151–160 of 205 posts
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What do you mean?
You said: > Fascism is but one particular flavor of malicious totalitarianism, and totalitarianism can coagulate around a vast variety of beliefs across the political/religious/cultural spectra. I can go through a list like that, make sure that I check none of the boxes, and decide that I am verifiably not A Bad Person. (As if the only kinds of badness are fitting Eco's fascism checklist.) Or that the movement I'm at…
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QAnon is a sort of syncretism for conspiracy theories. It's managed to bring every conspiracy theory into its fold. (And conspiracy theories themselves were already very syncretic!)
Conspiracy theories tend to encourage syncretism. It's as easy to disbelieve the official narrative on one subject and to substitute it for a theory, as it is to do the same to another. Different theories are but different crimes from the same culprits.
Eco wrote novels about it.
A nice prediction – note the frequency with which news organizations list quotes from Twitter in this capacity.
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You're making the mistake of believing that the parties represent the sides that exist in America. Most people on the right would disagree that the Republican party represents them, and most of the left would disagree that the Democratic party represents them.
> Most people on the right would disagree that the Republican party represents them, and most of the left would disagree that the Democratic party represents them. Most of those people would say that the party they vote for represents them "enough", which is at the end of the day what matters electorally.
For example, Biden. A lot of people voted for Biden not because they think of themselves as Democrats but because they don’t want republicans in power (this includes former republicans)
The Behind The Bastards podcast has just finished a special run called Behind The Insurrections where they examine how various fascist movements came to power. They briefly discuss Eco's essay before delving into quite detailed accounts of various insurrections. The series has episodes on The Beer Hall Putsch, The March on Rome, The Spanish Civil War (with the usual caveats about Franco being a fascist or not) and th…
And that is what I came here for! Thank you. In case you are not aware of it, the podcast Revolutions by Mike Dunkan is a great way to learn about, well, revolutions.
But, this early on, one thing I've noticed is that the cycle of revolutions is, well, pretty easy to predict. Brett Deveraux of the ACOUP blog has a good few on the greek idea of stasis. https://acoup.blog/tag/stasis/ . It's application to Duncan's 'Revolutions' is perfectly fitting.
One other thing I've noticed is that in a Revolution, unless you are very wealthy or very lucky or very cunning, the best way to get through a revolution is to get out of it. Go somewhere else, be an expat, write some essays, just don't be anywhere near the mobs or the soldiers.
This has been making the rounds lately, and the use of it hasn't sat well with me. I've struggled to articulate why; gonna try to do so here. The analysis is good, and finally getting to see the original source is better, because what tends to get circulated is way more reductive than this. But it seems like the list gets wielded in a way to stick the 'fascist' label on someone, and not much else. If someone hits 12…
After carefully reading your comment I carefully read all the replies, just to make sure this hasn't been addressed: by focusing on whether this or that item from Eco's list qualifies you individually as a fascist is missing the point. The essay is about movements, not a checklist to asses individual leanings.
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I know this is usually how americans explain democrats vs republicans, but is it really how the parties function? As an outsider (not american) looking in, and judging by the policies of the last couple decades, it seems republicans always increase government spending (therefore they don't actually believe in "small government"), and democrats pretty much rule for the oligarchs (therefore they don't really believe in…
You're making the mistake of believing that the parties represent the sides that exist in America. Most people on the right would disagree that the Republican party represents them, and most of the left would disagree that the Democratic party represents them.
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QAnon is a sort of syncretism for conspiracy theories. It's managed to bring every conspiracy theory into its fold. (And conspiracy theories themselves were already very syncretic!)
Intersectionality is at its root a similarly syncretistic idea and praxis, though obviously it sits on a radically different "side" of the political spectrum than the Qanon nutcases.
Intersectionality isn’t about making any disparate set of things singular, it’s about making solidarity a core principle. Solidarity being inherently an expression of valuing other.
Sure, the other side of the political spectrum has a lot of unifying language but if you spend any time in it you’re quite likely to experience sharp division and disagreement, likely insurmountable. But its center of gravity is solidarity and that keeps even violent threats to bonds at bay.
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This seems to be a fairly common perspective, and I'll try to take it at face value and respond to it in parts. Sorry if I'm late and you got a bunch of other lengthy responses already. > For example, a lot of people who have vocally criticized America in the last 5 years as being a fascist country seem to be pretty opposed to liberal values like freedom of speech and nonviolence with many such people either rational…
> One problem I've had with this perspective is that the BLM movement is ongoing and has developed into a more coherent (but still decentralized) organization Yes, let me be perfectly clear that I'm not arguing that the whole BLM movement is violent. I distinguish carefully and deliberately between peaceful protesters and violent rioters. Certainly the majority was peaceful. Even still, there have been a lot of peopl…
Who have you spoken to who is like this? I identify as an antifascist. I've never thrown a brick or punched a person. Virtually all of my antifascist action involves holding signs or calling businesses. This is true for basically everybody I've ever interacted with who considers themselves an antifascist.
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> One problem I've had with this perspective is that the BLM movement is ongoing and has developed into a more coherent (but still decentralized) organization Yes, let me be perfectly clear that I'm not arguing that the whole BLM movement is violent. I distinguish carefully and deliberately between peaceful protesters and violent rioters. Certainly the majority was peaceful. Even still, there have been a lot of peopl…
> I'm saying that the people who identify with Antifa tend to practice or condone violence Who have you spoken to who is like this? I identify as an antifascist. I've never thrown a brick or punched a person. Virtually all of my antifascist action involves holding signs or calling businesses. This is true for basically everybody I've ever interacted with who considers themselves an antifascist.