‘Fascism’ is a term which tends to be used to designate dislike so we need more understanding than that to use the term analytically.
Fascism is
1) NOT anti-corporate. Corporations can flourish under fascism; they can get State support, massive arms deals, monopolies, disposable slave labour, and so on. The corporate sector can support fascism with enthusiasm, and often does if they think they own it, and it will give them security and stability (which it won’t).
2) NOT a specific doctrine, or body of theory, as such, somehow related to the party of Mussolini – but it does have a set of recurring techniques, themes and strategies, some of which are described below.
Fascism involves
A Leader
Trust in the leader. There is no policy other than what the leader demands. The leader knows and understands everything, with a competence far beyond that of other people.
The leader is strong. The leader has will. Everyone must yield to the leader. Nothing should hold him back.
The leader should be emulated, even though it is impossible, he is so virtuous, with such impressive skills.
The party should be purged of those who have doubts about the leader. Having doubt or disagreement, with even the most obvious falsehoods is a sign of treachery.
Ultimately, the leader is the favoured of God or the cosmos. Disobedience to the leader is disobedience to God, or to the nature of the Cosmos. The leader has their own true revelation, of how things really are. He is inevitably correct unless mislead by traitors.
Strong and enforced social categories
Fascism depends on emphasised and hierarchical, in-group and out-group identity categories. People in the in-groups are automatically superior to those in out-groups. Men are superior to all but exceptional women. Party members are superior to non-party members. High up members of the party are superior to lower party members. People of a particular race are superior to people of all other races, which appeals to people who identify as belonging to that race who feel they should be valued above those of out-groups, and who feel they have not been. Fascism emphasises the category of ‘we good people’ vs the category of ‘those evil people’.
People of specific, or even most, out-group categories are evil subhuman enemies who must be destroyed, or captured and held where they cannot cause harm. All methods may be used to get rid of, or contain, these people.
Fascism uses scapegoating. Everything that goes wrong is the fault of out-group members. Ideally out-group members are reasonably powerless in the face of in-group police. ‘party soldiers’ and troops. This reinforces the idea that out-groups are inferior and must be controlled or exterminated. Weakness, especially in the face of violence, or the encouragement of violence, is taken as a clear mark of inferiority.
Policing of categories and of people in out-groups is intense and violent, and this violence is encouraged. Armed vigilante members of ingroups are praised and unconstrained in their attempts to police social categories and crush unrest in out-groups. The true believer must fight against these out-groups. This fight demonstrates that the true believer is part of the in-group and builds in-group loyalties and bonds. Reluctance to engage in pursuit of the out-group may demonstrate one is not really part of the in-group, which is a frightening place to be.
On the other hand, violence by out-groups, even if in self-protection, is condemned. No terrible accusation can be disbelieved when it is about out-groups, because they are already defined as completely evil.
For Fascists, the nation state is an essential in-group marker. In the early days of the regime it is claimed that the leader will make the nation great again. The Nation, before the leader arrived as saviour, was somehow inadequate, or fallen from its peak due to out-group conspiracy or dilution of the in-group with out-group members, who must now be purged.
Membership of the Nation State is restricted. The Nation State is a kin-group of related people. Migrants, or people of races not defined as the true race, are at best suspect. They need to be controlled. People identified as coming from other nations, even if they have lived in the country for generations are suspect, and subject to violent policing. The nation, as an identity category, must be kept pure.
People who do not support the leader and his party, clearly become non-members of the Nation State and an out-group subject to obliteration for their own safety.
Authority gives coherence
As should be clear, authoritarianism is a primary mark of fascism, although not all authoritarians are fascist. For Fascists, democracy is an evil which can be supported for as long as it gives the ‘correct’ result and indicates support for their authority. If it fails to do this, then results can be faked, ignored, or be said to result from out-group plotting.
Fascist politicians are not consistent in their opinions and doctrines. They are, however, always consistent in acting to benefit the power of the party and the power of the leader, and in their attempt to crush out-groups and opposition. If they have to contradict themselves to achieve those primary aims, then that is what is required. Success and power is everything. It is possible that incoherence, intense emotion and overt contradiction induce hypnotic states in people by disrupting conscious rationality and filtering, and make them more easily manipulated.
Thus for fascists violent insurrectionists can be heroic supporters of the leader or out-group provocateurs depending on who the fascists are talking to.
Fascists may claim to favour the rule of law, but the law is whatever supports the leader and the party and allows the violent suppression of evil out-groups, traitors and scapegoats. Members of the inner party cannot be corrupt by definition, unless the leader wants to get rid of them. The law and the police become militarised and an arm of the leader, because this is ‘necessary’ due to the evil of out-groups and to promote awe amongst the population.
Heroism
Fascism encourages heroic struggle, in which people risk their lives for the glory of the leader, in fighting for the Nation, and in fighting against evil and subversive out-groups and so on. Fascism needs enemies and will generate them, to have something to struggle against. Fascism is often specifically anti-communist, even when there are no communists in positions of influence. These apparently necessary communists will be manufactured.
Ordinary people can participate in the Heroic Struggle by denouncing the outgroups, participating in name calling the outgroups, making threats to the outgroups, being rude in the streets, sticking up posters, trolling outgroups on the internet, making death threats, mocking what the outgroup fears, cheering the heroic leader, and so on. They are standing up against those defined as evil, and thus being brave. This helps increase the intensity of the struggle, as well as helping the supposed victimised mainstream feel it is participating in politics as both an individual and as a group, and can no longer be ignored.
Fascism tends to be about the triumph of the will rather than accommodation to what is. The will of the leader is the will of the nation. The world should yield to that will. Failure to attain the will of the leader, shows people are not trying hard enough, and are not heroic enough. They are a disgrace, or traitors.
Other nations are default enemies and inferiors, although short term alliances may be maintained with similar kinds of authoritarian States or States which are identified as belonging to the same race – for as long as those alliances are useful. Democratic States may be pacified, but ultimately they are to be considered as weak enemies.
War and conquest is the ultimate expression of fascism, because how else is heroism best put to test, and how else are enemies brought to heel? War can initially be against those the party defines as internal evils, but it will ultimately move against external evils and inferiors, as the fascist leader fails to solve all the problems facing them through suppression – and this failure cannot be admitted, or must arise from the actions of supremely evil out-groups.
Information is about power
Education exists to inculcate admiration for the leader, the party and the nation (which cannot be separated) as well as obedience to the leader as that is the natural consequence of admiration. All history, philosophy, or religion etc. is only useful in so far as it shows the leader and the party are the inevitable climax of this exceptional nation’s struggles for self-actualisation. Education should emphasise how people from the past, who the party favours, display nobility of character and are heroes. Those who the party dislikes are clearly the villains. Out-groups have always been despicable. Only the party’s interpretation of history and politics is allowed, all other versions are cancelled and forbidden. This suppression is supposed to foster unity and national values.
Information which does not support the leader and his party is clearly wrong and must be suppressed. The leader only wants positive information, as negative information indicates that the people reporting it have not tried hard enough, or are enemies.
The party has no hesitation in lying to the people, because the will and genius of the leader and the heroic struggle of the people, makes whatever they assert to be the case, to be the case. Anything which gets the people to support the leader and the party, and fight against out-groups, is correct. Truth can change day by day, but the party and leader will never be wrong.
Fascists have no interest in political discussion with out-groups. After all, out-groups know nothing useful by definition. Fascists are interested in struggle against the out-groups, heroic assertion, together with lots of shouting (which shows dominance and strength of emotion), and whipping up loyalty amongst their own. Intellectuals must yield to the force of the leader’s will and truth, or they are clearly traitors.
Eventually not attending to accurate but unwanted information will bring the regime down but, it will have caused significant damage in the process.
Support
Initially, Conservatives can support fascism because they agree with the promotion of love of Nation/Country, hierarchy, discipline, strength and order. They see the search for the Nation’s soul and tradition as being valuable, but eventually they realise that fascists have no interest in any tradition that does not support the party, virtue that does not support the party, checks and balances that do not support the party, constitutional rules that do not support the party, religion that does not support the party and so on. They eventually become disillusioned, but have little real idea what to do about the crisis they have helped bring about.
Ordinary workers and middle class people can support fascism, because, in the current situation, they see themselves being ignored, loosing prosperity, loosing security, and facing disorder. They have lost respect for normal authority and its elites which they see as corrupt. The Party offers hope. After a while they come to see the party primarily offers fear and death for themselves, friends and loved ones, but by then it is too late. The irony is that it is usually the power of capitalist hierarchy which has produced this sense of abandonment, but the rage is channeled away from those who benefit from the the system to those who try to mollify it.
Conclusion
Fascism is ultimately an authoritarian manipulation of social categories and information, to maintain the power of the leader and the party. The aim is national and party glory. That is all.
The party is led by self-proclaimed heroes, and seeks glory fighting against opposition, even if it has to manufacture the enemies it needs to give itself, and its members, meaning. The party’s goals will never end in peace, because peace is inglorious and unheroic.
Fascists can and will believe anything that says their side is good and the other side is evil, because that has to be true.
Without enemies there is no point to fascism. Struggle is never ending, and it is triumph in that struggle which indicates a person and a nation’s value. A successful fascist State that conquered and subdued the world would eventually tear itself to pieces in seeking internal enemies and scapegoats.
Tags: fascism, politics, social category theory
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