nation, and the individual interests of the groups would not be allowed to interfere with the greater goal of making the nation strong.

The key ideological difference between fascism and Bolshevism was that fascism did not seek to do away with capitalism, only to utterly subordinate it to the government, and that fascism was explicitly nationalistic in a way that Bolshevism (while it often pursued nationalistic goals in practice) rejected thoroughly on the level of ideology.

Unlike traditionalist conservatism, fascism was also profoundly revolutionary in its ethos. It did not seek to conserve existing mentalities except to the degree that they would be pragmatically useful, it did not seek to return to a pre-modern way of being, it had little use for religion other than for pragmatic reasons, and it had no issues with technological progress. Like communism, it sought to create a new kind of man. It had totalizing ambitions. In the ideal fascist future, there would be no distinction between individuals, the party, and the state. In this perhaps it was influenced by the recent experience of total military mobilization during World War One. The fascist state perhaps sought a similar, but perpetual mobilization of all society in the service of the one goal of national strength, even in peacetime.

Another key characteristic of fascism was that it explicitly glorified struggle and conflict as a means of both spiritual and material renewal. Fascism considered peace to be a lower state of being and believed that man could only fully fulfill his potential in combat, whether literal or metaphorical. This is another key difference between fascism and communism. The professed ideal of communism was to bring about a new society in which class warfare had been overcome for the people's benefit. Communism glorified being a warrior for the sake of the cause, but the image of the ideal society that communism sold to people as its ultimate goal was a peaceful one. Fascism, on the other hand, considered war in itself to be a good thing, something that elevated and spiritually purified human beings. Communism, on the ideological level, claimed to seek to overcome social Darwinism. Fascism, on the other hand, considered social Darwinism to be inherently good - it just sought to reduce or at least master social Darwinism within the nation, in order to become better at social Darwinism in competition between nations.

There are various powerful political entities today that share some aspects of fascism, but none that I can think of really have the whole package.

The People's Republic of China shares fascism's characteristic of binding capitalists, workers, intellectuals and so on under an extremely powerful and nationalistic government that manages their conflicts for the supposed greater good. However, in its current form it does not actually have (although it might claim that it does) fascism's profoundly revolutionary ethos.

Trumpism also, to a much much lesser extent, shares the idea of binding capitalists, workers, intellectuals and so on under a strong nationalistic government that manages their conflicts for the supposed greater good and rejects both pure profit-seeking capitalism and the social upheaval of communism. Hence the ethos of right-wing populism, the tariffs, and so on. However, while Trumpism might in practice to some extent be collectivist, it does not explicitly glorify collectivism - on the contrary, no matter how collectivist some of its policies might be in practice, on the level of ideology (that is, on the level of the image that it seeks to convey) it actually glorifies individualism, or supposed individualism, and it glorifies small government no matter how much Trumpism in practice might actually strengthen the government. On the level of ideology, Trumpism promises to free society from the excesses of the left, not to subordinate individuals to an all-powerful state. The music of Trumpism also has strong notes of a desire to return to a supposedly better past. In this it differs from fascism. Fascism sought to make Italy great again, but just in the geopolitical, nationalist, and martial sense. In other words, it was nostalgic for the Roman Empire's martial ethos and geopolitical strength but as far as I know it did not want to return Italy to the social conditions of the Roman Empire, except insofar as the Roman Empire reflected its own goals of social strata united under a powerful state. Also, unlike fascism, Trumpism does not glorify endless combat and struggle. Trumpism instead claims that, with the problems caused by the left eliminated, society will just be nice and hunky-dory.

One additional significant attribute that you missed is cult of personality or the duce or Führer principle. Otherwise this is an excellent summary.

However, in its current form it does not actually have (although it might claim that it does) fascism's profoundly revolutionary ethos.

TBH, they've kinda already pulled off the revolution and successfully brainwashed the populace. There's no requirement in fascism to continually revamp society after you've turned it into a beehive, the way that SJ lionises activism as a lifestyle and has thus had massive scope creep and a degree of cargo-cult activism untethered from any plausible theory of change.

There's the goal of fighting outsiders, but, uh, they're pursuing that.

Agreed on the rest.

All good points.

I skipped over the economic angle and indeed fascist economics is significant, it's all about advancing national interests rather than pure marketism or collectivism as you say. I think the key element is the demographic part though, fascism isn't about making the country rich but about making the people strong and populous too, Mussolini had his 'Battle for Births' and as usual, the Nazis and Japan did a better job at it with their pro-natal campaigns.

While Italy wasn't terribly racist by Axis standards, they did heavily suppress Libya and went in very hard against Ethiopia with gas and such. But it's hard to be that racist if you can't actually conquer very much. They wanted to resettle Italians to Libya and Ethiopia and parts of Dalmatia but didn't get around to it with wartime difficulties.

The People's Republic of China shares fascism's characteristic of binding capitalists, workers, intellectuals and so on under an extremely powerful and nationalistic government

Yeah China's an odd one, they've got the economics but not the foreign posture. Rhetorically, diplomatically, they're still third-worldist and anti-imperialist.

Yeah but a lot of the China rhetoric stuff is paying tribute to the legacy that led them to the current moment and sufficient undercurrent of 'if you do not pay lip service, you will not advance'. At an individual level from having chatted to a decent amount of Mainlanders there's a collectivist spirit but anything that your standard Westerner would call 'communism' is fairly dead on the ground.

Fascism is the political movement that Mussolini built to win control of Italy. If I'm being generous, you can lump in the Nazis and maybe Franco (though the Spanish Falange is really a cadet branch at best).

Even your definition is too broad. Was the 19th century US fascist? Australia? Imperial Britain or France? There needs to be some kind of mass mobilization of society to apply. And, probably, intentional mass murder of political opponents and demographics labeled the Enemy, since that's what people most strongly object to and mean to apply when labelling a contemporary a fascist.

The British, French and Americans didn't actually adopt and implement social Darwinism, they had 'the white man's burden' and 'the civilizing mission'. Kipling wrote it to encourage America to colonize even though he makes it out to be a thankless, exhausting burden.

Take up the White Man's burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.

That's critically different from actual fascists who would say 'wtf is this, we're here to extract as much as we can and couldn't care less about the welfare of these subhumans'. The Nazis wouldn't have had any problems with Ghandi, they'd just keep shooting until the Indians were under control.

The native Americans weren't subjugated to eliminate them or permanently other them, they were subjugated to integrate them as Americans, they got treaties and reservations. The Australians went around massacring Aboriginals in an ad-hoc bottom-up way because it was easy but there was never any actual policy to get rid of them, the closest they got is 'the arc of history bends towards us, no big deal if they wither away but we won't actually make it happen, we'll do weird things like them away from their parents and raise them as our own'.

Not social-darwinist, full-bore racism, it was wishy-washy 'civilizing' racism.

As hydro said, the Amerindians were originally kept as separate as possible from the white American population. Amerindians weren't given unconditional birthright citizenship until 1924, and the reservations are still considered sovereign territory for their respective Indian nations. Later developments would take Indian policy in a more assimilationist direction, but that was mainly from a Christianizing perspective and not broadly miscegenatory.

The Australians went around massacring Aboriginals in an ad-hoc bottom-up way because it was easy but there was never any actual policy to get rid of them, the closest they got is 'the arc of history bends towards us, no big deal if they wither away but we won't actually make it happen, we'll do weird things like them away from their parents and raise them as our own'.

While there was no official policy of extermination, there was a considerable amount of more active efforts to expedite the withering process.

From Mark Twain's "Following The Equator":

Here is an instance. A squatter, whose station was surrounded by Blacks, whom he suspected to be hostile and from whom he feared an attack, parleyed with them from his house-door. He told them it was Christmas-time-a time at which all men, black or white, feasted; that there were flour, sugar-plums, good things in plenty in the store, and that he would make for them such a pudding as they never dreamed of-a great pudding of which all might eat and be filled. The Blacks listened and were lost. The pudding was made and distributed. Next morning there was howling in the camp, for it had been sweetened with sugar and arsenic!

The white man's spirit was right, but his method was wrong. His spirit was the spirit which the civilized white has always exhibited toward the savage, but the use of poison was a departure from custom. True, it was merely a technical departure, not a real one; still, it was a departure, and therefore a mistake, in my opinion. It was better, kinder, swifter, and much more humane than a number of the methods which have been sanctified by custom, but that does not justify its employment. That is, it does not wholly justify it.

The native Americans weren't subjugated to eliminate them or permanently other them, they were subjugated to integrate them as Americans, they got treaties and reservations.

This was a later development. The original rationale for reservations and treaties was very much ‘get out of the way’.

we'll do weird things like them away from their parents and raise them as our own'.

I'd say the intention of the Stolen Generation was ultimately benevolent from the government of the day even if the way it was carried out has a bunch of controversies. Also the ironicness of the Stolen Generation ultimately producing the vast majority of educated, reasonably-affluent Indigenous and their descendants who now rally endlessly about how bad the stolen generation was whilst their un-stolen counterparts essentially continue to rot in the ass-end of nowhere maybe deserves a serious thinkthrough.

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