Fascism!

[droid]

Why are people referencing TNR here as if it isn't some kind of right wing rag whose editor in chief is a peddler of hardcore Zionist propaganda?

 

[josef k.]

But ultimately, is a hipster fascist still a fascist? I'd say no, and that without a social existance, without a real mass movement (and this goes for the BNP as well, to the extent they are fascists and not just un-educated racists), fascism is just idle fantasy.

I agree it is a bit mad to make such a leap... it is very possible that the term "fascist" is frankly useless... I'm not sure anything in this thread so far has suggested the contrary... Which is, of course, okay. But it raises a question. Perhaps our political language is really not adequate to describing our real political situation.

 

[jambo]

Is that last sentence really true, though? Look at Britain, and how many people here read the Daily Mail, the Express, the Sun, the Telegraph - it'd be a gross exaggeration to call most of them fascists, though presumably some of them are (on the basis that BNP members probably don't take the Guardian), but by definition most of them are going to be pretty reactionary.

He means when fascist power exists it is supported by the masses of people.

Perhaps it would be better to read the whole book () but his thesis was that 'fascism' has an emotional basis that is there in the predominant character structure of people in an authoritarian society (I think he would characterise our own as such). Fascist power does not necessarily follow, but it would not do so at all if the emotional appeals of the dictator did not erm, resonate or have some purchase with a twisted impulse that was already there, if you see what I mean.

 

[john eden]

Um, here's the ADD version.

http://www.notbored.org/reich.html

Ha ha - that's pretty good!

The Mass Psychology of Fascism is great from what I can remember about it. We part ways when it comes to orgone energy and the later stuff on weather control and all that but he was definitely onto something with sexual repression and fascism.

There is also a quote from him saying something like revolutionaries are a load of shit because they operate in way which is completely divorced from working class people's lives and drives.

 

[vimothy]

He means when fascist power exists it is supported by the masses of people.

Perhaps it would be better to read the whole book () but his thesis was that 'fascism' has an emotional basis that is there in the predominant character structure of people in an authoritarian society (I think he would characterise our own as such). Fascist power does not necessarily follow, but it would not do so at all if the emotional appeals of the dictator did not erm, resonate or have some purchase with a twisted impulse that was already there, if you see what I mean.

I think that atavistic mass appeal is a defining characteristic of fascism.

 

[josef k.]

Why are people referencing TNR here as if it isn't some kind of right wing rag whose editor in chief is a peddler of hardcore Zionist propaganda?

The TNR is basically center-right - with an extreme Zionist tendency that tends to warp it politically on certain matters. For the record, I think the "anti-semitism" charge against Zizek is pretty absurd, and emanates from this.

 

[josef k.]

I think that atavistic mass appeal is a defining characteristic of fascism.

What do you mean by "atavistic mass appeal"?

 

[vimothy]

What do you mean by "atavistic mass appeal"?

 

[jambo]

Fascist rhetoric does more often than not appeal to the idea of a mythic golden age and notions of 'purity'. Not sure if this is always present though.

From a psychological perspective, golden age = the womb? Purity = when it was just you and yer mum?

 

[vimothy]

But it raises a question. Perhaps our political language is really not adequate to describing our real political situation.

But on the other hand, what's the difference between thinking you're a Marxist and actually being a Marxist? 25 years?

 

[josef k.]

But on the other hand, what's the difference between thinking you're a Marxist and actually being a Marxist? 25 years?

Maybe not - maybe there were never really any Marxists in the first place. Maybe politics is never - has never - been about personal symbolic identities...

Just a thought. Probably wrong.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Zizek also is in favor of a small authoritarian clique. This position is tacit as well, I believe, in the minds of many of his academic readers - who believe in a more or less unconscious fashion that the academically educated and philosophically informed should take command...

Haha, not a new idea by any means, this - didn't Plato, in his 'Republic', write about idealised future states that would be ruled by 'philosopher-kings'? And to think that this idea was thought up by a philosopher, of all people!

 

[josef k.]

Fascist rhetoric does more often than not appeal to the idea of a mythic golden age and notions of 'purity'. Not sure if this is always present though.

From a psychological perspective, golden age = the womb? Purity = when it was just you and yer mum?

You can have a tacit assumption of purity without invoking it explicitly. This might be: "We are outside the games, outside the material supports and structures that constitute our own experiences."

For instance, in the case of the professor - someone with tenure really has no use at all for the capitalist market, and thus it is quite easy to see how they can freely condemn it. But this condemnation is hinged on their own particular status, which tends to be effaced from their arguments, in the context of presenting these in arguments as in some sense pure, and free from self-interest.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The Mass Psychology of Fascism is great from what I can remember about it. We part ways when it comes to orgone energy and the later stuff on weather control and all that but he was definitely onto something with sexual repression and fascism.

I've been watching a lot of Jonathon Meades lately, and in one instalment he says "Societies that tolerate prostitution do not commit genocides", and contrasts the louche-n-sleazy (but, from the rest of the world's POV, harmless) Weimar Republic with the 'morally upright' (ahem!) Nazis that succeeded them. Interesting point, anyway.

 

[jambo]

You can have a tacit assumption of purity without invoking it explicitly. This might be: "We are outside the games, outside the material supports and structures that constitute our own experiences."

For instance, in the case of the professor - someone with tenure really has no use at all for the capitalist market, and thus it is quite easy to see how they can freely condemn it. But this condemnation is hinged on their own particular status, which tends to be effaced from their arguments, in the context of presenting these in arguments as in some sense pure, and free from self-interest.

Not sure that aspirations towards ideological purity are quite the same as ideas of 'racial purity', although I guess they are related at some level.

In practice I would tend to agree about the academic with tenure but the other way to look at it, and the way they would presumably justify it themselves, is that such a position offers a privileged vantage point to critique society and ideology from slightly outside. Analogous to the druid or shaman perhaps?

 

[matt b]

Interesting thing about this is that whenever he mentions postmodernity/ism, it's always with contempt; he professes to hate it, like it's part of the larger 'enemy' (liberal capitalist democracy, of course). Can anyone more familiar with the guy shed some light on this? Is he a 'postmodern' thinker (or 'thinker'), despite his what he claims?

he's an 'intellectual' with posts in universities, who writes books about the matrix, titanic etc. ding! PoMo!

his world view is essentially that of an unreconstructed marxist, who couches that position in semi-impenetrable language. ding! PoMo! (he is a rarity in that he admits to his belief in the structural marxist view).

PoMo is both a broad school (i'd include post-structuralism under that heading, for ease of use), as well as 'a condition'. not to mention architecture etc etc.

 

[matt b]

I'm not sure if they are Marxists... Though I recognize that they certainly seem to appear this way. But I'm not even sure if it's still really possible to BE a Marxist.

i don't think this matters tbh

 

[josef k.]

Not sure that aspirations towards ideological purity are quite the same as ideas of 'racial purity', although I guess they are related at some level.

In practice I would tend to agree about the academic with tenure but the other way to look at it, and the way they would presumably justify it themselves, is that such a position offers a privileged vantage point to critique society and ideology from slightly outside. Analogous to the druid or shaman perhaps?

Those are two very interesting points. Within a classical fascist conceptual matrix, ideology and race often tend to bleed into each other. For instance, "communism" is considered a sort of Jewish sickness. The concept of race within fascism (or at least, Nazism) is held as more real and fundamental than the concept of ideology. So I think the purity point ports.

As regards the "outside position" - this may well be right, but this is exactly what I, for one, would deny - there is no "outside" position. Society includes the academy too.

 

[jambo]

he's an 'intellectual' with posts in universities, who writes books about the matrix, titanic etc. ding! PoMo!

his world view is essentially that of an unreconstructed marxist, who couches that position in semi-impenetrable language. ding! PoMo! (he is a rarity in that he admits to his belief in the structural marxist view).

PoMo is both a broad school (i'd include post-structuralism under that heading, for ease of use), as well as 'a condition'. not to mention architecture etc etc.

None of us can avoid being in the postmodern era, we are all postmodern whether we like it or not. We can oppose this condition but also cannot do so without recognising its symptoms. In all fairness I think that's what Zizek does in this respect. I do have issues with his use of Hollywood movies as a barometer of ideology because I think he overestimates the extent to which they actually represent the culture. Hollywood is corporate culture, not mass culture.

 

[josef k.]

i don't think this matters tbh

I think it matters, because saying something "as a Marxist" is factor conditioning my approach to what I might say. The statement: "As a Marxist, I believe that the cherry 7-up is a socialist drink" is different from the same statement absent of its first clause.