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Monday, April 25, 2005
An interesting and useful definition
"...Feelings propel fascism more than thought does. We might call them mobilizing passions, since they function in fascist movements to recruit followers in fascist movements to recruit followers and in fascist regimes to "weld" the fascist "tribe" to its leader. The following mobilizing passions are present in fascisms, though they may sometimes be articulated only implicitly:
1. The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual.
2. The belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action against the group's enemies, internal as well as external.
3. Dread of the group's decadence under the corrosive effect of individualistic and cosmopolitan liberalism.
4. Closer integration of the community within a brotherhood (fascio) whose unity and purity are forged by common conviction, if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary.
5. An enhanced sense of identity and belonging, in which the grandeur of the group reinforces individual self-esteem.
6. Authority of natural leaders (always male) throughout society, culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group's destiny.
7. The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group's success in a Darwinian struggle."
Robert Paxton's excellent "Anatomy of Fascism" quoted by David Neiwert in Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis : IV : Tracking Fascism
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| "The racial
bigot identifies another race as being less than he or
even as worthless sub-human flesh. So it is clear that
the bigot is not "one of them." Racial and ethnic bigots
find support and common cause with one another. They
feed each other's need to feel superior to another racial
or ethnic group. This is of course fear-based
behavior that flows from their own sense of
powerlessness over their own lives."
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