Philosophy isn't knowledge. It may be a doctrine but a doctrine isn't informative. It is dogma at best and diarrhea almost always.
There is a type of 'Epistemology'- or theory of knowledge which is useless because it isn't itself knowledge- which says having or using information can be moral or immoral. It follows that some types of informative communication, more especially communication about the 'uncorrelated asymmetries' of oikeiosis- i.e. what is said about one's family or religion on clan or nation so as to create ties of bonding and collective endeavor- may be per se immoral even if it is identical in information content to a per se moral communication. This distinction does not arise out of the motivation or character of the disseminator of the information. In some occult manner it is discernable in the information itself. This means that if Mummy says you are a good boy, she is a Fascist because she is foreclosing your entitlement to be a bad girl. Furthermore if a rapist says you are a nasty boy while beating and sodomizing you, he may be a Progressive concerned with promoting inclusivity and environmental sustainability. 'Good' is the sort of word which is inherently Fascist. 'Nasty' is transgressive and enables us to reclaim areas of Agency which are tightly patrolled by Patriarchy.
Consider the following extract from a paper titled 'Is Epistemology tainted?'
imagine being in an office building and knowing that among the people that you see in the building, a majority of the women are secretaries. Intuitively, when you see a woman in that office building, is there something wrong with believing that she is probably a secretary?
No. However, there may be something wrong with believing a photocopier is a woman. More generally, it is never safe to make assumptions regarding gender or species in the workplace. Concentrate on shitting on the boss's desk at least twice a day.
Sarah Moss argues that there is something wrong, not just with acting on the belief that she is probably a secretary, but even with forming the belief;
Moss is wrong. Suppose you see a woman in that building who is being sexually molested. Knowing she is probably a secretary, not a prostitute, may cause you to come to her defense. If she is a prostitute, it may be that she is being paid extra to provide a particular service.
There is nothing wrong with forming a belief based on probability. We may go through life refusing to ever come to the aid of anybody by saying to ourselves 'maybe that person is being paid to get run over or else is an evil and twisted person who deserves punishment.' The fact that the vast majority of people of the world are good and decent justifies our helping them just as they would help us.
“what is wrong with your beliefs about the woman in the office building is that for morally responsible subjects, those beliefs are epistemically deficient in virtue of failing to be knowledge.”
Knowledge can be probabilistic. Certainty is not required- or, indeed, morally desirable. We must act on incomplete information or not act at all which may be morally a much worse outcome.
Moss proposes a moral rule of forming beliefs, “the rule of consideration”, and shows that it entails that “knowledge is subject to a modest form of moral encroachment.”
But bollocks Moss talks aint knowledge and has no moral value.
Moral interests are one kind of practical interest; for this reason the moral features of a belief can make a difference to whether it constitutes knowledge.
No it can't.
Knowledge depends upon practical interests, including moral interests.
No. It depends on information. I have plenty of practical interest, indeed a moral interest, in finding the elixir of immortality and giving it to good people, but I have no knowledge of the thing. Indeed, as far as I am aware, no one has reliable information in this respect.
But this does not mean that knowledge is relative to epistemic systems.
Epistemic systems are social processes generating judgments of truth and falsity. They are protocol bound and may also be 'buck stopped'. What is or isn't admissible as information is decided by the protocols. Knowledge is information. Thus knowledge is relative to epistemic systems. Thus, in a law court, my testimony regarding the height and appearance of the suspect may be admissible. My comments about Milton's poetry may not be. The reverse may be the case in a Symposium on Seventeenth Century Poetry.
Turning to the subject of this post, let me begin with some uncontroversial 'information'. Fascism arose as a response to a clear and present danger of Communist insurrection. It was an Italian ideology of a 'corporatist' type- i.e it advocated the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests- which, however, was also militarist and expansionist in the belief that conquest could increase national wealth. Furthermore it was ruthless, thuggish and dictatorial though this was not always evident to foreign visitors like Mahatma Gandhi or Rabindranath Tagore or Iqbal who wrote a poem praising Mussolini though the guy had just slaughtered a lot of Senussi Muslims using chemical weapons and by setting up concentration camps where 40 percent of the internees died.
Mussolini did attempt to make Fascism an alternative ideology to Marxist-Leninism but failed as Germany and then Japan developed their own indigenous evil ideologies.
Jason Stanley, a Philosopher not a Historian, has completely misunderstood Fascism which, after all, did survive the War as an ideology which had some influence on the politics of the European Union through the European Social Movement. Since Italy never purged its Fascists in the same way that Germany went through de-Nazification, the Italian far-right had a certain legitimacy and influence and thus helped shape the 'Europe; a Nation' ideology.
In a 'Response to Ludlow'- another equally useless Philosophy professor- Jason writes-
How Fascism Works is devoted to explaining fascist politics. The book is devoted, that is, to a description of a specific ideology and set of tactics to gain power.
Jason confuses descriptive and tactical elements with ideological constituents of a party's world view. His views are not informative. They are stupid. The fact is regimes will show some continuity with what went before because of hysteresis effects and moreover tactics are likely to mirror that of rivals. This has nothing to do with how the ideology sees the world or what it hopes to establish.
It is composed of ten chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct aspect of fascist ideology and propaganda. I understand fascist ideology as a spectrum concept.
An ideology may indeed stipulate a spectrum- i.e. it may distinguish a more stringent expression from a more lax expression of its basic values. But that is an internal matter for that ideology. It is foolish to think that the ideology has a concrete model and that one can define a spectrum on that basis.
We don't say that fish are more Fascist than monkeys- the thing is foolish. We could say that Salazar was less Fascist than Franco because both came to power after Mussolini had established himself. Thus we could find documentary evidence that Salazar was listening to a different type of ideologue whereas Franco was more influenced by admirers of Mussolini.
An ideology can be more or less fascist, depending upon how many of these ten distinct characteristics it embraces.
Moreover, some types of fish may also be described as more or less Fascist or more or less like Elvis Presley on the basis of this type of stupidity.
For example, a traditional caste based system is one that rests on a hierarchy of value.
No it doesn't. It rests on endogamy and the division of labor.
Such a system overlaps in one of ten ways with fascism.
Dolphins don't marry Sharks. Thus aquatic creatures overlap with fascism.
However, fascist hierarchies of value are based on social Darwinism – the topic of the concluding chapter.
No. A particular type of Capitalism was based on social Darwinism. Herbert Spencer in his late phase incarnated it. Fascism was more Lamarckian and 'organicist'. Plenty of Racist regimes- e.g. Apartheid South Africa- were not Fascist. Indeed, the Boer may well have disbelieved in Evolution. Instead they may have believed that 'the sons of Ham' were condemned by God to being the slaves of the sons of Japhet.
In fascist ideology, the chosen group is worth more not because of religious tradition, but because they have proven to be superior in a struggle between different ethnic groups.
No. You don't have a choice as to whether you were born into a particular ethnic group. It may have been History's losing side for a thousand years. But 'corporatism' and militarization might enable it to rise up.
Fascism is a spectrum concept.
No. It is a historical ideology which once held sway in an important country which had once ruled a big chunk of the world.
Many world views or ideologies that are not particularly fascist overlap in one or more respects with fascism.
In the opinion of a cretin. Why not write a book about how dolphins are more Fascist than giraffes?
The point that fascism is a spectrum concept is worth belaboring, since critiques, for example due to Oliver Traldi and Peter Ludlow, that take my book to be unfair to conservatives must of necessity gloss over it.
Jason's book is unfair to students who might want to understand what actually happened in the Past. The fact is, now Putin is claiming that Zelenskyy is Hitler because he is Jewish. Russia will de-Nazify Ukraine. It is clear that Putin and Jason are hatemongers who call anything they don't like Fascism.
Let’s consider another species of totalitarian ideology – communism. Communism is an ideology that suppresses freedom and has enabled horrendous crimes. Fidel Castro was a communist. In communism, there is universal health care provided by the government.
In Britain there was even better universal health care provided by 'Butskellite' governments- both Tory and Labor.
Bernie Sanders is also in favor of universal health care provided by the government.
But Bismarck got that ball rolling in Germany in the 1880s. Weimar had universal health care. But Doctors became the most enthusiastic of Nazis.
But Bernie Sanders is not Fidel Castro. Bernie Sanders is not a communist.
He is a Socialist which Communism recognizes as part of its Spectrum.
Communism, too, is a spectrum concept. In the analysis in How Fascism Works, fascism has ten distinct aspects. Nevertheless, I think many of these aspects are related. As I argue in my book, they are related in that they place ultimate value on loyalty to an ethnic group.
The problem here is that every nation places the same ultimate value on loyalty and willingness to die for the country.
As a consequence, fascists are inclined to feel justified in employing political tactics that favor winning in the struggle, rather than reasoned debate
All politicians use political tactics. Zelenskyy may want to have a 'reasoned debate' with Putin. But it would do no good. Ukraine has no choice but to fight.
(I believe that a movement can be very high on the fascist spectrum if the representative of the ethnic national identity is, for example, a political party, rather than a single person). Of course, not only fascist ideology justifies employing political tactics that favor winning in the struggle over reasoned debate. What distinguishes fascist ideology is its particular justification for the employment of illiberal tactics. The book is largely a description of this justification, which is (roughly) that primacy of loyalty to an ethnic national identity is based on group social Darwinism.
This is meaningless. Hitler's Doctors were big on euthanasia and laws against miscegenation. Mussolini's weren't. Every country at war is big on loyalty to the nation.
Life is a struggle for supremacy between groups, and that national group has supposedly proven itself as superior in struggle over time, over other national groups – having distinguished itself for example in the past by a great military empire, or by unrivaled civilization building achievements.
Japan didn't have a big Empire. It owed much to Korea and China but had contributed little to either. The plain fact is that Japan, like Germany, only got on the gold standard after winning a war and extorting reparations. Back then, people thought grabbing territory was the way to get rich. Putin may still harbor some such idea. But, the background to Fascism and Communism was the War economy where Governments had asserted control over much economic activity.
So, fascism is a spectrum.
It is an ideology which does have its own notion of a spectrum.
But let's be clear: fascism is by definition right wing
unless it isn't at all. North Korea introduced the hereditary principle into dialectical materialism. Its economy is supported by private enterprise from which the ruling class extorts money. Otherwise the place would have starved.
– for example, hostile to liberal democracy, patriarchal, and keen on military triumphalism.
Franco didn't go to war and thus presided over an increasingly prosperous and peaceful country. Salazar too died in his bed. Fascists, like others, drop 'military triumphalism' if triumph is unlikely. Ataturk sometimes appeared a bit Fascist but was smart enough to see that the age of conquest was past.
Fascists did claim to be a bulwark against Communism but Hitler quietly did a deal with Stalin. If he had stuck with it, he too might have died peacefully in his bed.
The fact that there is conceptual overlap between it and other views right wing and conservative ideologies is not a fault of my presentation but of the ideologies themselves. By contrast, if I was writing a book about totalitarianism, my analysis would obviously encompass such leaders as Hitler and Zedong, Mussolini and Stalin -- it would cross the right-left spectrum. But this is a book about fascism and I cannot change its most basic features -- that it is politically far-right.
unless it isn't and is far-left. Suppose Bose had come to power with Japanese help. He is likely to have taken a Leftist course. The Japs would have been cool with this provided they could help themselves to India's raw materials.
My project was to analyze these very features, not to redefine what we mean by fascism altogether. With this background, it’s easy now to address the charge that the book conflates fascist ideology with less extreme conservative ideologies, and fascist politics with less extreme conservative politics.
No it isn't. Plenty of right wing parties want a multi party state with free elections. Few want some crazy Dictator. Only if there is a genuine Communist threat might businessmen rally behind an Il Duce or Fuhrer.
Since there are several different varieties of less extreme conservative politics, which differ from country to country, for the sake of concreteness, let’s take two in particular: social conservatism, and economic libertarianism.
Neither of which were a feature of Fascism or Nazism. Aristocrats and priests didn't like the counter-jumpers who suddenly had power over them. Economic libertarians hated the crooked bureaucrats who were now giving them orders. Those who could emigrated.
Neither of these political views counts as high on the fascism spectrum according to the analysis in the book.
Indeed, they are anti-Fascist.
Let’s begin with social conservatism. Chapter 4 of the book is called “Unreality”. It is a central chapter in the book, as it describes the character of politics that views loyalty as having precedence politically over reason.
Heidegger is the thinker who made this point most strongly. But Frege too had come to a similar position in his old age. The fact is, Germany's economic position was parlous indeed. JM Keynes thought the country would starve if it didn't grab land to its East.
A characteristic feature of this kind of politics is conspiracy theories that destabilize our grip on reality,
Hyper-inflation did that in Weimar Germany. Some people had indeed made fortunes while the middle class was pauperized.
leaving us only with loyalty to an ethnic national group, and the party or leader representing it (of course, as Hannah Arendt
Heidegger's student and ex-lover
explains in Part III of Origins of Totalitarianism, communist politics has the same characteristic feature, with loyalty to ethnic national groups replaced by class loyalty).
The French and the Brits and the Americans, however, showed no loyalty to their nations- right?
It is true that social conservatism asks us to place value on traditions that are associated with particular groups. But this is far from asking us to change the character of our politics. There are persuasive reason-based arguments for the value of tradition. A politics that calls for placing value on traditions does not aim to destroy our sense of reality by flooding the public information space – often quite intentionally - with paranoid conspiracy theories.
Why not? European social conservatism had been plenty anti-Semitic. Jews kill Christian kids to make matzohs- how is that not a conspiracy theory? The Tzars were social conservatives. Their goons forged the 'Elders of Zion' shit.
A politics that places value on tradition does not seek to replace appeals to reason with fear and disgust at foreigners (the fear and disgust being justified, in fascist ideology, for example by a belief that the presence of “inferior” groups will result in the polluting of the supposedly superior group by interbreeding).
To be fair, Mussolini's Italy was less racist and xenophobic than most parts of America. However, Musso was keen to play catch-up.
In the United States, it’s easy to make the point that social conservative politics is inconsistent with fascism. The core of social conservatism in the United States is the Christian faith. Arguably, it is to the Christian faith that we owe the concept of the moral equality of human beings, the concept of equal dignity of human life.
And anti-Semitism. The Jews are deicides. Also they will kill your kids. As for niggers and chinks and wetbacks and redskins- don't get me started. Worst of all are the Catlicks. The revived KKK was exceptionally anti-Catholic. They believed the I-talians were addicted to wine and thus were sabotaging Prohibition.
Chapter 5 of How Fascism Works is called “Hierarchy.” In fascist ideology, one group, defined by ethnicity or national identity, has greater moral worth than all other groups.
'God is an Englishman' is a perfectly acceptable sentiment if you are yourself English.
Such greater moral worth is undergirded by what Hitler called the “aristocratic principle in nature”, that sets certain ethnic groups over others, not just in their skills and abilities, but also in their moral worth.
Which leader says 'us guys are shit. We should offer our arses to superior races'?
Fascist ideology is based on social Darwinism – and not just social Darwinism of the individual.
Nope. It is Lamarckian. If us guys train hard and get big muscles then our kids will have bigger muscles and soon we will be the most muscular race on the planet. This is 'inheritance of acquired characteristics'.
A position at the top of a hierarchy of moral worth has supposedly been earned by a group’s demonstration of its superiority over time in national or ethnic struggles.
The Italians knew that the Romans were poor when they began their rise. The Gokturks have an origin story as slaves in iron mines in Mongolia. The Jews were in bondage in Egypt. Genghis Khan hunted marmots as a boy. The Queen Gor' bless 'er, got her start as an Uber driver as I still vividly recall.
Groups who are “inferior” in these struggles have lesser worth, and can be treated with disdain or even killed.
Because they can't kick your head in. If they can be very very polite to them.
There are many ways of understanding the Christian faith. But social Darwinism is completely inimical to most of them.
Not really. There were plenty of clergymen who were followers of Herbert Spencer in his earlier, more radical phase. One such was Dean Stanley. But then Malthus himself had been a clergymen.
Of course, Christians have fallen prey to fascist thinking, and we need to understand how this is so.
Fascism was better than Communism. But, provided the economy is growing and peace prevails, Liberal Democracy is better than either. It must also be admitted that Rome was sponsoring a 'Corporatist' economic model. Some Protestants too had similar schemes.
Perhaps some ways of understanding the Christian faith enable one to view those who fail to embrace the religion as akin to losers in a social Darwinist struggle. But anyone who understands their commitment to Christianity as bringing with it a commitment to the equal dignity of all humans must repudiate fascist ideology.
But fascist ideologues can gas on about the equal dignity of all humans who haven't been brainwashed by Wall street and Madison Avenue and the Jews who run the Papacy and the Kremlin and the Post Office.
The aim of my book was to crystalize fascist ideology in a way that enabled Christian conservatives to see where they might unintentionally be aligning themselves with those who have ideologies their faith repudiates.
Like Jews. Kindly accept Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord God and Savior already unless you are prepared to go to Israel and fight for that gallant country. After all, a certain number of Jews have to survive there so that the Apocalypse can occur.
There are many clear distinctions between social conservativism and fascism, more of which we will return to at the end of this essay. But perhaps most centrally, fascist ideology employs social Darwinism as a method to establish a hierarchy of worth between ethnic groups.
Unless it doesn't bother. Banging on about the Jews in the Kremlin and the Vatican and the DMV might be sufficient.
Mainstream Christian social conservatives should be strongly ideologically opposed to fascism, if my analysis is correct.
They are. Fascists are ludicrous. Also, the problem with strutting around in brown shirts or black shirts is that a bunch of skinny Jewish tailors might beat the crap out of you if you try to hold a march through their neighborhood. Sir Oswald Moseley made himself a laughing stock by whining about Jews fucking up his ex-soldiers.
What about economic libertarianism? This is a doctrine that in the United States is an alternative branch of conservative politics. Economic libertarianism is, I argue, a close relative if not a version of social Darwinism.
It came first. Darwin adopted ideas from Economists about competition resulting from population growth.
However, free market libertarianism is a philosophy of the individual. Fascist ideology, by contrast, transposes social Darwinism to ethnic groups.
It is collectivist. But Herbert Hoover was a corporatist as was FDR. Economic theory itself has a theory of 'wasteful competition'. Anyway, Darwinism has moved on a lot in the last 60 years. We have the 'extended phenotype' concept to qualify the basic 'selfish gene' theory. Furthermore we now know a lot about signalling and screening and separating equbilibria as opposed to pooling equilibria and Baldwinian effects and so on and so forth.
That's the stuff this cretin should have been keeping up with.
Free market libertarians reject such group thinking. As I write in How Fascism Works (chapter 10), “fascism involves a commitment to group hierarchies of worth that is flatly incompatible with true economic libertarianism, which does not generalize beyond the individual.”
The market establishes 'group hierarchies of worth'- which is how come Doctors get paid more than janitors. Nobody has any problem with 'spontaneous order' unless we can improve upon it using Aumann public signals. Libertarians don't object to Schelling focal solutions to coordination games especially if they yield better correlated equilibria.
Free market libertarians should be strongly ideologically opposed to fascism,
why? What would be the point? I'm strongly ideologically opposed to the Spanish Inquisition. That's why people give me a wide berth at cocktail parties.
if my analysis is correct. In party politics, it is tempting to strategically ally oneself with others whose ideologies overlap with one’s own in various respects. I wrote my book to warn conservatives of the dangers of such alliances when fascism threatens.
But where the fuck are these fascists? No doubt, this nutter will say 'Trump is totes Fascist as is anyone else I don't like'. But the bottom has fallen out of that market. Why? Putin says Zelenskky is totes Hitler coz he be Jewish- innit?
I write in the introduction (emphasis added): Fascist politics includes many distinct strategies:
No. It has a single strategy but, like everybody else, uses different tactics.
the mythic past,
or future
propaganda,
as opposed to what? Saying 'we are utterly shit. Don't support us.'?
antiintellectualism,
unless the Beloved Leader fancies himself as one and, like Mamta, keeps awarding herself PhDs from non existent American universities.
unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety,
Aryan maidens picnicking in the woods may sit down on invisible Jewish cocks.
appeals to the heartland,
as opposed to the arsehole-land.
and a dismantling of public welfare and unity.
strangely, no politician actually promises to dismantle public welfare or to promote disunity.
Though a defense of certain elements is legitimate and sometimes warranted,
which ones? Sexual anxiety? Do we really need Biden to keep telling us that 4 inches is a perfectly good size for a dick?
there are times in history when they come together in one party or political movement. These are dangerous moments. In the United States today, Republican politicians employ these strategies with more and more frequency.
Jason doesn't like Republicans the way Putin doesn't like Ukrainians. So Republicans are Fascist and Zelenskyy is totes Hitler coz he's Jewish.
Their increasing tendency to engage in this politics should give honest conservatives pause.
Then the look at Ilhan Omar and stop pausing. AOC, on the other hand, is probably a very smart cookie indeed. She will ditch the nutters when her moment comes.
One could obscure the clear inconsistency between fascist ideology, on my analysis, and social conservatism, by focusing on my discussion of two overlapping aspects –patriarchy and a rhetoric of “rural heartland values”.
Most people like their Daddies. Also rural folk tend to be very nice though I personally enjoy 'Deliverance' type movies. This is because urban folk deserve to get carved up by hillbillies. Still, by the end, the brainless blonde Valley girl should toughen up and take a chainsaw to them.
It is true that these are two somewhat overlapping aspects of social conservatism and fascist ideology.
There really aren't. Fascism arose in the context of economic crisis and a clear and present Red menace. But the power of the Unions was broken long ago by Thatcher and Reagan. There is no turning back of that clock.
But my book divides fascist ideology into ten distinct aspects. Most chapters in the book are devoted to aspects of fascist ideology clearly inconsistent with social conservatism. The only way to read the book as a critique of mainstream social conservatism is to omit large swaths of it.
This silly man doesn't get that social conservatives may have no choice but to vote Fascist if the alternative is that the Reds slit their throats. It is instructive to see how the British Labor party changed its views on Franco. They realized that the British working class wanted cheap holidays in Spain not 'fraternal visits' to some Communist shithole.
Mainstream conservative views are on a spectrum, with fascism as its extreme.
This guy is on a spectrum all right. But he aint Rainman smart. He is a Putin level moral imbecile.
My goal in writing in this book, given the situation many countries in the world face today, was to explain how ordinary conservatives, even those with legitimate concerns, could find themselves in political alliances that have a fascist cast.
So his goal was the same as Putin's and Lavrov's attempt to make Zelenskyy look like Hitler- coz he's Jewish innit?
My goal, that is, was to make the transition into fascism explicable.
It is bleeding obvious that the transition was caused by a clear and present Red menace under conditions of economic dislocation.
If we pretend that only those born as evil monsters could be drawn into supporting fascist ideology, as Ludlow’s critique suggests,
You do have to be pretty darned twisted if your idol is Hitler. Why? The fucker lost. He fucked up his country. He did evil shit and so his people lost a lot of land and their women got raped and, but for the Cold War, they may lost their industrial base and been turned into an involuted agricultural shithole.
we do a great disservice both to history and to the defense of liberal democracy. Perfectly ordinary citizens can be drawn to supporting harshly anti-democratic ideologies.
If democracy fucks them in the ass- sure. The Weimar Republic shat on its own middle class. Finally even the Social Democrats had to hand power to Hindenberg to rule by ordinance. What was unexpected was that Hitler, a mere Corporal, not General Schleicher, pushed through the Army's maximal plan. But then he'd been brought into politics by the Army.
It is this that requires an explanation.
Nope. It is bleeding obvious that if Democracy shits on you, you turn against it. Look at Portugal. The Liberals were worse at running the country than the Monarchy. That's why Salazar took over.
To act as if ordinary conservatives have not been drawn to supporting Jair Bolsonaro by the overlaps between his harsh rhetoric and ordinary conservative ideology is to obscure rather than illuminate.
Bolsonaro, like Trump, or Putin's Zelenskyy, is Hitler.
A second worry Peter Ludlow has is that my book evinces a “general hostility to free speech.”
Ludlow means that nutters like Jason suffer from virulent wokeness and constantly try to 'deplatform' anyone they don't like. This is perfectly reasonable.
At the end of his discussion of this supposed hostility, Ludlow wonders why I am “not explicit about what [I want] to happen here.” He writes: Does he want Charlie Hebdo to be censored? Or just “deplatformed?” He leaves it to us to connect the dots, but whatever the mechanism, he’s clearly calling for radical restrictions on free speech. To defend us from totalitarianism. The irony is obvious. According to Ludlow’s reading, though I am “not explicit about what he wants to happen here”, I am “clearly calling for radical restrictions on free speech.” There is some tension, on Ludlow’s reading, between my lack of explicitness on the topic of free speech and my “clear call”, which should perhaps have led to a reconsideration of his hypothesis about my views.
Why? We may say that Jason is 'dogwhistling'. He is a crypto-Communist. Why should we not pay him back in his own coin. If he can tell stupid lies, so can we. Furthermore, there is such a thing as prudential self-censorship. Students and aspiring pedants will have to police themselves. A hostile environment for dissent has been created.
Be that as it may, let me be clear here about my views on free speech. I am against restrictions on free speech. I have not written a paper arguing for this view, for two reasons. First, I endorse a familiar reason - no one can plausibly be entrusted with the power to enforce such restrictions.
The Courts are entrusted with his power. What's wrong with that?
Secondly, I have written a book on this topic, in which I argue that free speech is the characteristic expression of the central liberty of liberal democracy, and as such cannot easily or consistently be curtailed.
Though it has been easily and consistently curtailed. Bertrand Russell was jailed for 6 months for opposing America's entry into the war. 13 American states make defamation a crime. Seditious conspiracy however is a Federal crime. Some of the 'Proud Boys' have been charged under that statute. It remains to be seen whether seditious communication must be accompanied by an overt act for the charge to hold.
Despite the fact that I am opposed to free speech restrictions, I nevertheless think it is utterly vital to be attendant to the ways in which speech can be dangerous, and even dangerously antidemocratic.
It is even more vital to be attendant to the ways one may end up talking stupid bollocks. This is because people will laugh at you and consider your academic discipline to be utterly worthless. That hurts your students.
It is fully consistent to be opposed to free speech restrictions, and clear-eyed about the dangers of propaganda (see the work of Noam Chomsky, for example).
As Chomsky moved to the Left, the Nation moved to the Right. I suppose what he does might be termed propaganda. But it is stupid propaganda based on saying things, like 'how come we killed Osama- who attacked us- but didn't kill some Cuban dude who tried to kill Castro- who is our enemy'?
The problem of maintaining a stable liberal democracy, which requires free speech, given the problem of propaganda, does not have an easy solution (and anyone who thinks it does doesn’t understand the problem).
There is an easy solution. Pass laws if they don't already exist and bring prosecutions. Let the Courts decide on specific cases.
This problem is the subject matter of my 2015 academic book How Propaganda Works, where I argue that it is the central problem of traditional democratic political philosophy. And in that work, I provide a tentative solution; sketching it will allow us to see why Ludlow’s concluding complaints, about my insensitivity to the enabling conditions of fascism, are unwarranted. In How Propaganda Works, I argue in detail that anti-democratic propaganda (centrally including fascist propaganda) will be effective under conditions of substantial material inequality.
Or everybody being equally poor and malnourished. The plain fact is that 'substantial material inequality' exists in places where workers get higher real wages than some highly egalitarian involuted shithole. People migrate from places where there is an equality of poverty to the bright lights and big cities where Billionaires run industries.
In other words, that work is devoted to arguing that it is material inequality that makes fascist propaganda effective.
It might make commie propaganda effective but it isn't what Fascists bang on about. That's why wealthy people might pay money to Fascist leaders. Look at Oswald Moseley. Initially he had the backing of Press Barons- Rothermere in particular. Indeed, there was a time when the Mail and the Express were big fans of Hitler. But Moseley was a silly man who soon fizzled out. Churchill had more bottom.
A precis of that work is here; its first sentence is “The overarching goal of How Propaganda Works is to provide an argument that democracy requires material equality.”
Though the history of democracy proves the reverse is the case.
The argument I laboriously provide in that work is that in conditions of large material inequality, fascist politics will be effective and will lead to the end of liberal democracy.
This has never been the case. Communist politics, maybe. Fascist politics- never. Reduced inequality because of a collapse in National Income and Wealth may lead to Fascism but only if there is a Communist threat. You may have 'corporatism' without going the whole Fascist hog.
Virtually all of the reviews of that book discuss this point. For example, in her excellent review of the book in Ethics, at the end of the first paragraph, Renee Jorgensen Bollinger aptly summarizes the argument of book as follows: Stanley’s discussion focuses exclusively on the problem propaganda poses for liberal democracies, namely “whether the most central expression of its value, liberty (realized as the freedom of speech), makes liberal democracy fundamentally unstable.” (29) The book doesn’t ultimately answer this question, except to say that the combination of material inequality and free speech is unstable.
America has had increasing material inequality with increasing free speech. So has England and France and Italy and Germany. Hungary and Poland reduced material inequality but have decreased free speech. That is the nature of the bargain. You can have higher Human development indices but there may be a price paid in terms of liberty.
In How Propaganda Works, I argue that free speech is the most central realization of democracy’s fundamental value, and as such should not be curtailed.
Though it is curtailed by laws on defamation, sedition, espionage, hate speech etc.
The book’s argument is that the way to make fascist (racist, xenophobic, sexist) propaganda less of a threat in a democracy is by removing the sources of its effectiveness, which are large material inequalities between citizens.
Very true. Government should make everybody a billionaire so as to protect free speech. Also it should give us portable toilets made of gold which follow us around so as to encourage free defecation
It is these large material inequalities, the book argues, that lead to festering resentments that are exploited and misdirected in fascist politics. So much for my positon.
Government should wave magic wand and make everybody rich. That's not a position. That's the pious wish of a 4 year old child. Why not simply say 'everybody should be nice nice and have plenty of nice things. Then they won't do naughty things'?
As for Ludlow’s view in the passage cited above - I am not clear what Ludlow means by a “radical restriction” on free speech, and it is certainly not something I endorse. But it’s important to bear in mind that many countries have restrictions on hate speech. Canada has legal restrictions on hate speech. Having visited Canada several times, I am reluctant to classify it as a totalitarian state. How Fascism Works is clearly based on How Propaganda Works. It is for this reason that I conclude the book with a summary of the conclusions of my academic work – that substantial economic inequality is what enables fascist politics.
No. Corporatism is easier if there are negligible economic differences because no group can buy off another group. American post-war Capitalism had a lot to do with the ability of big companies to give their own workers better health care and higher real wages than the working of the market would have enabled. This is the 'efficiency wage' hypothesis and it also explains 'dual economies' like that of Japan during the MITI era.
In the final paragraph of the book (right before the epilogue), after describing an ideal liberal cultural attitude, I conclude by explaining the obstacles to its realization: But this engaging vision of the self moving through time and cultures is deeply problematic under conditions of stark economic inequality. It requires profound experiences with differences of all sorts. It may require an education that is generous, wise, committed to secular science and poetic truth. When in the United States it can take an entire family income to pay for a year at a good university for one child, we must ask, who of us ends up becoming members of such a successful and broad-minded citizenry?
The problem here is that Jason himself has had a very expensive education and is well paid to dole out the same. But he is as stupid as shit. He lives a fantasy world where the Government can wave a magic wand and make everybody rich and send everybody to Ivy League for ten years.
When universities are as expensive as they are in the United States, their generous liberal visions are easy targets for fascist demagoguery.
Not really. Ivy League Professors aren't mugging and raping people. The problem with 'generous liberal visions' is that Economists won't endorse them. Governments don't have magic wands.
Under conditions of stark economic inequality, when the benefits of liberal education, and the exposure to diverse cultures and norms, are available only to the wealthy few, liberal tolerance can be smoothly represented as elite privilege. Stark economic inequality creates conditions richly conducive to fascist demagoguery.
Nope. Rising crime and immigrants undercutting real wages and crazy ideologues like Jason or Amia are what are conducive to a backlash against the bien pensant elite who haven't had a single good idea in the last fifty years. Meanwhile, guys who dropped out of Uni to start up a tech company have completely changed the world. We don't care if they are liberal or conservative. We are only concerned with what they actually achieve.
It is fantasy to think that liberal democratic norms can flourish under such conditions.
Yet that is precisely what they have done.
In short, my solution to the problem of propaganda in democracy, which is at the core of my recent work, is to address stark economic inequalities.
Only economists can do that. Philosophers are too stupid and ignorant.
This is why I conclude the final chapter How Fascism Works with this paragraph. Peter Ludlow reads me as diminishing the importance of economic inequality to enabling fascism:
This naturally raises a question: What leads to this particular moment of global desperation? Stanley seems to think the crisis is manufactured by fascism itself (“corruption” is nothing but a slogan, it seems) rather than decades of neoliberal economics and foreign policy – policy driven not just by conservatives but by Democrats like Hillary Clinton in her role as Secretary of State. When we witness a rapacious foreign policy that bankrupts and destabilizes nations around the world, we set off a chain reaction of debt, and poverty, and migration, and more debt and more despair, and soon the problem is not contained in the subjects of the neoliberal empire, but within the empire’s homeland itself. And when corruption is institutionalized (for example in the aftermath of the Citizens United US Supreme Court decision), people rightly turn on those corrupt institutions. Perhaps the way that fascism comes about is first, by us failing to provide equitable economic conditions, and by us failing to fight corruption, and by us failing to safeguard and protect democratic institutions.
Boo to neo-liberalism! It caused Ludlow to sexually harass two students. So he lost his job. Sad.
With the overview I have provided, it is hopefully clear that these accusations result from a failure to understand my position. In Ludlow’s case, his lack of clarity about my solution to the problem of free speech in a democracy is connected to his failure to understand my views about the enabling conditions of fascism. In the very final paragraph of How Fascism Works, I state that liberal democracy is a fantasy in conditions of inequitable economic conditions. The academic work upon which How Fascism Works provides the detailed argument that inequitable economic conditions lead to fascism. My “solution” to the problem of free speech in a democracy, reiterated as the final paragraph of the final chapter of How Fascism Works, is a clear call to address stark economic inequality.
But the working class turned against the goal of economic equality in the late Sixties. They wanted higher material standards of living and better life-chances. They weren't interested in Professors of Philosophy. They learnt the names of guys who had dropped out of Collidge- Bill Gates, Steve Jobs- who understood technology. Tech is cool. Pedants drool.
What about Ludlow’s other charges in these paragraphs? Specifically, does How Fascism Works ignore the role of institutionalized corruption in enabling for example Trump’s rise?
What enabled Trump's rise was Hillary being shit. Nobody liked her. It wasn't the case that Trump was seen as a crusader against corruption. He was seen as a billionaire pussy-grabber who would deliver lower taxes and a conservative Bench in order to get re-elected.
Let’s use Ludlow’s specific example – the aftermath of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Does How Fascism Works ignore the corrupting influence of the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision in enabling Trump’s rise, and similar examples of institutional corruption? In Chapter 4, I discuss these issues at length.
But Jason gets the law wrong. The plain fact is that 'Citizens United' grants the same power to Labor Unions or Citizen's Action Committees as it does to Corporations. The context was Hillary trying to prevent 'Citizens united' from harming her first Presidential run. But the Clinton's weren't exactly paupers or lacking in cronies with very deep pockets.
I begin p. 72 by asking the question of what enabled Trump’s rise: In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump repeatedly and openly lied, and openly flouted long- sacrosanct liberal norms.
While Hillary told the truth? What about her hubby? Did he have a reputation as an honest man? If so, why was he disbarred?
The U.S. mainstream media dutifully reported his many lies. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, followed liberal norms of equal respect; her one violation of these norms, which occurred when she called some of the supporters of her opponent “deplorables,” was endlessly thrown back in her face.
Something similar had happened to Mitt Romney. The truth is Trump is a good communicator. Hillary wasn't. The Democrats should have put up Biden in 2016. He has a folksy quality.
And yet again and again, Americans found Trump to be the more authentic candidate. By giving voice to shocking sentiments that were presumed to be unsuitable for public discourse, Trump was taken to be speaking his mind. This is how, by exhibiting classic demagogic behavior, a politician can come to be seen as the more authentic candidate, even when he is manifestly dishonest.
Demagogues are good orators. Trump isn't really an orator. He's a rich guy who had a good run as a reality TV star which was short on reality but passable as TV. What no one suspected was his mastery of the mean tweet and the New York take-down- 'Pocahontas' is devastating.
The possibility of this kind of politics arises under certain conditions in a democracy… And what are the conditions that made Trump’s fascist political tactics effective?
The same condition as makes Jason's fascist tactics ineffective. Trump can be concise and memorable. Jason is a vacuous bore.
Here is how I continue the analysis in Chapter 4 of How Fascism Works (emphasis mine): Two factors have eroded the protections that representative democracy is supposed to provide.
But representative democracy only exists where these two factors exist.
First, candidates must raise huge sums to run for office (ever more so since the 2010 Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court).
But these sums become less and less 'material' or significant as the country rises up through Science and Technology.
As a result, they represent the interests of their large donors.
Or lots and lots of small donors. Trade Unions were very effective in influencing politicians- indeed, in some States they still are. Powerful Police Unions and Teachers Unions, however, can make a right dog's breakfast out of Law & Order or Public Education. The sad fact is, as the Goodwin 'class war' model predicts, workers are the wolves and capitalists are their prey. But capital can run away offshore. Then the Unions collapse along with the industries they control.
However, because it is a democracy, they must also try to make the case that they represent the common interest.
It may surprise Jason to learn that Monarchs and Dictators make the same claim. Where in the world will you find a Head of State who says 'I solemnly swear to fuck over my people'?
They must pretend that the best interests of the multinational corporations that fund their campaigns are also the common interest.
Why pretend? It is obvious that Corporations create jobs and make nice shiny things.
Second, some voters do not share democratic values, and politicians must appeal to them as well.
Very true. Corbyn tried to get elected on the anti-Semitic vote.
When large inequalities exist, the problem is aggravated. Some voters are simply more attracted to a system that favors their own particular religion, race, gender, or birth position.
Nothing wrong in that. Women should vote for those who will make the lives of all women better. So should men- because when women rise up we too benefit though, no doubt, some wives will give up on sad losers like me.
The resentment that flows from unmet expectations can be redirected against minority groups seen as not sharing dominant traditions; goods that go to them are represented by demagogic politicians, in a zero-sum way, as taking goods away from majority groups.
This may be perfectly true. Politicians may shower largesse on 'vote-banks' but this may cause an electoral back-lash.
Some voters see such groups, rather than the behavior of economic elites, as responsible for their unmet expectations. The rest of the chapter is devoted to explaining how conditions of economic inequality and widespread institutional corruption due to the role of money in politics make fascist political methods effective.
This is crazy shit. Once Fascists or Commies get power, money served them directly because they print it and distribute it. By contrast representative democracy is about tax payers deciding how tax money is spent. In the short run, politicians may bribe vote-banks and vested interest groups. Long term, there may be a backlash.
Here is what I argue in Chapter 4: what the result of the large influx of money into politics occasioned was the corruption of democratic institutions.
But there would have been no democratic institutions if parliaments weren't a cheap and effective way of raising tax revenue.
Such corruption has made political candidates beholden to large corporations and wealthy individuals.
But politicians are snakes. They can be as beholden to you as fuck but still end up fucking you over. As President Kennedy said 'Now I iz Pres, ask not what I can do for you, but what you do for me.'
As a result, when these candidates appeal to democratic ideals, such as the common interest, they often do so hypocritically.
But this is also true of monarchs and dictators. Putin is saying that Russia must wage a disgusting war because it is in the common interest rather than a get-rich-quick scheme for his chums.
In such a context, an explicitly anti-democratic demagogue will seem like an “authentic” politician (research by Oliver Hahl, Minjae Kim, and Ezra Zuckerman Sivan
These are low IQ pedants from Business Schools. Their paper is shit. The plain fact is that Trump could call bullshit on the virtue signallers and the politically correct. Would he actually 'build that wall' or 'lock her up'? Maybe. But he probably would cut taxes and put in conservative Judges. That was good enough. Obama was an orator. We may even call him a demagogue in the sense that it was 'common knowledge' that he was lying about ending the Afghan and other such wars. That's what Democrats do. It was also clear that he wouldn't go after Wall Street. Still there was a notion that a black man in the White House would scare the banksters straight. But everybody knew he wasn't really African American. His father was African African and had a PhD from Harvard. His mother had married a clever foreigner. But she was white. Similarly Kamala Harris aint really a girl from the hood. Her father was from a slave owning Afro-Carribean family. She inherits her fair skin from him, not her South Indian mother. Trump contributed to her first run for office. That's how non-threatening she is.
What 'crisis of legitimacy' occurred in 2016? I suppose one could say that the tide had turned against foreign interventions- like Libya. But it was Obama who had said that American foreign policy was about doing stupid shit. But, 2016 wasn't really a foreign policy election. What was it about? The answer is demographic change. The 'White' population percentage is falling while the African-American is stagnant. Hispanics and Asians are advancing. The solution is obvious. Some of these will be coopted- I think East Asians first but maybe also South Asians. Hispanics are less of a problem. Lots of them look White. They are overwhelmingly Christian. They will simply be assimilated though more and more people will learn a bit of Spanish to keep up with tele-novellas.
Jason, of course, can't talk about the elephant in the room- viz race and migration. He can only virtue signal about money because his College has plenty of it.
has provided evidence for this hypothesis about the corrupting effects of big money on enabling fascist demagoguery). Nor was this a particularly “hidden” part of the book; it was taken from Democracy and the Demagogue, my first New York Times editorial on the rise of Trump, published in October 2015 (in which I also use the effects of the Citizen’s United court decision). All of my work on this topic is sensitive to the ways in which political corruption and neoliberalism enable fascism, including How Fascism Works.
Yet, neoliberalism hasn't enabled fascism at all. It has contributed to the fall of dictators like Suharto. Economists think Fascism, like Communism, is bound to seriously distort the allocation of resources. Competition on global markets leads to badly run countries incurring debts which then can bring about regime change. Consider how the West is responding to Putin and Iran and Xi. It is trying to use economic sanctions. This may fail, but it is difficult to argue that neoliberalism isn't on the side of the angels. I was surprised that big companies and Bankers were swift to take action over and above that demanded by the State. Why? They watched the same TV coverage as ordinary folk. They knew they had to get ahead of the curve on what had become a 'repugnancy market'. Dirty energy leads to dirty money which leads to dirty politics and then a dirty disgusting war of aggression. The Market for appeasement had disappeared because voters are also consumers. Supermarkets got rid of their Russian Vodka. They relabeled 'Chicken Kiev' and 'Chicken Kyiv'. The market had spoken.
What defeated Fascism and Nazism was voters who were prepared to pay more in tax so that repugnant regimes could be crushed and never allowed to rise again. Nuclear weapons may have put this goal outside our reach but we are still ready, at least here in England, to apply economic sanctions which cause us to tighten our own belts.
Nevertheless, I do not think that the grip of fascism can be reduced to its appeal in moments of economic crisis. I think one cannot explain the success of fascist propaganda without also centrally including the appeal of racism, xenophobia, ultra-nationalism, and patriarchy (which, I argue, are in any case not easily separable). The 2016 Russian propaganda campaign in the United States focused in large part on exacerbating pre-existing racial divisions, for example via fake Facebook pages like “Blacktavist”. As I document in How Fascism Works (e.g. pp. 134ff.), Russian disinformation campaigns were also heavily involved in exacerbating xenophobia about immigrants in Europe. Here, too, patriarchy is involved, as such propaganda calls on men to “protect their women” from foreigners.
Women did protest against migrants who raped or harassed them. This did lead to some political changes. In 2018 the Social Democrats in Denmark made deportation or 'externalization' of refugees a central plank of its platform. Priti Patel, as Home Secretary, is taking a similar course. The fact is women don't want to import rapists or pedophiles. Incidentally, Obama deported 3 million people. Does that make him a Fascist?
Political corruption makes a country susceptible to fascist propaganda, by devaluing the vocabulary of democracy. But so too do strong ultra-nationalism and xenophobia. Poland’s embrace of the Law and Justice party cannot be explained solely on the grounds of “economic crisis”.
But it can be explained by better welfare provision for working families.
Nor can Polish marches of 60,000 people through Warsaw chanting “Pure Blood” and calling for a white Europe be explained entirely in terms of the failures of neo-liberal policy.
There is little point in Poland and Hungary spending money on refugees because they will shift to Germany the first chance they get.
This brings us to the topic of ultra-nationalism. How Fascism Works begins with a chapter entitled “The Mythic Past”. The past is mythologized in a variety of different kinds of politics.
Jason has a mythic past where democracy was never xenophobic and money played no role in electoral success.
It is a familiar point that all nationalism involves myth about the past – what Benedict Anderson called “Imagined Communities” in his famous book of that name.
Which may have had some relevance to Indonesia which deliberately chose a national language of a synthetic type and which hoped to incorporate Malaya. It had no relevance to India or Iran or China.
But fascism involves a very specific kind of myth about the past. Fascism is based on nationalism – but it’s a specific kind of nationalism. The specific form of nationalism that undergirds fascism must receive special treatment; no treatment of fascism can be complete without it.
What about American exceptionalism? The fact is every country has a strong sense of identity. It remains to be seen whether Scottish nationalism will reach a point where the United Kingdom is threatened.
This is why I begin the book with this topic, and return to the topic of varieties of nationalism throughout the book. All nationalism involves myths about previous national unity.
Unless it doesn't at all. Look at Pakistan.
In ordinary, non-pernicious nationalism (“equality based nationalism”, in the sense of Chapter 6), the identity of the nation is formed by a myth of a common culture, language, and set of traditions (it is still often a myth that there was even this kind of unity).
Nonsense! Hardly anybody spoke Urdu in Pakistan or Bahasa Indonesia in Java.
In fascist ideology, however, the myth takes a specific form, and is used for a specific strategic radical purpose. Chapter 1 of my book is entitled “The Mythic Past”, but perhaps a better title would have been “The Fascist Mythic Past”, as it is devoted to exploring the specific content and function of mythologies about the “nation” that are characteristically exploited in fascist politics.
Unless they aren't. The fact is plenty of democracies and monarchies and communist regimes invested money in 'mythic pasts'. Fascism existed briefly and was little different to what went before or would come afterwards.
In fascist ideology, the past is mined for patriarchal symbols of the greatness of the nation,
Whereas democracies put up statues to arrant cowards who shat themselves when confronted by the enemy.
where the men of the nation served in a glorious military, and had great feats of conquest.
or defense.
As I begin the chapter: In all fascist mythic pasts, an extreme version of the patriarchal family reigns supreme, even just a few generations ago.
Orthodox Judaism is patriarchal. Does that make it Fascist? No. It is religious.
Further back in time, the mythic past was a time of glory of the nation, with wars of conquest led by patriotic generals,
as opposed to treacherous generals who took the enemy's silver to turn their coats
its armies filled with its countrymen, able-bodied, loyal warriors whose wives were at home raising the next generation.
as opposed to sucking cock in brothels.
In the present, these myths become the basis of the nation’s identity under fascist politics. In other words, fascist nationalism takes a very specific form – the past is mined not for a uniform set of traditions and cultures. It is rather mined for a sense of past glory – which is why fascist leaders always appeal to a sense of loss not merely about traditions, but about empire –
So Churchill was a Fascist- like De Gaulle.
and why fascist politics is particularly dangerous in times of loss or decline of empire (see HFW, pp. 91-2).
Churchill turned Britain into a Fascist state- right?
As I make vivid in Chapter 1, the goal of fascist national mythmaking is not to create nostalgia for loss of ordinary traditions and cultures. It is to create nostalgia for “the central tenets of fascist ideology— authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle.” I quote Mussolini and Alfred Rosenberg in support of these points, arguing that both these figures “clearly and explicitly appreciated this point about the strategic use of a mythological past.”
But they did so before there was such a thing as Fascism. Mussolini was a Socialist who decided to do his patriotic duty by joining the Army in the First War. Hitler too was a soldier. Rosenberg was a subject of the Tzar but his mentor Scheubner-Richter fought on the German side. Incidentally he spoke out against the Armenian massacres when posted in Turkey. It is important to remember that many of the first Nazis had personal experience of Red terror.
The goal is to not to create nostalgia for a particular way of celebrating some holidays; these are just the ordinary myths involved in all nationalist politics. It is rather to create nostalgia about a past during which the nation was great in fascist ways – when its men served in armies led by generals in great wars of conquest. After providing evidence with quotes from Mussolini and Rosenberg, I summarize this introduction to fascist ultra-nationalism by emphasizing that what is called for is not to remain rooted in our traditional ways, but rather a radical change to the present: as I write, “The fascist mythic past exists to aid in changing the present.” Ludlow provides a detailed interpretation of the passage I cite from Mussolini. He quotes the surrounding context, which concerns the Italian military, and makes it clear that Mussolini is appealing to past greatness of the Roman army in wars of conquest. These are the elements of the history of Rome that Mussolini draws on in his speeches – not ordinary nationalism.
But these tropes had been around for centuries! The fact is the Fascists and Nazis were already indoctrinated in that 'mythic nationalism' before the various Emperors and Empires of Europe crumbled. There was a Serbian and a Czech nationalism of an equally fierce kind. But Nationalism does not necessarily turn into Fascism unless the impression is created that the Fascist countries are rising up more rapidly.
And it is difficult for me to see any tension whatsoever between Ludlow’s interpretation of the passage from Mussolini and my use of it. Ludlow’s reading of the Mussolini passage is exactly how I employ it. So his reading could hardly be used to critique mine – it just is my reading. The difficulty, rather, is with Ludlow’s misreading of the chapter. Ludlow’s critique of my interpretation of Mussolini is embedded in a context that reveals his misunderstanding of the chapter. He begins: Let’s begin with Chapter 1, which concerns fascism’s appeal to a “The Mythic Past.” It’s hard to think of a conservative American politician who hasn’t played this tune. Ronald Reagan was a master at it – painting Norman Rockwellesque pictures of earlier, simpler, better times. But that kind of nostalgia is nearly definitional for conservatism – conservatives are about conserving the status quo and maybe even being regressive, after all. Why would they not use such myths about the past? The question for us is whether this is really a strategy that fascists use. However, the point of Chapter 1 is to isolate and describe the distinctive structure and function of the fascist mythic past, thereby distinguishing it from ordinary nationalist myth. It is therefore just not true that most conservative American politicians have “played the tune” I describe in this chapter (I return to this topic in chapter 6, where I draw a clear distinction between “equality driven nationalism”, which extolls a set of traditions and a common heritage, and domination driven nationalism, of the sort one finds at the heart of fascist politics).
But Hitler and Musso were seen as people from very ordinary backgrounds who would help raise up people like themselves. Hitler's Germany was delivering more to working people though, like the Weimar Republic, the thing was not sustainable.
In the first chapter, I argue that the fascist mythic past has a particular structure, one that distinguishes it sharply from ordinary nationalist myth. In ordinary nationalist myth, there were a group of ethnically related people who shared a language, a religion, and a set of coherent traditions.
Not in Britain or France. The Gauls and the Britons spoke a Celtic language. Then came various Teutonic tribes. Still, there were certain national heroes- some mythical like Arthur or Hereward, others historical like Alfred or Charlemagne- who rose above these divisions
These people were not necessarily great, and did not necessarily or even typically have a great empire (or any empire at all). In the fascist mythic past, by contrast, the nation was great, and had an empire.
Rome had an Empire. I suppose the Holy Roman Empire was mainly Germanic. But what about San Marino? Romania had the Iron Guard. It appeared mystical or Orthodox Christian. Ultimately, it was military realities and the possibility of turning a profit on conquest which determined whether leaders would speak of empire or if they'd pipe small about it.
Fascist politics fosters aggrieved nostalgia for loss of empire.
Unless you never had one in the first place. The fact is the Second World War meant that all colonial powers had to start giving up colonies. Did Holland turn Fascist after giving up Indonesia? Did Britain after, more gracefully, giving up India? Even France and Belgian were sensible in this matter. Salazar's Portugal was a different story. But loss of Empire is what helped Portugal become solidly democratic. It soon rose up economically through the hard work and good sense of its own people.
The fascist mythic past of the nation is not there
That's true. Why bother with a mythic past? You want to project an image of a bright future where people are prosperous and the Army is stronger than that of your neighbors. Italian Fascism certainly drew on 'Futurism'. The Nazis too had a fetish for technology.
to keep respect for traditions, but rather “to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology— authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle.”
Nostalgia for the future- sure. Philip K Dick was good on this topic.
And it is radically not conservative, since it is, as I write, “strategic”, to aid in “changing the present.”
The orientation was towards a glorious future. But this was quite common back then. Baldwin and the appeasers had a great belief in Air Power as if it could by itself keep the island safe.
What accounts for this misreading? Ludlow takes me to task for failing to distinguish between ordinary nationalist mythologizing about the past, and fascist myth.
But Ludlow is an ignorant and stupid professor of worthless shite.
But here, Ludlow is illicitly importing his own misreading of How Fascism Works. If one takes me, mistakenly, to be conflating conservatism with fascism, then one would object to the use of the quotations I provide in the first chapter – these do not exemplify innocent conservative nostalgia, but rather something else – fascist myth. But this is my point in the chapter - to emphasize the particular nature of fascist nationalism – including its radically non-conservative nature. It is used strategically to change the present, to create nostalgia for fascist ideals, rather than retain our current ways of life.
It is used to cause us to hope for a better tomorrow. But all smart politicians do that. Reagan and Thatcher and Clinton and Blair and Obama and Trump were all promising that. Nobody was saying 'vote for me and I'll make sure you suffer so much that you'd want to return to medieval times- or even the stone age'.
The topic of the relation between the kind of nationalism that is democratically acceptable
What was democratically acceptable to Americans of the period was Jim Crow and the KKK.
and the kind of nationalism that underlies fascist movements is one I return to in Chapter 6 of the book. I argue there that there are versions of nationalism
like the Danes deporting refugees to Rwanda or Priti Patel trying to do the same.
that are democratically acceptable – these are generally the ones that are appealed to in conservative politics
The Danish Social Democrats aint consevative.
(I also give as examples of acceptable nationalism the ones used in many nationalist anti-Colonial movement, and the original version of Zionism).
Or the founding ideology of Pakistan.
In Chapter 6, I distinguish these versions of nationalism from the kinds of nationalist appeals that occur in fascist politics – while warning of the dangers of one bleeding into the other. All nationalism involves myth. The distinction between acceptable versions of nationalism and the kind of problematic nationalism that underlies fascism is a topic that runs through the entire book. Fascist nationalism is strategic; it omits large parts of the past, focusing just on past military glory and conquest, ethnic purity, and other fascist values, such as discipline.
The problem here is that Mussolini's Fascism was much like Salazar's. Miscegenation was not an issue. By contrast the Nazis adopted the racial policies of the American South or the Boers of South Africa. But America and South Africa were multi-party democracies. On the other hand, there is some evidence to suggest that Musso was himself quite racist. I think this was related to his plans for conquest in Africa. He feared a 'half-caste' or creole class would rebel against the 'motherland'. Italy introduced some laws which discriminated against blacks by 1933 which was also the time Musso permitted attacks by the Press on Jews. Now, of course, we have Putin claiming Zelenskyy is Hitler because he is Jewish. When evil shit goes down, the Jews are bound to be targeted. Why? I suppose it's because a lot of them guys actually know the Bible.
According to the analysis in How Fascism Works, then, fascist politics is radical. It is not conservative. To take my book to be a description of conservatives is unfair to conservatives, and unfair to the structure and content of my arguments. I want to end by making a concession to a powerful critique Ludlow makes:
it is not the valence (left vs right) of totalitarianism that provides the clue to how it arose and how it works. It was rather the strategies for consolidating power under one individual. This takes us to the heart of the problem with Stanley’s book: he mistakes patriarchy, nostalgia for a mythological past, etc. as being the causes of fascism, when they’re at best unreliable clues to the valence of a totalitarian movement.
They are irrelevant. Only if there is an imminent threat of a Communist insurrection, will anybody pay for Fascism. Otherwise plain and simple Nationalism can morph into whatever madness it was the Japanese unleashed on Asia in the hope of getting rich by looting and killing.
Ludlow is quite right that totalitarian movements have different “valences”, and that my book concerns only one “valence” (I prefer to think of these as different species of totalitarianism). I have vigorously defended myself against Ludlow’s charge that I have given only “unreliable clues” to the valence of fascist totalitarianism (there is more to be said, of course, about the link between fascism and patriarchy – here too I stand my ground against Ludlow’s criticisms).
Militant lesbians played a big role in breaking the British General Strike of 1926. Mrs Gandhi was called a Fascist by her husband. She did lock up her opponents and forcibly sterilize people. Who says Fascism has to be 'patriarchal'?
But Ludlow is absolutely correct that my book concerns only a specific species, of totalitarianism. In Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt takes a different approach – she focuses not on fascism per se, but on totalitarianism in general, under which she includes both fascism and communism. This is a different theoretical choice than the one I have made. Communist ideology places loyalty to class over loyalty to an ethnic group,
unless it goes for 'Socialism in one country'
which justifies a similar kind of contempt for one’s political opponent as one finds in fascism, albeit on very different grounds. There are other kinds of totalitarian ideologies that provide justification for aggrieved victimization, and marshal fear and disgust as political weapons to consolidate power.
This is Jason's stock in trade. Trump is a Fascist! Boo!
My book concerns a very specific totalitarian ideology, a very particular kind of justification for illiberalism.
Which nobody is making any more because peeps get that Econ be mathsy. Some bonehead in a ludicrous uniform isn't going to make things better. He's going to fuck up big time.
In making this theoretical choice, I risked signaling that other kinds of totalitarian ideologies are lesser concerns. And this is a moral cost, since I think these other kinds of totalitarian ideologies are also deeply problematic – and also exist in a kind of mutual reinforcement pattern with fascist ideology.
As does Jason's own silly anti-fascist ideology.
However, my sense when I wrote the book was that the greatest concern was describing the pattern of justification – the “valence”, to use Ludlow’s terminology – of one kind of totalitarianism, namely fascism.
Because Jason would have looked silly for accusing Trump of being Trotsky in disguise.
This was due to particular historical circumstances; in particular, the rise of far-right movements across the world, including in my own country. I was eager to describe this species of totalitarianism in detail, not to alienate conservatives, but rather to warn them of a way some could be tempted into adopting a species of totalitarianism antithetical to their core principles, because of superficial similarities.
Very kind of Jason, I'm sure. But for him the Queen Gor bless 'er, would have taken to marching around the place in jackboots giving Nazi salutes to all and sundry.
I agree that there should be another book addressed to progressives, warning them about the temptations of other species of totalitarianism that have superficial similarities with progressive ideology.
Jason's next book will warn lesbians of the danger they stand in of becoming jihadi suicide bombers because of 'superficial similarities' between their objection to the sexual objectification of women and the Taliban's mania for the burqa.
But this would be a very different book. I have defended myself vigorously against Ludlow’s charge that my book is an attack on conservatism.
What is it an attack on? Fascism? The thing disappeared long ago.
However, there are surely costs to isolating one species of totalitarianism, and neglecting others. I am open to hearing what these costs are, and sensitive to the possibility that I might have erred in not addressing them explicitly.
It appears that there was some 'seditious conspiracy' going on in America when Jason was writing his book. That's what he should 'addressed explicitly'. I'm joking. Jason can't address shit. Anyway, the Proud Boys or this or that militia will be dealt with by the Courts. My guess is that only overt acts will be punished and seditious communication might be given the nod on First Amendment grounds. Obviously, if America faces any serious internal threat then it will quickly put in much tougher laws. The good thing about Democracy is that it can protect itself in a timely enough fashion provided pedants are disintermediated.
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