Umberto Eco's essay on Fascism

found this recently and thought it was pretty spot on...figured some of the watmmers would enjoy/enjoy reading to disagree with it.

looking forward to thoughts.

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

basht eh fash

  Quote

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

90% of black metal bands - check

  Quote

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

These are currently inescapable in American politics. #13 describes the basis of most "States Rights" arguments presented by Republicans to do things that contradictory express big government (anti-abortion laws, anti-gay legislation, strict drug laws, legislating Christian doctrine into law and educational standards) and basically the the entire basis of the Tea Party Movement. #14 articulates exactly what I've noticed about the rhetoric of the same people.

My first thought is that Eco is over-philosophizing something which is rooted in human psychology. Some people just tend to put more value in the things they know, and put more fear in the things they don't know. And when there's enough people with enough (political) power, things like those "isms" may rise.

To a certain extent all his points can be said of any "ism". Any "ism" is some sort of ideological tradition (it wouldn't be an ism otherwise). Any "ism" refutes opposing "isms". ...

Obviously, I have no clue whatsoever about the context of the piece, it's goal, and therefore it's meaning. So my stupidity makes it appear that this text is just as stupid.

So yeah, some thoughts.

edit.: durrrrrrrrrr

If I were a politician, my slogan would be ics, not isms!

though i would surely be misinterpreted as wanting to end the people's right to have orgisms

~asms subforum nao!

  Quote

However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden).

I'm unsure fascism ever really praised (or praises) industrial achievement or modernism, even superficially. I think. Fascism is interested in technology as a means to attain warfare superiority, but not in pure science itself. In the hypothetical scenario Eco suggests in which a fascist nation had no more enemies to defeat, there would be no place for science because technology had served its purpose towards reaching the "Golden Age". But then again, does capitalism have any interest in science aside from a less than naive use of technology? Politicians of all kinds always tend to instrumentalize science.

Fascism has become a misused term. There is fascism ruling in some major countries in the west, public opinion just isn't calling it fascism.

Germans loved their king, their God, and their culture. In 1914 Germany had, probably the most powerful military in the world at that time. I reckon that the history of Germany before 1914 is a complete mystery to most people of my generation who aren't German, though I find it completely fascinating. After Germany lost its King is where things went wrong. The King was the one person to Germany that everybody looked towards as an ideal to follow. Basically the same as what Aphex Twin means to this website. So without him there was a complete vacuum as to how to act as a country. Germany didn't want social democracy or liberalism to rule their country, they wanted monarchy. The King was the figurehead for the army, without him, it is not surprising that such a militaristic nation ended up losing control of itself and power was taken by some of the soldiers who returned from WWI. Adolf Hitler was a soldier of average intelligence and a powerfully persuasive and influential manner of speaking, and it is the greatest tragedy that such a man became leader of Germany, which led to the deaths of millions of people. Regarding this article, it is an attack on reactionary ideas in general and tries to smear them by associating them with a murderous ideology. This is just a diversion from the Russian atrocities which are fairly and correctly associated with Communism. I want to say, that I think there is a large difference between a monarchy and fascism. Monarchy and tradition accord with nature because people die and pass things on to the next generation. What we know as monarchy evolved over hundreds as a way of finding stability for people to flourish. Fascism was a set of untested ideas adopted by a group of soldiers of average intelligence, which attempted to justify death camps and gulags and truckloads of Jewish skeletons as something desirable. And their moustaches look silly too.

reported

  On 8/17/2012 at 7:18 PM, chunky said:

The King was the one person to Germany that everybody looked towards as an ideal to follow. Basically the same as what Aphex Twin means to this website.

FLOL

If I were of the persuasion to put quotes in my sig, this would be it

  On 8/17/2012 at 7:18 PM, chunky said:

Germans loved their king, their God, and their culture. In 1914 Germany had, probably the most powerful military in the world at that time. I reckon that the history of Germany before 1914 is a complete mystery to most people of my generation who aren't German, though I find it completely fascinating. After Germany lost its King is where things went wrong. The King was the one person to Germany that everybody looked towards as an ideal to follow. Basically the same as what Aphex Twin means to this website. So without him there was a complete vacuum as to how to act as a country. Germany didn't want social democracy or liberalism to rule their country, they wanted monarchy. The King was the figurehead for the army, without him, it is not surprising that such a militaristic nation ended up losing control of itself and power was taken by some of the soldiers who returned from WWI. Adolf Hitler was a soldier of average intelligence and a powerfully persuasive and influential manner of speaking, and it is the greatest tragedy that such a man became leader of Germany, which led to the deaths of millions of people. Regarding this article, it is an attack on reactionary ideas in general and tries to smear them by associating them with a murderous ideology. This is just a diversion from the Russian atrocities which are fairly and correctly associated with Communism. I want to say, that I think there is a large difference between a monarchy and fascism. Monarchy and tradition accord with nature because people die and pass things on to the next generation. What we know as monarchy evolved over hundreds as a way of finding stability for people to flourish. Fascism was a set of untested ideas adopted by a group of soldiers of average intelligence, which attempted to justify death camps and gulags and truckloads of Jewish skeletons as something desirable. And their moustaches look silly too.

From where do you get this impression that during the Weimar Republic the majority of Germans wanted a monarchic government? You do know that the republic formed because of the monarchy's overwhelming incompetence in the face of WWI defeat and disgruntled workers and soldiers? You know that Wilhelm II was mostly responsible for the downfall of the monarchic power structure, right? Im not quite sure what you were getting at with your post. The "regality" of monarchical rule in an industrial age was absolutely smashed in the embers of WWI, and rightfully so.

oh shush you and your book learning smetty (see point 3).

haven't read this yet, but i would def. snuggle with Umberto Eco.

  On 8/26/2012 at 6:05 PM, thanks robert moses said:

haven't read this yet, but i would def. snuggle with Umberto Eco.

i would def. Foucault his Pendulum