Part 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists. (Eco 1)
Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash… (Eco 2)
Part 4 – Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)
Part 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it (Eco 4)
Part 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good! (Eco 5 and last)
Back to the grindstone… this is part three of the codex nihilix on fascism. Still working on Umberto Eco's Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, (1995) (thanks Utne.)
The next two points in the 14 point list (see end of post for the full list) deal with the growth medium for fascism- what kind of society do you need to sprout those pasty white death caps of fascism.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
Being an anarcho-pinko-hippy-satanist, I of course think that the HUGE levels of individual and social frustration are primarily the cause of a domineering capitalist greedhead oppression hierarchy that benefits a small group of rich people and corporations (and the governments they own).
There are HUGE levels of individual and social frustration all across the world. Of course, there are even huger levels of individual and social total deprivation, so the suffering of first world middle and working classes has to be put in context. Nevertheless, from rural societies torn apart by mobility demands and battered by information overload, to suburban cultural voids (one size fits all of us – and if it doesn't fit, maybe you're one of them) to inner cities that are often polluted, environmentally and economically – all of these are filled with various levels of frustration. And with the zeitgeist in the hands of corporate media, and with the political system increasingly insulated from popular influence, and with resurgent Puritan sexual mores – for god's sake – stuffing healthy sexuality back into the witch-burning bag… yeah, there's frustration.
So who benefits from this? Well, that's where a nice fascist ideology comes in. There are other groups who benefit (we need it to get really bad before the People rise in Revolution… gawd, I'm sick of that) from frustration, but a simple system of black and white, buttressed by church and tv and political elites, that gives you someone weak to blame for your problems – that kind of system does really really well.
Eco has a great analysis on this point:
In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.
So your government doesn't care, all politicians are liars, your TV gives you a life that has no connection to anything, you live in a suburb where you don't know your neighbors, you have enough time to come home, do some dishes, eat, watch tube, sleep, get up for work, get drunk on the weekend… your family lives in a different town and you don't see them much and you don't really talk to them anyway… the people you hang with are from work, you don't really know them well, and you're going to lose that job and get another one with new friends…
What do you got left? YOU'RE AN AMERICAN, GODDAMMIT!!! Whee! Jingoism is fun and easy with an atomized populace drugged on TV and prescription meds!
Plus we got a big surplus of militarism and nationalism that we need to keep pumping blood and belief into. And with this crew, you got to throw the Aryan Jesus in there to do some more hating. (For the Christian America crowd – very popular with the electoral base.)
Sorry to leave you hanging after just two – here's the next, and the whole list again.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
The 14 Ways of the Blackshirt:
1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.
2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.
10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.
11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
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