Howl of the Day: Nov 30, 2016
There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
In 1995, the late Umberto Eco wrote an essay on what he called “Ur-Fascism”. What he meant by this term is the fuzzy constellation of ideas and feelings out of which fascism grows. “[B]ehind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives.” In the case of fascism, this is Ur-Fascism.
Eco’s essay is as relevant today as when he wrote it. Indeed, with the election of Trump, and the debate over to what degree it is fair to call him or his positions “fascist,” it is extremely timely. (A topic we have covered a number of times before.)
The key insight of the essay is that fascism, and the underlying mode of thinking that gives rise to it, are impossible to clearly define, because they embrace many contradictory elements. “Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions.”
This internal tension also explains why the term “fascist” became a catch-all for authoritarian movements as diverse as Nazism, Falangism, or the Ustaše:
“There was only one Nazism. We cannot label Franco’s hyper-Catholic Falangism as Nazism, since Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian. But the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. ….
“Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes.”
Eco, who grew up under Mussolini’s fascist regime in Italy, was intimately familiar with the hazy nature of fascistic thought. And as a semiotician, he understood that vague and often contradictory statements of the fascists still contained a pointed message. “Fascism was philosophically out of joint, but emotionally it was firmly fastened to some archetypal foundations.”
So, rather than trying to pin down a definition of what exactly fascism is, Eco instead tried to understand its emotional foundations, the sort of general worldview that points towards fascism.
“… in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”
Eco’s list is fascinating, both in its own right, and as an explanation of why so many feel there is something fascistic about Donald Trump and his campaign. For while some of what Eco sees as typical features of Ur-Fascism clearly do not apply to Trump (try to imagine him shouting ““Long Live Death!” at a rally, or telling his supporters “there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle”), others seem to be describing him and his supporters exactly.
The whole essay is well worth reading, but below are a few of the more provocative excerpts:
Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old “proletarians” are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.
To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.
The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. … However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.
Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against “rotten” parliamentary governments. … Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.
Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.
Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world.
(Image: The headquarters of Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Party, 1934.)
Beyond ur-fascism, and in terms of historical fascism proper, one could add some other defining features:
– One of the most central factors is ethnonationalist and patriotic political religion, with all its chauvinistic, militaristic, and often imperialistic and colonial pomp, official symbolism, public ritual, demonstrations of shared identity (authoritarian conformity), displays of power, and celebrations of greatness that requires the scapegoating, sacrifice, and elimination (e.g., eugenics) of those who don’t match the ideal citizen and insider. This relates to the rejection of diversity, selective (pseudo-)populism, popular elitism, hero worship, and the cult of (pseudo-)tradition (revisionist history, nostalgic fantasies); but extends beyond them. It places the bureaucratic nation-state, represented by a strongman personality cult, at the center of this political religion.
– Although responding to criticisms and worries about the destabilizing forces of laissez-faire market capitalism (inequality, desperate poverty, plutocracy, monopolies, capitalist realism, etc), the socioeconomic order is ultimately corporatist capitalism, with big biz serving big gov, and while maintaining private ownership and a market economy; although upholding the ideal of the worker-citizen and making gestures toward improving worker conditions (e.g., German Joy). But as the populism is selective so is the rejection of modernism, with only a thin veneer of pseudo-traditionalism. Fascists often pushed for modernization through progressive-like reforms of economic renewal, efficiency improvements, infrastructure building, urbanization, industrialization, scientific research, and technological development.
– It’s primarily motivated by what Corey Robin calls the reactionary mind and it’s tendency to co-opt rhetoric, hence the seeming ideological inconsistencies. In terms of social science research, this is represented by what I’d call the dark political triad of traits (sociopolitical conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation), the twin of the dark personality triad of traits (psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism). All of these would measure higher in a fascist or any other similar kind of society. That is because the same conditions increase them. For example, where there is higher rates of infectious diseases, as happened in early 20th century urbanization (tuberculosis, neurasthenia, etc), studies show that there is an increase of all three traits of the dark political triad.