On the Fourteen Attributes of Fascism-2

February 11, 2006

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In the interests of credibility, I want to give Lawrence Britt's list some tough scrutiny. This is, obviously, because our views and preferences are so similar. For example, Britt and I would both agree that the antidote to fascism is liberalism—more tolerance of ideas, not intolerance of trendy "moral relativism" [sic.] However, I wanted to examine his analysis to see if it fits.

Let's look at the items he mentions:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism: Prof. Britt includes brandishing of the flag, bunting, and so on; certainly this is a "necessary," but by no means, sufficent condition. I have a caveat here in that nationalism is a powerful and universal motivation; in different eras, it is expressed differently. For example, in Japan and Western Europe, effusive displays of the flag are seen as advertisements of hard right ideology. Outside of those regions, however, they are usually signs of a deeply divided society, as in Venezuela or Lebanon.


2. Disdain for the importance of human rights: almost definitionally a sign of fascism. Typically, even partisans of the ruling party will waver or defect when evidence of human rights violations appear; if not, a culture of impunity begins to flourish. Often societies reach a point where obsession with "security" (see below) stimulates an attitude of utter contempt for human rights.


3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause: it's often observed that fascist regimes are essentially laundry lists of hatred. This doesn't merely include dread of genuine enemies, such as nuclear superpowers or terrorists. It includes obsessive loathing of huge segments of society, such as liberals, other "races," foreigners, and so forth. The fascist regime, however, has to forge this sordid aspect of society into a constant, ritualized outburst. The members of society are denied permission to be neutral; one must avertise one's vehement affirmation of the junta's world view. In extreme cases, one is required to participate in genocide to affirm the act. This is definitely an irrefutable benchmark of fascism.


4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism: another clear benchmark of fascist regimes. The sketch above, taken from the 1920's, features a member of the American Legion back when that organization advertised its scorn for both "petty politics" (AKA "democracy"), "class autocracy," and (on the other side) "anarchy" and "lawlessness." Here, the American Legion stands in for any number of veterans' associations in many countries, which proposed to end "petty factional squabbling" (i.e., parliamentary activity) and replace it with "order." As with its counterparts in Germany (e.g., the Freikorps) and and other countries, the AL regarded democratic institutions as both "petty" and vulnerable to subversion. Only veterans were regarded as valid defenders of "Americanism." The concept that the military and soldiers are above reproach requires, of course, a myth of a soldier-hating, homeland-hating fifth column. Opponents of military activity abroad are equated with treason; easily, this mythology trumps whatever actual veterans may happen to think.
   

   In the case of Germany, militarism in the late Wilhelmine phase (1900-1914) took the form of a massive program to build a navy to rival Britain's. While the GDP of Germany was large than that of the UK during this time, and it could have eventually overtaken Britain's output of war materiel with little effort, the creation of shipyards and secondary industries in record time required a total regimentation of economic production. Hence, war preparations took up a massive share of all industrial activity, and became a new focal point for state control of the nation. Defense spending was where the money was to be made, and the military-industrial complex became a uniquely powerful cabal for dominating German public life.



5. Rampant sexism: obviously, most societies can be described as patriarchal; however, what distinguishes "sexism" from a merely patriarchal, macho traditional culture is the element of ideology. Sexism constitutes a generalized resentment of female strivings for self-determination, partly because female self-determination is a form of individualism, partly because it is an inherently anti-authoritarian idea, and partly because it challenges the existing hierarchy. Under fascism, women are to be transformed into a state asset, an award to good warriors or toilers. The subjugation of women through sexism is hence a tool for the subjugation of men also.


6. A controlled mass media: it has to be said that most mass media is controlled in some way; however, as with most controls, there are crucial boundaries between run-of-the-mill cooperation, and proto-fascist media control. In industrial nations, the press typically agrees on certain state objectives and is mollified by evidence of due dilligence; but when the state violates norms of conduct and lawfulness, then leaders come under withering attack. In a fascist state, the media scrambles to defend state lawlessness; it defends anything the state does, and reliably heaps execration on the state's enemies.


7. Obsession with national security: juntas alway defend their lawless use of power on the grounds that the state is under attack. The response to terrorism is usually quite indirect, with "objective enemies" (e.g., class enemies) the primary targets, critics a close second, and actual terrorist a distant, selective third. "Objective enemies" include people whom the ruling ideologues regard as impossible to assimilate to their new society. Typically, "objective enemies" are not targeted for death, since they are vital to production and to ruling privilege; but they are stripped of any form of self-defense or national assertion, all in the name of national defense. In the cartoon below, for example, the power of American workers to strike in defense of their rights, while not explicitly defining the working class as an enemy, does call for their disarmanent as a class. The war with the "Hun" is over, yet the obsession with security was retained through a false equivalence with low labor costs.



(Part 3)


[Fascism] [Totalitarianism]


NOTES: 1 "moral relativism" is commonly used as a spurious and odious characterization of opposing ideas. For example, conservatives are prone to declaring that public schools have somehow been inculcating students with the concept of "moral relativism", leading them to imagine that moral guidelines are meaningless. To put it bluntly, this is not what moral relativism means.

Metaethical moral relativism is defined by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy thus:

The truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal, but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons.

The SEP goes on to point out:

With respect to truth-value, this means that a moral judgment such as ‘Polygamy is morally wrong’ may be true relative to one society, but false relative to another. It is not true, or false, simply speaking. Likewise, with respect to justification, this judgment may be justified in one society, but not another. Taken in one way, this last point is uncontroversial: The people in one society may have different evidence available to them than the people in the other society. But proponents of MMR usually have something stronger and more provocative in mind: That the standards of justification in the two societies may differ from one another and that there is no rational basis for resolving these differences. This is why the justification of moral judgments is relative rather than absolute.

Oddly, it turns out a moral analysis that is blamed for everything wrong in our society, is in fact totally true and very seldom acknowledged.

Conservative critics of "moral relativism" are typically either ignorant of or indifferent to any informed understanding of philosophy. In their enthusiasm to blame the worst calamities of history on their political opponents, they have accused liberals of introducing confusion of moral judgment, thereby paving the way to totalitarianism (see this article in the National Catholic Reporter for Fessio's curious equation of liberalism with fascism). I want to emphasize the fact that, bizarre as this logical contortion is, it represents a huge cross-section of public opinion.