Calling anything you don't like "fascist" is something the left has done for a few generations now. The irony, of course, is that aspects of the modern left are much more fascistic than anything you see in the right, with their near-totalitarian attitudes towards thoughts and beliefs and righteousness.
I do remember, when blissfully working overseas during the chaotic Trump administration, popping into US commentaries and hearing people rant about how their lives were in danger because of Trump (not quite sure how or why but that wasn't the point). Always chuckled and returned to real life. Never occurred to me what I thought was pathetic paranoia of online nutters could actually turn into real life in its own way.
It could be that the rise of the internet and social media and 24/7 news cycles simply gave platforms for the political hypochondriacs to find each other, which intensified their attitudes. Now the most extreme can spend all day in their basements, on twitter and social media, railing against injustice and seeing evil everywhere. It surely is a form of addiction.
"Maybe those Turner Prize winners do genuinely feel unwelcome, I don’t doubt their sincerity"
That's why you're kind, and I am not. I doubt the ability of Turner Prize Winners even to recognise sincerity, let alone experience it. Everything I see from the hysterical Left looks performative, which I used to believe would be its downfall; again, of course, I'm wrong, since my lens remains resolutely pre-post-modern. The fact that everyone knows the artistic shrieking isn't sincere (other than kind Ed), that it's obviously fake ... doesn't matter in the slightest, not in the world these useless "artists"(/pop stars/ex-BBC commentators in leather jackets/junk food pushers who present BBC Sports/et too many al.) inhabit. Performance (to one's own tribe) is everything (because what else are you, some sort of Centrist dad/gammon/Karen/[insert insult du jour] who believes in *objective reality*? ). Does the BBC, for example, ever query such claims, which a toddler could poke to pieces, even while it gives them the oxygen of publicity and top-billing on its pernicious website?
'Johnson is an accidental fascist. He didn’t start out as one but a combination of ineptitude, narcissism, failure to deliver, character failings, his vulnerability to political pressure due to a lack of moral compass, and his desperation to survive, has driven him there.'
As Ed appreciated me being a book/topic noodge on the Denmark article I can't help but bud in on this topic. The fake cries of fascism have always bugged me and sometimes even more so when they came from the right. A particular disingenuous, if understandably defensive reaction, move.
Given that most insinuations and accusations of fascism are phoney it would be helpful to know what it actually is. Part of the loose usage is not without merit as it's been a hard ideology to pin down. The best explanation by far in my honest opinions comes from Prof. Paul Gottfried and his book Fascism: The Career of a Concept. He is right of center and one of the premier scholars the right wing has. One reason is his enormous breadth but crucially he detests those historians who don't make an effort to historicise and contextualises their subject and instead use them as batteringrams in current political and ideological battles. That means he ends up with findings that doesn't necessarily help any one particular political narrative:
-Fascism on the whole, with Italy being the purest proponent, was rather mild until it's disastrous alliance with Hitler.
-Except for interwar Stalinism he doesn't buy the theory of totalitarianism. Being a nasty or horrendous regime, like Mao's China, doesn't necessarily qualify you as being a totalitarian regime.
-Fascism and Nazism can definitely not be used interchangeably. He interprets Nazism as being a more radical fusion of Stalinism and Fascism. Recall that Mussolini was trying to create an anti-nazi alliance initially.
-He says modern day leftists, post-war liberal centrists, interwar American classical liberal/libertarians or present day conservatives were all off the mark in understanding fascism. Who got closest to the mark? Marxists! Their description of the fascist movement, as a counter revolutionary force in protection of reactionary interests in fear of an interwar communist takeover, was largely correct. *
-Contrary to what most people with a right wing bent assume, scholars studying fascism have actually done a decent and objective job trying to make sense of the movement.
If you want to understand the various strands of fascism, the failed attempt at creating a fascist international and why totalitarianism is a bad theory then it's a wonderful book. Gottfried writes without much flair but he makes up for it with making his works very dense with no fat to spare. An ideal scholarly model.
His follow up work focuses on the people Ed addresses in this article: so-called anti-fascists. As far as I know Gottfried was quite influential, inadvertently in creating the meme of "cultural marxism" although he dislikes the term and doesn't think the Frankfurt School is to blame either. He studied under one of the leading proponents, Herbert Marcuse, and even had qualified admiration for some of aspects of their work.
One thing in the USA I've observed (and I imagine this is true in the UK to some extent) is that once you notice how many youth-culture Lefty activists who rail against nonexistent "fascism" come from indie music backgrounds where politically illiterate punk rock vocalists would sing about "fighting fascism" whenever they wanted to get political... you can't un-notice it.
What is the response of the ordinary person to somebody in their company who sees fascism everywhere? My experience is that it is one of concern - for their wellbeing. A genuine concern. Are they ok? Have they had a bad day? In practice it is an awkward silence in which nobody seems to know what to say in response. Occasionally, a less generous person might laugh.
Only in the company of others who see ubiquitous fascism does the claim even appear sane. The concern of most people is how to do deal with the situation tactfully and to not agitate the person further.
I’m one of the left-leaning people who could no longer bear the shrill fear mongering of my onetime political cohort. My sense now is that it’s not sincere. It’s about status, building clout and maintaining good standing with the group. If anyone fancies a left-wing perspective on this larping (from an avowed Marxist to boot) they might enjoy the writing of Freddie deBoer too.
Ed’s observation that the more progress progressives make the unhappier they are rings true. Maybe it really sucks when you’re in the dominant group because it’s inevitably all downhill from there.
‘The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers… will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times.’
On the matter of Roe v Wade, Naomi Wolf has an interesting take on it. Ms. Wolf way back used to irritatement intensely (and my Gen 2 feminist Greenham Common wife) but she seems to have woken up big time on the threat of the overbearing state.
Seems to me she makes some very valid points. Not that they will be noticed in the insane cacophony now issuing 24/7 from the poor old Disunited States of America.
Calling anything you don't like "fascist" is something the left has done for a few generations now. The irony, of course, is that aspects of the modern left are much more fascistic than anything you see in the right, with their near-totalitarian attitudes towards thoughts and beliefs and righteousness.
I do remember, when blissfully working overseas during the chaotic Trump administration, popping into US commentaries and hearing people rant about how their lives were in danger because of Trump (not quite sure how or why but that wasn't the point). Always chuckled and returned to real life. Never occurred to me what I thought was pathetic paranoia of online nutters could actually turn into real life in its own way.
It could be that the rise of the internet and social media and 24/7 news cycles simply gave platforms for the political hypochondriacs to find each other, which intensified their attitudes. Now the most extreme can spend all day in their basements, on twitter and social media, railing against injustice and seeing evil everywhere. It surely is a form of addiction.
"Maybe those Turner Prize winners do genuinely feel unwelcome, I don’t doubt their sincerity"
That's why you're kind, and I am not. I doubt the ability of Turner Prize Winners even to recognise sincerity, let alone experience it. Everything I see from the hysterical Left looks performative, which I used to believe would be its downfall; again, of course, I'm wrong, since my lens remains resolutely pre-post-modern. The fact that everyone knows the artistic shrieking isn't sincere (other than kind Ed), that it's obviously fake ... doesn't matter in the slightest, not in the world these useless "artists"(/pop stars/ex-BBC commentators in leather jackets/junk food pushers who present BBC Sports/et too many al.) inhabit. Performance (to one's own tribe) is everything (because what else are you, some sort of Centrist dad/gammon/Karen/[insert insult du jour] who believes in *objective reality*? ). Does the BBC, for example, ever query such claims, which a toddler could poke to pieces, even while it gives them the oxygen of publicity and top-billing on its pernicious website?
Ed
Alastair Campbell on Twitter just now:
'Johnson is an accidental fascist. He didn’t start out as one but a combination of ineptitude, narcissism, failure to deliver, character failings, his vulnerability to political pressure due to a lack of moral compass, and his desperation to survive, has driven him there.'
Not sure where to start. Just beggars belief.
As Ed appreciated me being a book/topic noodge on the Denmark article I can't help but bud in on this topic. The fake cries of fascism have always bugged me and sometimes even more so when they came from the right. A particular disingenuous, if understandably defensive reaction, move.
Given that most insinuations and accusations of fascism are phoney it would be helpful to know what it actually is. Part of the loose usage is not without merit as it's been a hard ideology to pin down. The best explanation by far in my honest opinions comes from Prof. Paul Gottfried and his book Fascism: The Career of a Concept. He is right of center and one of the premier scholars the right wing has. One reason is his enormous breadth but crucially he detests those historians who don't make an effort to historicise and contextualises their subject and instead use them as batteringrams in current political and ideological battles. That means he ends up with findings that doesn't necessarily help any one particular political narrative:
-Fascism on the whole, with Italy being the purest proponent, was rather mild until it's disastrous alliance with Hitler.
-Except for interwar Stalinism he doesn't buy the theory of totalitarianism. Being a nasty or horrendous regime, like Mao's China, doesn't necessarily qualify you as being a totalitarian regime.
-Fascism and Nazism can definitely not be used interchangeably. He interprets Nazism as being a more radical fusion of Stalinism and Fascism. Recall that Mussolini was trying to create an anti-nazi alliance initially.
-He says modern day leftists, post-war liberal centrists, interwar American classical liberal/libertarians or present day conservatives were all off the mark in understanding fascism. Who got closest to the mark? Marxists! Their description of the fascist movement, as a counter revolutionary force in protection of reactionary interests in fear of an interwar communist takeover, was largely correct. *
-Contrary to what most people with a right wing bent assume, scholars studying fascism have actually done a decent and objective job trying to make sense of the movement.
If you want to understand the various strands of fascism, the failed attempt at creating a fascist international and why totalitarianism is a bad theory then it's a wonderful book. Gottfried writes without much flair but he makes up for it with making his works very dense with no fat to spare. An ideal scholarly model.
His follow up work focuses on the people Ed addresses in this article: so-called anti-fascists. As far as I know Gottfried was quite influential, inadvertently in creating the meme of "cultural marxism" although he dislikes the term and doesn't think the Frankfurt School is to blame either. He studied under one of the leading proponents, Herbert Marcuse, and even had qualified admiration for some of aspects of their work.
https://www.amazon.com/Fascism-Career-Concept/dp/B081QMLP8D/ref=sr_1_5?qid=1656449447&refinements=p_27%3APaul+Gottfried&s=books&sr=1-5
https://www.amazon.com/Antifascism-Course-Crusade-Paul-Gottfried-ebook/dp/B08YXF4V7F/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1656449447&sr=1-3
*For the economic defence of fascism as being on the right:
https://pseudoerasmus.com/2015/05/03/fascism-left-or-right/
Wait, the UK isn’t fascist already?
Has my New York Times misled me?
We must not forget arch Fascist fighter, Paul Mason, still in his late middle age bedecked in the leather jacket of the teenage revolutionary.
This is great Ed.
One thing in the USA I've observed (and I imagine this is true in the UK to some extent) is that once you notice how many youth-culture Lefty activists who rail against nonexistent "fascism" come from indie music backgrounds where politically illiterate punk rock vocalists would sing about "fighting fascism" whenever they wanted to get political... you can't un-notice it.
What is the response of the ordinary person to somebody in their company who sees fascism everywhere? My experience is that it is one of concern - for their wellbeing. A genuine concern. Are they ok? Have they had a bad day? In practice it is an awkward silence in which nobody seems to know what to say in response. Occasionally, a less generous person might laugh.
Only in the company of others who see ubiquitous fascism does the claim even appear sane. The concern of most people is how to do deal with the situation tactfully and to not agitate the person further.
I’m one of the left-leaning people who could no longer bear the shrill fear mongering of my onetime political cohort. My sense now is that it’s not sincere. It’s about status, building clout and maintaining good standing with the group. If anyone fancies a left-wing perspective on this larping (from an avowed Marxist to boot) they might enjoy the writing of Freddie deBoer too.
Ed’s observation that the more progress progressives make the unhappier they are rings true. Maybe it really sucks when you’re in the dominant group because it’s inevitably all downhill from there.
‘The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers… will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times.’
What does that mean in English? Anyone?
To what extent is promulgating Leftist memes classical rational behaviour ("homo economicus") in a society where they appear to be well rewarded?
Love the point about political anhedonia/LARPing as an antidote to boredom, though our mate Jolyon's life seems quite eventful:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/26/prominent-lawyer-jolyon-maugham-tweets-about-clubbing-a-fox-to-death
Surely a government whose main economic policy is TAX TAX TAX SPEND SPEND SPEND is Socialist - Fascist.
On the matter of Roe v Wade, Naomi Wolf has an interesting take on it. Ms. Wolf way back used to irritatement intensely (and my Gen 2 feminist Greenham Common wife) but she seems to have woken up big time on the threat of the overbearing state.
Seems to me she makes some very valid points. Not that they will be noticed in the insane cacophony now issuing 24/7 from the poor old Disunited States of America.
Thank You. Also for Unherd. TYTY.