Ur-Fascism

Send in the Clowns–Putin, Trump, the Fifth Column, and the importance of history

When Benito Mussolini was seen on newsreels in the United States it was as a “rotund, strutting clown, who struck pompous poses from his Roman balcony and tried to upstage Adolf Hitler when they first met, in Venice in 1934.” Much of this impression was established thanks to Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film “The Great Dictator,” where the Il Duce character was effectively lampooned by the actor Jack Oakie. This reinforced the widely held public prejudice in England and among many Americans that “Mediterranean Peoples,” especially Italians, were inferior oafs, unintelligent and clownish hotheads. Intellectuals and world leaders would come to regret underestimating the Italian autocrat, who was just the first of fascist and quasi-fascist leaders to wreak havoc on the world.

As with Mussolini, Hitler and the Nazis were first seen as a clown show with their thuggish behavior, mediocre backgrounds, buffoonish uniform-like garb, their appropriation of mythic symbols, and their completely unintelligible and ignorant interpretations of history and society. It was noted that Hitler himself was ignorant, lazy, a self-absorbed narcissist, and overly theatrical in his public appearances. He also effectively tapped into the grudges and nationalistic lies that cleaved German society, finding convenient scapegoats, especially Jews and other vulnerable groups, lumping them in with Communists and external threats to “German-speakers.”

Yet, so effective was the disinformation and propagandist jumble of Nazi ideas and assertions to define themselves and intentions, that even today intellectuals debate the definition of fascism, and whether clearly quasi-fascist governments like those under Franco in Spain and Pinochet in Chile were really fascist governments, despite the not only clear linkage to the methods and ideas of fascism, but the evidence of the dead bodies.

One would think that this debate was closed with Umberto Eco’s definition of Ur-fascism, (who knew about fascism first-hand) but we still get hand-wringing and pearl-clutching from intellectual Mugwumps who continue to want to obfuscate this issue. And for the uneducated on this subject–no–liberals and socialists aren’t fascists (or communists) or even close; especially given that they are usually among the first ones rounded up and murdered by fascist and quasi-fascist thugs along with Jews and others outside the fascist tribe.

Thus, about two weeks ago, I was struck by the comments of Sergey Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, regarding Ukraine and the West. He posited an alternative and counter-factual interpretation of history that is astounding in its echo of fascist movements. As he cautioned the West from coming to Ukraine’s aid, he referenced Russian historical continuity, the importance of uniting “Russian speakers,” and warning the West of the so-called lessons from the latest version of Russian ultra-nationalist self-delusional history that puts forth the notion of a single Eurasian people under Russian rule. Here is what he is saying: the various countries and ethnic groups from the border of Sweden down to Germany, and to Moldova, and, perhaps, to Serbia are within Russia’s orbit. He would sweep away these countries and peoples, murdering anyone in his way.

Vladimir Putin has shown himself to be an obviously corrupt kleptocrat, sociopath, narcissist and mediocrity. What he lacks in intellectual honesty and character, he more than compensates with ruthlessness, murderous intent, and links to the powerful oligarchs that keep him in near-totalitarian power. He is a fanatic. Fanatics, as Aldous Huxley noted, can be defeated because they compensate for a secret doubt, but they are also dangerous since any opposition or disagreement is interpreted as a hostile act. When such an individual has nuclear weapons, which this tyrant has been all too vocal in referencing, the situation is dangerous.

But the United States and its allies have overcome existential threats in the past, and make no mistake, Putin and the current Russian government is an existential threat. I served my country in the U. S. Navy for almost 23 years during the Cold War. I deployed to the theaters of contention close to the Soviet Union and Communist China. I also served, at times, as a special weapons courier. My military colleagues, and anyone paying attention, knew and developed the steel to oppose the imperial ambitions of those nations knowing that we were under nuclear threat by hostile powers. We also accepted the fact that in case of an attack on us, that retaliation against these countries would be swift and overwhelming.

Last night Mr. Putin delivered an unhinged and self-deluded speech. He is a clown. The clowns in this world have caused a tremendous amount of human suffering and destruction. As Hannah Arendt noted, evil is banal. The clowns of this world, augmented by our so-called post-truth era, create an environment for banality to thrive. They spread the sickness–the pandemic–of their deranged minds onto the world.

Thus, almost in a caricature of the comedy of life, Donald Trump, the dictator’s sycophant and a man of personal cowardice unknown in any previous U. S. president, praises the evisceration of Ukraine. The man is a Quisling and compromised. He and his followers, who act as a cult, and cult-like, change and contort their minds on a dime to align with his statements, represent a dangerous anti-democratic and–yes–anti-American Fifth Column.

The election of Joe Biden and the corrective of American democracy is the trigger that caused this crisis because Putin thought he had neutralized the United States. His Quisling is in exile, though he has more than a few mini-quislings waiting in line. As all extreme narcissists, he actually believed his own delusion. This is an attack borne of desperation. Unfortunately Ukraine is the pawn he has chosen. It is timed to undermine American democracy and seed division, so that he can realize his other imperial ambitions in threatening our allies and defeating democratic self-government–government of the people, by the people, and for the people–in Europe and elsewhere. He hates what we are. Anyone who supports him shares in that hate.

Wake up. History is calling.

Finding Wisdom for Friday — Umberto Eco on Fascism

Blogging has been somewhat sparse of late because of, well, life.  But I seem to be approaching a patch that will allow me to once again explore subjects of interest.

While I was busy the world lost one of its leading lights on February 19th, 2016, as Umberto Eco passed away at the age of 84.  His voice will be sorely missed.  It will be missed in particular because his best writing reflected his main concerns regarding human communication.  As such, he is acknowledged as one of the founders of what has come to be known as interpretive semiotics.  Semiotics is the study of signs and processes in human communication such as analogy, metaphor, symbolism, among other forms.  What separates it from linguistics is that it takes into account all of the means of human interpretation and communications that exist and, in Eco’s synthesis, how each receiver interprets, incorporates, and processes such signs and sign processes.

Aside from his significant academic pursuits, he was best known in our own country for his popular novel The Name of the Rose (1980), which also was made into a very good and popular film.  But in surveying his seven novels, for me his best writing focused on the question of fascism and how it appealed to the people of his native Italy.  His knowledge of the subject was very personal, having been inculcated into the cult of personality centered around Mussolini when he was a youth.  At the age of 10 he describes how he was proud of his young fascist uniform, writing paeans to the fascist cause.  As such, in novels such as Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005), he reveals to the reader the sub-textual signs that continue to communicate fascist messages in many forms of popular media, life, and culture.

Thus I find his writing, which uses multiple devices to approach obliquely what otherwise was and is a tragic and horrific chapter of Italian and European history, to be very similar to the devices used by the contemporary Mexican director Guillermo del Toro in film.  In the case of del Toro, who was born in 1964–well after the events of his concern–he approaches the subject of the Spanish Civil War and the victory of Spanish fascism.  This has only recently been a subject of critical processing in Hispanic society, especially since the death of the Spanish dictator Franco, and the subsequent rejection of other neo-fascist regimes in South America and elsewhere in favor of liberal democracy.  Still, it is a very painful and sensitive subject, and so del Toro uses the devices of fantasy and gothic horror to approach and record the horrors and cruelty of those times in movies such as The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)–probably two among the best films of our young 21st century.

To Americans, however, fascism is a confusing, esoteric, and fungible political term.  For the generations that lived during the 1920s and 1930s, the meaning was more immediate and its dangers best exemplified in the Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here (1935).  But the term has been appropriated over the years, and misused recently, most notably by the fact-challenged Jonah Goldberg, whose silly and frivolous mental gymnastics in Liberal Fascism (2008) contributed greatly to obfuscating the term in uniquely Orwellian ways which, of course, was the book’s intent.

Our times seem to suggest that it is time to end the silliness where it exists in throwing around the name.  So I think it is important to revisit what Eco had to say about the topic.  He had, after all, actually lived life from his most impressionable years as a fascist, embraced it and all that it stood for, articulated its meaning, and then was able–upon liberation–to free himself from its grip, reflect upon it, and identify what it is and its core characteristics.

The article in which he most effectively dealt with this subject was in the June 22, 1995 edition of the New York Review of Books.  Note that many of these characteristics by themselves or in some combination can be found in other political movements, ideologies, and social movements, but none contain all of these characteristics applied quite in the same manner and combination to society.

I have listed the characteristics below, and flesh out one.  Note that fascism as he describes it, and has discussed it, isn’t identified as being on the right or left of what in the modern U.S. is identified as the political spectrum.  Fascism can appropriate many of the agenda items and disguise itself using the raiment of the conventional political parties and ideologies, as well as the more mundane imagery of contemporary life.  They are:

  1. The cult of tradition.  In giving his example Eco points out that the cult of tradition has existed in many forms over the course of human history.  But in attributing this characteristic to fascism he points to its assertion that “there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.”
  2. Traditionalism implies a rejection of modernism.  According to Eco’s analysis, the Nazis and Fascists embraced technology, but not the modern systems and processes that made it possible.  “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.  In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
  3. Irrationalism depends on the cult of action for action’s sake.  To the fascist, “thinking is a form of emasculation.”  Action without reflection is valued above all other things.  Anti-intellectualism rules. Where there are fascist intellectuals, their role is to attack modern culture for betraying traditional values.
  4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernity.  Science encourages disagreement to advance learning.  For fascism, disagreement and discerning distinctions are emblematic of treason.
  5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.  Fascism exploits the fear of difference–targeting intruders as the Other.  It is inherently racist.
  6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.  In Italy as in all cases, Fascism appealed to the fears of a frustrated middle class: “a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
  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.  Note to Birthers.
  8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.  To fascists, the targeted groups are both weak and easily overcome, but also powerful and sinister, plotting to take away the rights and privileges that is the select group’s birthright.  This contradiction is key to stoking fear and provides motivation for further action.
  9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.  Life is a constant battle against the enemy at every level of society and thought, which will only be resolved with a great final battle.
  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.  Fascism depends on the belief in, and allegiance to, the strong, especially a strong ruler.  The weak deserve their lot.
  11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.  Fascist societies are obsessed with hero worship, especially in the martial professions and the vanguard of the movement, where the heroic death for the cause is idolized, especially when someone else is doing the dying.
  12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.  Control of sexual mores and procreation is central to fascist movements.  Demonization of non-compliance is essential.
  13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.  Democratic processes are illegitimate and the targeted groups are excluded from participation in the political process.  An effort to undermine the legitimacy of democratic elected leaders and democratic elective processes and republican institutions, even from within, are part and parcel of the fascist cause.
  14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.  Intentions are obscured by language that is nonsensical or simplistic.  The purpose of Newspeak is to undermine critical thinking and disagreement.