The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 134
Fascism wasn’t just a “bad thing” that happened in the first half of the twentieth century, and it’s not just a bogus word the Left throws around today about everyone and everything it doesn’t like. It was an explicit totalitarian ideology of state power that arose as a reaction to Communist provocation and libertine excesses in the 1920s and 1930s. That doesn’t go far enough in describing it, though. It is, in fact, the dialectical antithesis of Marxism and libertinistic “liberalism,” which is to say that it is an ideology that has many things in common with Marxism while positioning itself as its philosophical and political opposite. In fact, Fascism is a form of idolatry: idolatry of a state acting as God the Father of a people whose lives are given meaning by submitting fully to its advancement and glory. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay reads through Benito Mussolini’s Doctrine of Fascism to make it very clear what Fascism is in every regard and why it’s nothing like a good answer for Americans beset by Woke Marxism today. Join him to understand this crucially important issue.
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11 comments
Dear Sociologist.
I hope that by „Mr S“ you mean me.
Thank you for your response.
Herr Schütze
Dear Herr Schutze.
Yes it was & so be it if that should be way to address your good self.
Dear Mr S
It certainly feels like all those countries endured national socialist like infiltration perhaps via syndicalism, concerning industries and amenities, and a few other ways to perpetually lurk.
I had seen part of that sloterdijk interview Jan 2023. His analog ”Resentment is dangerous, because it resembles a fossil energy” was striking. And interesting since there is reason to suspect that something that happened in WW2 is destabilising the world right now. Perhaps since ‘A’ are not happy that ‘B’ can seem to be able to afford another war without having cleaned up after last time.
This quote from sloterdijk is also intriguing :
”The gesture of exposure characterises the style of argumentation of ideology critique, from the critique of religion in the eighteenth century to the critique of fascism in the twentieth. Everywhere, one discovers extrarational mechanisms of opinion: interests, passions, fixations, illusions. That helps a bit to mitigate the scandalous contradiction between the postulated unity of truth and the factual plurality of opinions—since it cannot be eliminated. Under these assumptions, a true theory would be one that not only grounds its own theses best, but also knows how to defuse all significant and persistent counterpositions through ideology critique”
If measured against your :
”In this topic, therefore, we are dealing with two three-steps: (1.) an inner or smaller and temporally closer together three-step and (2.) an outer or larger and temporally more distant three-step, which superimposes the other. According to this insight, fascism/national-socialism can only be an opponent of capitalism indirectly, namely in its superimposed form; it is directly an opponent of communism/international-socialism, and as such it came into being, as a reaction to communism/international-socialism.”
In the wake of the last 25 years i’d tend agree with rationale pointing either of these analogs. Both support sociological ecological creep gradually intersecting concentric society until consensus moves into this ‘superposition’ you mention. This seems to mean that a permissive society who believe the consented to radical socialism can be made not to understand the actual symmetry & movement to fascism. If per chance the some throw in some obscure linguistic @ tactical points they then might claim full mandate for it all. People slowly regimented to feel comfortable with flowing along like grains of sand in an hourglass. Most people are never even slightly fascinated by pure phenomena like ( say ) self organised criticality – and why should they. The trouble with WW is it loves to take advantage of the peaceful majority who simply want to live, and do not even wish to be concerned for what the human mind can do. As of this moment the main perpetual human (MPH) is under scrutiny for a tediously contrived range of exclusion misanthropy. In fascism this has meant that a force of ( lets just say ) ‘inclusion’ i.e ones who will turn against fellow human MPH – are prepared in advance.
Thus obtaining a ‘Yes’ to national socialism ( when they mean Fascism ) from a vast majority who are intoxicated with the need NOT to need war is a sophisticated creep up on them / us business. I feel its possible that plenty NOT – MPH i,e educated people like James are also concerned and offended by the clear war cries this learning enables. I’m not sure how many an intellect reaches to the very root of crime against humanity offence given that % of MPH are vulnerable to ‘Inclusion / Reaction’, It does not make intellectual sense to be split if one knows how existential crisis was stirred in many of these, if fact lack of vision there simply illustrates level of intellectual limit. So be it – intersectional lines have geometry obscured by lack of the right information. This ‘National Socialist’ oxymoron ultra anti social war project had never been discussed, rather as well over a century of wood wormish collectivist/ syndicalism enemy within whittling at sovereignty free speech & human rights.
Is it true that the people of the United States of America and others (e.g. United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) have only experienced capitalism, never communism/international-socialism or fascism/national-socialism?
If you look at the surface of their history, you would like to say: Yes. But if you look deeper, you will find that since the end of the Second World War or at the latest since the 1960s they have been experiencing what has been experienced in continental Europe since the French Revolution (1789) or at the latest since the Russian Revolution (1917). History somehow repeats itself – on a large and small scale. In this case it started with early socialism as thesis (at the same time as capitalism as a thesis), then high socialism as antithesis (communism/international-socialism and its own antithesis, fascism/national-socialism) and finally late socialism, which can be seen in the statements at the WEF, and these statements show the synthesis of the thesis of capitalism and early socialism and the antithesis of communism/international-socialism and fascism/national-socialism. You can also read it e.g. in Klaus Schwab’s last books and also in those of Noah Yuval Harari.
In this topic, therefore, we are dealing with two three-steps: (1.) an inner or smaller and temporally closer together three-step and (2.) an outer or larger and temporally more distant three-step, which superimposes the other. According to this insight, fascism/national-socialism can only be an opponent of capitalism indirectly, namely in its superimposed form; it is directly an opponent of communism/international-socialism, and as such it came into being, as a reaction to communism/international-socialism.
If the thesis is capitalism, the antithesis of which is communism/international-socialism and both synthesis is fascism/national-socialism, then fascism/national-socialism cannot be communism/international socialism, because it is not identical with it, it is its negation. Only communism/international-socialism is „based upon the denial of private property rights“ (**). We also have empirical evidence for this. I give four of several examples, ordered by the duration of fascist/national-socialist rule:
Portugal: 42 years (1932-1974);
Spain: 39 years (1936-1975);
Italy: 21 years (1922-1945);
Germany: 12 years (1933-1945).
In none of these countries has private property been abolished. And if you want to tell me then that the duration of these systems was not long enough for that, I answer you with three arguments: (1) in all of the named countries, but especially in Spain and Portugal the systems lasted long enough to support my assertion; (2.) the fascist/national-socialist systems are not very much economic, but almost only political dictatorships, they do not destroy the market, but leave it room for manoeuvre, restrict it only where it seems necessary from a political point of view (and from this point of view, by the way, there have been restrictions on the market in continental Europe even after the end of the respective fascist/national-socialist systems – „social market economy“ is what they call it -, again and again, even more so today). (3.) Communism/international-socialism, on the other hand, had from the beginning nothing better to do than to abolish private property in the first place, although there was almost no private property in Russia or later also in China, which is why a farmer with a cow was allowed to be shot, for example in the Ukraine, because he was considered a „class enemy“, a „citizen“, a „capitalist“; the expropriation of these expropriators took place from the very beginning, so that immediately, from 1917 (beginning in Russia), one could see what communism/international-socialism was all about: Expropriation of the so-called „expropriators“ through murder and terror!
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8x-cp7SXAs%2B&t=1209s .
Dear COl – thank you for that.
Fascism understood in any narrow context is difficult in the extreme since it hardly stands still on anything but requires everything. Historically no illustration shows any fascism that didn’t need to seize control of every other politic thus advocating them all at random.
My belief is that there is little truth out there about it in a classic case of discountenance * obfuscation. If the topic develops i’d be happy to give further opinion.
“The Global Empire of Palestine
The Palestinians have something better than a state. They have the backing of today’s worldwide power brokers.”
Lee Smith, tablet magazine Dec 2023
“By promoting the Palestinians’ cause [in the 1970s], the Europeans joined them in creating the prototype of ‘Third World man.’ The collaboration served the narcissism of Western elites, and the political ambitions of the Western-educated elites of the ‘decolonized’ world who weaponized their resentment to extract money and arms from their onetime overlords. A century removed from the apex of their strength, and their will to defend a civilization built by better men long depleted, Western elites’ self-image is sustained by Third World man. By attributing to Westerners responsibility for his suffering, Third World man fathoms the reservoir of their once formidable power and hints they may again someday be replenished… Western vanity [is] the source of Third World man’s magic.
Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Lobaczewski… argued that what he called macrosocial evil is the function of pathologically evil individuals. They disguise their true ambitions for power, wealth, and notoriety behind ideology, using terms like ‘social justice’ which are vague enough to convey the righting of wrongs, to animate social movements united by grievance. Inside these movements, genuine psychopaths and those who adapt most easily to a pathological order rise to positions of power and influence. Evangelizing on behalf of deviant and destructive causes and desecrating, or criminalizing, what is true, beautiful, and natural, in turn lays waste to social structures, institutions, industries, entire nations. The rise of the Empire of Palestine represents this pathological process on a global scale…
The Empire of Palestine is a… forgery. A postcard from the continent of unreason… everywhere you look the mark of civilizational suicide is on the horizon as Western elites assemble under the imperial banner. Flown in European capitals and university campuses, it represents the longings of a powerful faction within the West of those exhausted by life and wanting one last time to feel something like life coursing through their veins as they await the cleansing fire, redemption culminating in the coup de grace.”
Thank you again for the kind words previously.
Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Lobaczewski certainly airs enough reasonable hypothesis for a depopulation & lap up the spoils of war program there. I doubt such specially prepare hate optimised little helpers get to enjoy it afterwards, They’d go under by the regime for precisely the reasons they were deployed to destroy others..
@Cameron,
You commented “… fascism is a combination of capitalism & socialism…”
That is incorrect. Fascism, like Socialism and Communism, is based upon the denial of private property rights. Fascism permits the surface appearance of private property ownership while the State controls–thereby factually owns–the property. Socialism and Communism flat-out deny private property rights, making no pretense of private ownership. These three expressions of Statism are antithetical to Capitalism, which is based upon private property rights, which make possible the physical exercise of all of one’s other legitimate individual rights, to wit: self-ownership and bodily autonomy; personal liberty; privacy; self-defense; ownership and bearing of any and all types of weapons in any quantity; freedom of speech in all forms; freedom of association; freedom of non-association, including peaceful discrimination for any reason whatsoever; and freedom of contract. Theocracy is a religious expression of Statism that denies those same rights. Atheism, properly understood, is a metaphysical position, not a political one. Statists politicize it by coercively imposing it upon people, as Bolsheviks did when they established Soviet Russia.
Dear COL
A lull again but hopefully further compelling statements like yours will result.
This seemed worthy of its own category :
”Atheism, properly understood, is a metaphysical position, not a political one”
Concerning ‘Atheism’ both of those were the exception rather than the rule i.e neither were involved most times.
With New Atheism BOTH apply & both are involved all the time unless the new atheist influencer is brain dead like the followers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6lsyAcUnJQ
Its really excellent James many thanks but for goodness sake James you’ve just realised there is common garden fascism in the weave ?
What did you think the WEF et al were otherwise ?
James – fascism is a combination of capitalism & socialism at its core there is no hermeticism involved whatsoever. The reason that soft core is hard to notice is that fascists ultimately assassinate the position in order to combine the politics. And the problem is there is no bone fide idealogical position since the object is to loot the continent.
Modern fascism hasn’t had to destroy the opposition yet as they bribed them to combine behind all our backs & thats the only difference between now in the 3rd Reich. They might still wipe them out who knows with those dictators. Meanwhile the world forums are able to be fascist by being capitalist ultra’s / AND socialist ultras.- running an algorithm that process a collective price index that has double and tripled the price of the products for the corporations in a safe manner i.e they ALL increase as part of one membership base. AND running and algorithm that pumps our totalitarianism.
You’ve made a right convoluted mess of this, The most important definition of fascism is that the regime wishes to reach totalitarian status therefore wants to be in the position to control every form of political message. Thus Fascists always eliminate all the opposing politics & then become the TOTAL. In these days they are buying off the opposition in europe and running the SECRET PARTY i.e everyone is secretly in it.
In the usa thats largely the case also, particularly since 2016 when globalist partnerships very much passed an event horizon in terms of a european / american collaboration in totalitarianism. And to date there are far more non compliant in the USA than there are in europe as the matter is newer. The problem with totalitarianism rising europe has gone on since 1948. That may sound wrong but just after WW2 the consortium concerned was wealthier than it had ever been & was able to reboot a political version of exactly the same thing immediately.
Unfortunately that project is coming of age & has pulled the usa in.
Oh and btw those matters you correctly point out concerning the state as a God. It tends to default that way so long as heavy anti god totalitarian makes that happen.
And that why you should KNOW that New Atheism was and is a fascist totalitarian thought crime design agency that looked after this end of the transition.
FACE IT JAMES – ITS NOT EASY BUT HEY UR GREAT SO ITS OK – AND PUT THAT TO DAWKINS.