To escalate the May-Rotenberg debate by reminding that there
are deadly enemies to be exposed and fought together rather
than apart:
To: deleuze-guattari(a)jefferson.village.Virginia.edu>
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 18:15:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Maria Blancato <tblan(a)telerama.lm.com>
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
Umberto Eco, New York Review of Books, excerpted with permission
in the Utne Reader, Nov./Dec. 1995, no. 72, pps. 57-59
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 wold 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.
1.
The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the *cult of tradition*.
Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it
typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French
revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction
to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of
different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the
Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a reelation received at the dawn
of human history. This reelation, according to the traditionalist
mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of
forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes,
in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.
This new culture had to be *syncretistic*. Syncreticism is not only ,
as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief
or practice"; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each
of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although
they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are
nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth
already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep
interpreting its obscure message.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled
New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know,
was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that
is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
2.
Traditionalism implies the *rejection of modernism*. Both Fascist and
Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject
it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though
Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism
was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (*Blut und
Boden*). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of
the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is
seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can
be defined as *irrationalism*.
3.
Irrationalism also depends on the cult of *action for action's sake*.
Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without,
reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is
suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust
of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur_Fascism,
from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play
("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent
use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads,"
"effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official
Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture
and the liberal intelligensia for having betrayed traditional values.
4.
The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign
of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises
disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. for Ur-Fascism,
*disagreement is treason*.
5.
Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and
seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural *fear of
difference*. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist
movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist
by definition.
6.
Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. that is why
one of the most typical features of this 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.
7.
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 to appeal to xenophobia.
But the plot must come from he inside. Jews are usually the best target
because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and
outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot
obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's *The New World Order*,
but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.
8.
The followers must feel *humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and
force of their enemies*. When I was a boy I was taught to think of
Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the
poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a
secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur_Fascism
must also 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. Fascist governments are condemned to
lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively
evaluating the force of the enemy.
9.
For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is
lived for struggle. Thus *pacifism is trafficking with the enemy*.
This is bad because *life is permanent warfare*. This, however, brings
about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there
must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of
the world. But such a "final solution" implies a further era of peace,
a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No
fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.
10.
Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it
is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic
elitism cruelly implies *contempt for the weak*. Ur-Fascism can only
advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people
of the world, the member of the party are the best among the citizens,
every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there
cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing
that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was
conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the
weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a
ruler.
11.
In such a perspective *everybody is educated to become a hero*. In
every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist
ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked
with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the
Spanish Falangist was *Viva la Muerte* ("Long Live Death!"). In
nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is
unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that
it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast,
the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best
reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die.
In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.
12.
Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play,
*the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters*. This
is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and
intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from
chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to
play, the Ur_Fascist hero tends to play with the weapons -- doing
so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
13.
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,
the 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 responses 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.
14.
*Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak*. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in
_1984_, as the official language of what he called Insoc, 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.
But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if
they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.
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 -- ever day, in every part of the world.
Franklin Roosevelt's words on 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, facism will grow in strength in our
land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.
