"The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition" Umberto Eco

[Hoping4Change]

Yesterday I came across Utne Reader from 1995 in my bookcase. An artcle by Umberto Eco “Eternal Fascism” which was interesting 10 years ago now floors me for lack of a better word. His comments about the “cult of tradition” and the “rejection of modernism” are chilling.


Other tidbits that were "interesting" 10 years ago but now ominous:


* Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.


* The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.


* Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. . . . The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.


* In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.



“Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt”, NYRB 22 June 1995, Utne Reader November-December 1995.


"In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, 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.


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 Blackshirts 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. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.


To read the 14 points go to


http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html


:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[BlueEyedSon]

1. kick, recommended

[Merope215]

2. Umberto Eco is a brilliant writer

and rarely disappoints with his nonfiction and moral writing. I've bookmarked the article, which seems to make some really good, although chilling, points. Thanks so much for posting this.

[Hoping4Change]

3. Your welcome. You may come away after readiang the article

that Eco's middle names is Mostrodamus:) What also stood out for me is that the arguments used by other writers in that issue who took who aim at those expressed concern over lingering Fascism are now moot given what has transpired over the last ten years.

[northamericancitizen]

4. Recommanded. We have to continue informing each other.

"Our duty is to uncover it (fascism) and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world."

[Hoping4Change]

5. Yes that also caught my eye and its difficult because as ne says

"itwould be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares."

This won't be easy even with like minded people. I went to a Democrats Living Abroad event at U of T on Nov 3rd to watch the election results. A woment I was speaking with looked at me as if I were totally out to lunch when I stated that Bush is a fascist. Such an idea seemed utterly preposterous to her.:shrug:

[northamericancitizen]

10. Individuals that don't get it

when it comes to acknowledge the danger of repression creeping out on us, are either not well informed or too scared.

I cannot condemn the ones who become paralyzed when they are scared. Its an emotional state not a reasonable one.

I have more difficulties accepting ignorance.

Asking questions and demanding explanations is what I taught my 2 kids.

lise

[Hoping4Change]

12. There is also wilful ignorance. The woman I talked to was well-heeled

and well-educated but she was not in any willing to enertain the notion that fascism is a clear and presnt danger.

[chookie]

6. Thank you

I am grateful that you shared this important essay with us. I look forward to reading it in its entireity.

What our time will be known as, in the long view of history, is the second rise of fascism in the modern world. Like Nazi Germany, people in the future will be shaking their heads, and wondering how it came to be, and how a once great people declined into madness.

[Hoping4Change]

11. The descent into madness has begun. We are well into it.

What I have understood from Eco, is that people don't embrace fascism per se. What happens is that over time people start accepting certain premises such as doubting rationality and embracing irrationality. I think that is the tipping point.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. exactly.

And it isn't just on the right. Across the board our society has embraced irrationality. I used to think that it didn't matter, but as Eco points out, it does matter. When you have political movements that exploit the irrational for political purposes, you have left the door open for fascism. I am becoming intolerant of lunacy outside of lunatic asylums.

For example I have intelligent liberal jewish relatives (fortunately on my wife's side so I can blame her) who went all orthodox-jewish in the early 90's and sent their kids to religious schools etc. Now they have one kid who is so far right, and so deep into religious idiocy, it isn't funny, and they can't figure out how this happened. I can't figure out how such intelligent people can be so stupid.

[chookie]

7. Does this sound like Fox/CNN or WHAT?!

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. 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.

"News" is a joke anymore. It has degenerated even further, in front of our very eyes. Hundreds of thousands of people march against His Chimperial Majesty, and his NeoCrusades -- and they are ignored or dismissed as meaningless extremists. On the other hand, a few dozen (if that) show up outside a hospice in FL, or outside a courthouse in Alabama, and it is reported for weeks continuously, and we are told that it represents a new way of thinking, a major wave of social change. They can kiss my anti-Fascist ass!

[Hoping4Change]

8. I had the very same reaction reading that paragragh. And get this

Fox News didn't exist when Eco wrote this article. Fox only stated in 1996, Eco wrote this in 1995. I can't get over the fact that Eco wrote this 10 yeasrs ago. If I didn't know the date, I would have thought Eco wrote this last week.

[alfredo]

9. Kick

[satya]

13. Great post--thanks. nt

[seeker4ever]

14. Check this out

http://www.ericblumrich.com/swf/14.swf

[ananda]

16. Did Eco..

.. think of the late dead pope as an ur-fascist?

Anyone who represents and fosters an institution which refuses to allow complete rights and equality to any individual or group is colluding with oppression.. and the pope certainly did that. He was most autocratic and practically totalitarian in his view of the papacy as the final authority and arbiter of questions regarding women, gays, and church leadership.. not tolerant or democratic at all.

Sue

[Hoping4Change]

17. No he wouldn't label the pope as a ur-fascist.

Some brief observations.

* Autocracy is not synonymous with fascism.

* Democracy is a political idea, not a religious one and tolerance is rooted in the Enlightenment not religious dogma so the point you make is moot.

"Eco is septics of simply accepting traditional religion or modernist conclusions, he yet shows himself to be even more suspicious of philosophy which does not seek truth and meaning, but is content with nihilism and the void"


http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_papers_lambros.html

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

18. kick