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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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First time I've seen the term, so don't give this too much credence, but when I see it I think "someone who wants to try fascism again but doesn't think Hitler was a good prototype".

Like, let's be clear here, by the standards of fascism Hitler was a total failure. The central dogma of fascism is to prioritise the goals of the society and, yes, the race over those of the individual, in order to succeed and compete as a group - and you win if your group is the one left around to write history books. Obviously, Hitler's actions did not benefit Germany, Germans or German culture in any enduring fashion; WWII and its aftermath saw a shocking number of Germans killed, dispossessed or re-educated into Polish or Russian culture, and saw Germany semi-permanently dethroned from great-power status and lose a lot of territory. Hitler didn't intend that, of course, but the whole point of fascism is that it doesn't care about what you intended - it's social-Darwinist and only cares if you won.

Fascism can never truly be nice, but the ideology's not totally meritless even from a "societal virtues" point of view; we yearn for a purpose beyond ourselves, we yearn for a community that cares for us as kin and is free of exploiters, and we certainly yearn for the power to overcome foreign threats to our way of life and culture. I'm not a big fan of the sacrifices fascism makes on those altars (and it has to make a lot of them), but I will grudgingly grant that you can be a Literal (Post-)Fascist without wanting to be Literally Hitler (postwar Japan is perhaps the most positive long-term case of a near-fascist society; there are a few other examples in East and South-East Asia - though I'd exclude the PRC as being too close to Literally Hitler - and 50s America also had significant fascist attributes in a somewhat-positive fashion).