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doctorphibes · 08-20-2003, 10:36 AM

Oh for crying out loud Rabbit, there's no need for insults.

Sorry for asking people to, you know, read, or something. Or at least think for themselves. I was just pointing out that the article is based on a "classical" definition of Fascism, indeed, but not the one the author cites. If you really want me to dispute the definition, then you asked for it....

Academics (particularly in the Anglophone countries, like I said) tried to understand Fascism by putting together "theories" of its rise and character. The first efforts turned on the conviction that collective behavior was a function of moral beliefs. Fascism was identified as "bad," the consequence of the disillusionment suffered by humankind because of the prodigal waste of life during the four years of international conflict. The transparent immorality of the war had rendered humankind indifferent to violence and death.

When this was considered too "thin" an account, Freudian psychoanalysis was pressed into service and the "family drama" was chosen as the root cause of aberrant behavior. Check out Peter Nathan's The Psychology of Fascism (1943) for perhaps the most notorious expression, but that was quickly followed by Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism (1946) which was hardly more profound.

The trouble with these accounts is that they "proved" too much. Everyone seemed to be a potential fascist at least since the time the "family"came into being (with a father and mother or mothers). Wherever there was constraint on the maturing sexuality of the male, there was created a reservoir of hatred of authority (displaced from the father) and a loving devotion for the mother(land). Revolutionaries were the "necessary" byproduct. Once the Oedipal issue had been resolved, the revolutionaries recreated the "family." The revolutionaries were the "fathers" controlling and directing the lives of their "children" (through dictatorial means), and they demanded obedience and servitude from their charges. Everyone was to love the "Motherland" without reservation.

So how was Fascism different from Marxism-Leninism? How was Fascism different from democratic capitalism? I mean, aren't Americans expected to love their "country"? Do we have a "father" of our country? If these characteristics are the same for all ideologies (which you certainly can argue, if you accept the basic premise), doesn't that mean that America is, in fact, Marxist as well? In "proving" too much, these explanations do not prove anything at all.

When one invokes morality, the situation is even more confusing. If Fascists are bad because they are disillusioned with Judeo-Christian beliefs, what can we say about ourselves? If one pays the least bit of attention to domestic critics, such as the author of this article, the United States exploits the poor of the world, engages in wars that cost millions of lives in order to maintain those exploitative practices, etc. That is why left-wing (for lack of a better term) critics often choose to refer to the United States and its policies as "fascist." That kind of talk is licensed by just these kind of "explanations."

In effect, these kinds of "explanation" do not succeed in explaining anything. They are unpersuasive. They can be used to "explain" anything the speaker chooses. That is why they were rapidly supplemented by alternative accounts: those that were empirical (rather than normative or essentially speculative).

That is why I recommended people read the original source material, and not just something that some guy somewhere wrote. In effect, you are merely reintrepreting something that was intrepreted from an intrepretation of (most likely) a translated piece. And that is only if the orginator of the thought bothered to check the piece to begin with, which I sincerely doubt.

I don't agree with all of Payne's conclusions, of course, but his research into Spanish (Franco's, really) history is quite sound. Too bad the article misapplies his characteristics of a fascist regime, as did an earlier poster in this thread. Not to be a broken record, but I'd urge you to check out his actual work, as well as that of Ken Jowett or Gregor (see above), and perhaps Chalmers Johnson. See if you *really* think a totalitarian, Fascist revolution is possible in the US after that.

And of course, if you speaka da language, Fascist thought was largely based on the works of Giovanni Gentile, Giuseppe Mazzini, Enrico Corradini, and Alfredo Rocco. Plus the Syndicalists (look it up if you don't know the history that well) based their idea of collective consciousness on Georges Sorel, who can be considered an expansion of Marxist thought. For that matter, then, you might want to read The Communist Manifesto, because while practically everybody "read" it in school, hardly anyone actually did. Anyway, the Italians at least started as Marxists, and much of their ideology was founded on that.

Errr, that was rather long, wasn't it? Well, I hope it made my position a little clearer. If you really want me to go through the article and refute what I disagree with, then give me a day, I haven't really written this stuff out since I was an undergraduate.

And let's try to keep it a leeetle civil, hmmm?

08-20-2003, 10:36 AM	#39 (permalink)
doctorphibes Crazy	Oh for crying out loud Rabbit, there's no need for insults. Sorry for asking people to, you know, read, or something. Or at least think for themselves. I was just pointing out that the article is based on a "classical" definition of Fascism, indeed, but not the one the author cites. If you really want me to dispute the definition, then you asked for it.... Academics (particularly in the Anglophone countries, like I said) tried to understand Fascism by putting together "theories" of its rise and character. The first efforts turned on the conviction that collective behavior was a function of moral beliefs. Fascism was identified as "bad," the consequence of the disillusionment suffered by humankind because of the prodigal waste of life during the four years of international conflict. The transparent immorality of the war had rendered humankind indifferent to violence and death. When this was considered too "thin" an account, Freudian psychoanalysis was pressed into service and the "family drama" was chosen as the root cause of aberrant behavior. Check out Peter Nathan's The Psychology of Fascism (1943) for perhaps the most notorious expression, but that was quickly followed by Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism (1946) which was hardly more profound. The trouble with these accounts is that they "proved" too much. Everyone seemed to be a potential fascist at least since the time the "family"came into being (with a father and mother or mothers). Wherever there was constraint on the maturing sexuality of the male, there was created a reservoir of hatred of authority (displaced from the father) and a loving devotion for the mother(land). Revolutionaries were the "necessary" byproduct. Once the Oedipal issue had been resolved, the revolutionaries recreated the "family." The revolutionaries were the "fathers" controlling and directing the lives of their "children" (through dictatorial means), and they demanded obedience and servitude from their charges. Everyone was to love the "Motherland" without reservation. So how was Fascism different from Marxism-Leninism? How was Fascism different from democratic capitalism? I mean, aren't Americans expected to love their "country"? Do we have a "father" of our country? If these characteristics are the same for all ideologies (which you certainly can argue, if you accept the basic premise), doesn't that mean that America is, in fact, Marxist as well? In "proving" too much, these explanations do not prove anything at all. When one invokes morality, the situation is even more confusing. If Fascists are bad because they are disillusioned with Judeo-Christian beliefs, what can we say about ourselves? If one pays the least bit of attention to domestic critics, such as the author of this article, the United States exploits the poor of the world, engages in wars that cost millions of lives in order to maintain those exploitative practices, etc. That is why left-wing (for lack of a better term) critics often choose to refer to the United States and its policies as "fascist." That kind of talk is licensed by just these kind of "explanations." In effect, these kinds of "explanation" do not succeed in explaining anything. They are unpersuasive. They can be used to "explain" anything the speaker chooses. That is why they were rapidly supplemented by alternative accounts: those that were empirical (rather than normative or essentially speculative). That is why I recommended people read the original source material, and not just something that some guy somewhere wrote. In effect, you are merely reintrepreting something that was intrepreted from an intrepretation of (most likely) a translated piece. And that is only if the orginator of the thought bothered to check the piece to begin with, which I sincerely doubt. I don't agree with all of Payne's conclusions, of course, but his research into Spanish (Franco's, really) history is quite sound. Too bad the article misapplies his characteristics of a fascist regime, as did an earlier poster in this thread. Not to be a broken record, but I'd urge you to check out his actual work, as well as that of Ken Jowett or Gregor (see above), and perhaps Chalmers Johnson. See if you really think a totalitarian, Fascist revolution is possible in the US after that. And of course, if you speaka da language, Fascist thought was largely based on the works of Giovanni Gentile, Giuseppe Mazzini, Enrico Corradini, and Alfredo Rocco. Plus the Syndicalists (look it up if you don't know the history that well) based their idea of collective consciousness on Georges Sorel, who can be considered an expansion of Marxist thought. For that matter, then, you might want to read The Communist Manifesto, because while practically everybody "read" it in school, hardly anyone actually did. Anyway, the Italians at least started as Marxists, and much of their ideology was founded on that. Errr, that was rather long, wasn't it? Well, I hope it made my position a little clearer. If you really want me to go through the article and refute what I disagree with, then give me a day, I haven't really written this stuff out since I was an undergraduate. And let's try to keep it a leeetle civil, hmmm?