[ExI] What is meant here by "fascism"?

[James Clement]

Lee;

Since you quoted partially from my post, I'll take the bait and say that I
think Wikipedia (as usual) does an adequate job of explaining what is meant
by Fascism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism ):"Fascism is an
authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that
considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs
of the state."

If you're trying to infer from my post that I only consider America or
Americans to be fascist, that would be totally incorrect.  In fact I would
say that only a small number of Americans would have such statist,
authoritarian, anti-individualist leanings...  The list of Fascist countries
would probably be very long.

James Clement



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Lee Corbin
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 6:26 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] What is meant here by "fascism"?

Stephano writes

> On 10/6/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> 
> > But what exactly is the meaning of "fascism" here?
> 
> I have myself insisted on the idea that the word "fascism" (as
> "christian", "libertarian", "communist", etc.) should not be employed
> as some kind of categorical, metaphysical anathema...

Evidently the folks using the term on this list deny that it's
as you say "categorical metaphysical anathema", but yet
they still haven't answered some very basic questions
about JUST WHAT THE DEVIL THEY MEAN.

I have asked questions like

      Is Cuba a fascist country?

      Is Fidel Castro a fascist?

and all I get back are claims that there are certain *American*
"fascists" who'd "not blink at taking U.S. citizens out into
international waters and torturing them, blowing up buildings,
or anything else their superiors "suggested" was in the best
interests of the Country...".

Which leads me to wonder whether people who'd act in such
highhanded ways for Cuba, or for Mexico, or for the former
U.S.S.R. would properly be called fascists by the people here
making great hay with the term.  

The silence on these questions leads me to conjecture that
"fascist" means to them, such the example above might suggest,
someone who is an American and who would do these extreme
things.  Analogously, a "fascist country" would be either
(a) America, or (b) an ally of America that denied its citizens
certain rights.  But in all cases, so I'm surmizing, it simply
cannot be the case that a progressive country like Cuba or North
Korea is fascist according to their usage.  But surely someone
who uses the term will answer the above questions and the
ones like them in my original post.

> but rather restricted to what self-defined fascists have
> themselves identified as their historical identity.

Now, *that* would be sensible indeed, but would lack political
and partisan propaganda utility, I suspect.

> For instance, strictly speaking, many Italian fascist intellectuals
> doubted in the thirties that the Third Reich itself could be
> considered as a "true" fascist regime.
> 
> To wonder whether Montezuma or Ramses or Torquemada or Louis XIV or
> Breznev, or for that matter Bush, are "fascists" in some sense is just
> bad rethorics, since there are obvious cultural gaps that make the
> comparison moot, whatever blame their regimes may deserve.

I agree.

Lee

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