#definition of fascism

[futurebird]

There is a lot of anxiety and energy put in to the project of defining fascism. It makes sense. Fascism is (nearly) universally understood to be negative, dangerous, intoxicating. Fascism is the bath salts of political philosophy. A drug terrifying not just because of its degrading effects on the body, but the horror of enacting out atrocities -- but being unable to recognize them as atrocities until sober.

A precise, sorting definition of fascism would be a powerful prophylactic. But, most of the more serious writing on this subject ends up insisting that such a mathematically well-defined definition isn't possible, before moving on to do the important work of highlighting what regimes universally agreed to be fascist have in common. Of course the anxiety and desire for a definition isn't the result of idle historical curiosity. People in many nations, especially the US are worried that fascism is resurgent in the anti-democratic, nationalistic, nostalgic currents in right wing politics. And, it probably is. But the point I'd like to suggest is that even if it weren't "really real fascism" it's not much comfort. The atrocities of the present and the future will earn their own infamous names.

And it's not like presenting proof that something is fascism slows any of them down at all. Just as quickly you will hear "The real fascism are all these people using historical parallels to say that we are fascist." I think there is a good chance we may make it past this dangerous fork in the road. But it won't be the last one we face as climate change demands that we care for and cooperate with each other more than ever or -

-or take the other path.

#fascism #definition of fascism #the future

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

I gotta say, the politics of Jason Todd's crusade are pretty fucking authoritarian. Forget Jason for a second, I'm taking about the politics, the rhetoric, the actions; it's fucking terrifying and frankly ill-informed. I'll add; the death penalty, as well as being fucking cruel, does not deter crime; it's a historically racist method of coercion and control.

Source: Batman and Robin #6 and #23

Like what's a crime Jason? Who gets to decide that's undesirable? Who does this institution of "law and order" actually protect and benefit? Who does it actually cripple? What's the history behind this institution and is it actually just? What exactly makes you different to a brutal cop?

And look, I don't care who you like Jason written by and who you don't, I'm not talking about what his favourite Jane Austen book is. I'm talking about the scary as fuck politics of dishing out murder as punishment, treating any breaking of the law as deserving of torture and not even interrogating the unjust history that gave us the rule of law you adhere to so dogmatically. You can't defend a low-lying beach.

Disclaimer: this was not about making moralistic claims about a fictional character, it's about putting a name to a fascist-adjacent politics which authors weren’t pulling their punches in showing.

#Jason would definitely fail a sociology and crime class #i know what fascist police rhetoric looks like; my mom is literally a cop #jason todd #fascism isn't hot #dc comics #bat family #robin #batman and robin #batman #anti jason todd

[communistkenobi]

I’m watching a documentary my friend recommended to me called the law in these parts, which is about the history of israeli military law in palestine, and like. jesus christ they were literally just doing lebensraum. the same low density suburban development that plagues north america, the same plan of fascist expansion eastward done by nazi germany was done in palestine, with the justification that these residential settlements built for settler civilians were actually military outposts and therefore legal under international law. it’s literally just lebensraum

#I wonder about the context of the justification as like a strategic exception to international law #like is this an essential strategy of fascism (/colonialism) or rather one we see emerge through the context of history #the nazis obviously did this prior to international law but those laws were written in response to nazi strategies iirc #I’ve seen people make the connection that suburban development in settler colonial states in general is a fascist practice #and like I was inclined to agree but didn’t fully get the scope of the argument #but this is making it click into place for me #again premised on the foundational argument that fascism and colonialism are synonymous processes that cannot be separated from one another #which is the strongest definition of fascism I’ve encountered so far in all of my readings

[ceruleanmindpalace]

I am anti-Fascism.

I live in the country that allowed a fascist to rise to power and kill millions. After this Germany made sure to teach every child what fascism looks like (and what dead bodies of Jews, political opponents and gay people piled up in concentration camps) look like, so this never happens again.

Hitler rose to power because he was able to inspire the masses. And people fell for his lies and hate speech. Additionally, people didn't bother or dare to stand up to his shit - or because their friends/families where fascists and they didn't want to step on their toes.

If I stumble into a blog that supports fascism (by spreading pro-MAGA, pro-Trump, pro-racism, anti-LGBTQ+, or anti-democracy stuff) I will block that blog.

I don't want my art to be reblogged in between their pro-fascism shit.

#sorry to get political here #but this has given me sleepless nights recently #if you don't know what fascism means #read the definition on wikipedia #lgbtq+ #fascism #us politics #hate speech #propaganda #democracy

[soup-mother]

while there are obviously very talented people talking about very important topics, a lot of "left wing" video essay YouTube basically just feels like a lot of people making exactly the same points using Ur Fascism by umberto eco and Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher as their main point of reference and adding maybe one extra original point. obviously there's more nuance than that it's just like... I'm genuinely pleasantly surprised when someone brings them up and actually goes beyond simply restating their ideas and into original and interesting thoughts.

just feels like you might as well credit Umberto eco and mark fisher as your coauthors for the video sometimes.

#my post #this isn't a serious issue it's just a personal peeve of mine #you can go into the rest of what ur fascism says beyond simply it's nice little definition #i promise it actually says more than just 'top three things that make someone fascist' you're doing a disservice to the texts

[emoloser2001]

i need to write an essay about conservative authoritarianism cause i feel like no one knows what i mean when i say that and it's definitely a phenomenon that intrigues me

#because its not government authoritarianism #like its not fascism but it is definitely an attitude of imposing their will on others that i would like to explore

[parappa-the-killer]

me when i put 8 slightly different endos dni tags on my poast instead of 32 and some endos start reblobbing my poast

#she passerby on my boy til i'm challenged #this post is not genuine btw. i dont exactly have a dni‚ i block people for things ranging from being mildly annoying to literal fascism #& i have better things to do than getting mad at syscourse in my free time. i'm not that good at dealing with anger and i have lots already #and i definitely am not one of those folks that put ridiculous amounts of slightly different tags telling endos not to interact #like. if 2 dni tags won't do the trick 64 likely also won't you know? #gif

[ritzcuit]

the proship antiship discourse truly is like the worst thing to happen to me i think. and i cant even rly agree with posts deconstructing it because they focus too much on "these (mostly children) getting angry about content on the internet" and not that it's equally ridiculous for adults to CARE what these ppl think of them...? "block and move on" goes both ways yk yk. well,

speaking from my own experience where the only times ive been harassed from this are By proshippers, coming onto my account. the second time was because i took "proship dni" off my bio, ironically, and all of these people were like "oh you typical anti having the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair, why don't you stand up for what you believe in?"

where 'what i believed in' was, dtepping out of the discourse and no longer calling myself an anti. so. idk why they thought they were winning against me

it's all just so poisonous. and What Is proship. deceptive wording tbh because antis nowadays usually focus on "i don't like seeing fictionalized child porn" and proshippers usually say "ship and let ship, i don't believe people should be harassed for their ships" and it's like. okay well that's not two sides of an argument, that's two statements that can entirely coexist, and it's useless. it's sooo useless.

mostly i'm just getting my own words out, i don't want to Discourse about it, btw. i'm using the blog as a blog. i'm really happier now that i've distanced myself from the concept altogether. not antiship not proship a secret third thing (normal)

#like i do know proshippers do get harassed just the same obviously #which is why i need both sides to step down #@$)((@ #but i just think its infinitely weirder for adults to be like. YOU PURITEENS. YOU STUPID MORAL CRUSADING MINORS. #DON'T YOU KNOW FASCISM STARTS WITH MODERATION ON AO3 #like it's definitely not that weird for children to be inflammatory and annoying that's what they do #YOU KNOW? #anyway.

[flhoarder]

Turn back the wheel of time (aka the one political vision quest I’ll never do)

#I’m definitely missing a bunch of plot here but doing this would hurt my psyche #fascism??? never. talking to measurehead for more than 15 seconds??? no #I literally jumped off roofs multiple times to get into the harbour to avoid talking to meadurehead altogether #when my con was at 1pt each #well actually one of my playthroughs I got to do a 360° flying kick on him which was fantastic thanks game #i can do lib communist and moralintern quests but this one I just can’t #same with the baddest of all bad cops achievement #disappointing kim???? no fucking way #also why does fascism quest get a new portrait and the other 3 don’t #if you go through it with the moral intern quest there’s no need but the other two?? #absolutely ROBBED #harry du bois #disco elysium #de

[mewtonian-physics]

'you can experience life or you can be a fascist' is a very stupid false dichotomy especially in the context of someone being disappointed that you write about incest

[decolonize-the-left]

The court is also coming for ICWA

America is literally turning into Afghanistan

For those unaware,

ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act) prioritizes placing American Indian children in Native — rather than non-Native — homes in cases of neglect, abuse and adoption. There was a reason for that landmark 1978 legislation:

Thanks to the Indian Adoption Project, a federal drive to assimilate American Indians into white culture, as many as 35 percent of Native children were removed from their families. Eighty-five percent of those children were placed in non-Indian homes, a 1976 study found.

There’s a reason why “forcibly transferring children” from one group to another is an international legal definition of genocide. Taking children has been one strategy for terrorizing Native families for centuries, from the mass removal of Native children from their communities into boarding schools to their widespread adoption and fostering out to mostly white families. It’s what led to the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, touchstone legislation that aimed to reverse more than a century of state-sponsored family separation.

x

And in case you missed it this goes hand in hand with this:

#idk about turning into afghanistan but this is DEFINITELY a slide to fascism #asked #answered #ndn #indigenous #native american #ojibwe #metis #anishinaabe #current events #brackeen v haaland #supreme court #native pride #indian child welfare act #sovreignty #self determination

[communistkenobi]

I’ve been reflecting a lot on the authoritarian personality recently and the further away I get from that book the more I realise it’s just like fundamentally incorrect. The scope of the research being primarily psychological in nature I think prevents it from reaching any coherent definition of fascism because fascism isn’t a primarily psychological problem lol. I think the book is strongest when Adorno is talking about antisemitism as a foundational part of fascism, and how antisemitism is like a comprehensive structuring force for people’s ideological outlooks, but the moment he or any of the researchers move away from that or try to psychologically profile their research participants it gets really messy. Their psychological discussion about family and its relationship to fascism is fairly interesting, and it was what convinced me that the nuclear family just needs to be fucking abolished completely, but I think that has more to do with the fact that the nuclear family as a social unit naturally fits with fascism because that is the social unit they want to structure society around.

idk I really like that book but it’s deeply flawed. It’s one of those things that you should read alongside people like Fanon and Cesaire, who offer a critique of, respectively, the colonial character of psychology and the colonial nature of fascism, two perspectives that are not present in the authoritarian personality at all. Like I think the best way to approach that book is to fundamentally disagree with its premise (searching for the existence of a fascist “personality” type), and then see what is left salvaging afterwards

#the authoritarian personality #book club #came across ​some old posts I made about the book and realised I just like don’t agree with them at all anymore #it’s a book from the 1940s so like that’s not super surprising #idk I’m conflicted. it’s like a stepping stone. the moment I took myself outside of their methodology #I stopped being so mystified about what fascism is #again. literally. I have never seen a better definition than cesaire’s - fascism as the logical endpoint of European civilisation #any analysis I’ve read of fascism that doesn’t start from that premise feels fundamentally incomplete

[selfcare-barbie]

Yep, I sure am a fascist /s

#me #fascism definition #radfem safe #radical feminism #when another radfem calls you a fascist

[grendelsmilf]

this is a really funny thing to say. in what way does that make him “not a fascist”

#o.tv #i feel like supporting fascism does by definition make you a fascist?????? hello????????

[realhbomax]

hate to put anything political on this blog, but im afraid ive seen way too many tumblr users do this, so it needs to be said:

you guys need to stop throwing around the term fascist without even knowing what it means. you're essentially using it as a curse word saying "fuck you you're a fascist" but you don't know what a fascist is? you can't just call anyone you disagree w/ politically a fascist.

i'm not saying america is right--in fact, i disagree with a large portion of the politics going on in america today. there is fascism in america--im not saying there isn't. there has been since it was made. the KKK was fascist, and that was huge during WWII. and of course there was the black legion, the italian americans that were trying to establish fascism in the U.S. by overthrowing the government... but obviously the german american bund.

but what about now? people today are calling every political leader a fascist. if you're conservative, you're immediately a fascist. how does that work?

"fascism" is a diagnosis word, not a curse word. stop using it like one.

#calling every right-wing political member a fascist isn't right or true #first of all its not even originally american so stop acting like it is. #people saying hilary clinton was a fascist #then trump #and now biden too #choose your poison people #fascism is a form of marxism and you all are wrong if you think america is anywhere near that. they're capitalists & nothing more #sorry for the history lesson #but it needs to be said #fascism #politics #american politics #im definitely getting hate for this

[panvani]

Definitely one of the funniest artistic movements in terms of doing this

#logxx #I also love the definitely not biased Wikipedia article on futurism #Which refuses to identify Italian futurism with fascism and very obviously skirts rhe politics associated w Italian futurism #As much as possible #While also no reference to the actual policies of fascist Italy on art... #But then spends half of its section on Russian futurism talking about how the Soviets were sooo mean to them and they all killed themselves #When the Soviet relationship to Russian futurism was p similar to the Fascist Italian relationship to Italian futurism #That is to say. It was at one point popular. Then it wasn't.