Countering fascism
The horrifying contours of the Trump administration are emerging. Many of us are asking what now? We know we are facing serious questions. How at a time of such crises can we move toward more human and socially responsible ways of being? Resistance is essential. Yet there are larger concerns that we need to face if we are to understand the depth of the changes we must make to create a better world.
The place to begin is to acknowledge that we are living in an evolving fascist state. Naming Donald Trump a fascist is more than a derogatory label. It enables us to draw upon deep historical experiences and to analyze social dynamics that are particular to fascism as a form of totalitarian governing.
Fascism is a slippery term. As George Orwell noted in his famous essay that it is often employed as an adjective against one’s political enemies. From conservatives to communists, opposition is often labeled fascist. George Bush, for example, labeled Islamic militants “fascists.”
But the difficulty of definition does not render it unimportant. Orwell noted that that even in the jumble of claims and counter claims, there is a common agreement that fascists are synonymous with “bullies.”
Over the years, scholars have attempted to provide greater clarity. Among them is Professor Emeritus of Columbia University, Robert O. Paxton. His book, The Anatomy of Fascism, is especially useful in understanding the deep seated social dynamics shaping this moment. Paxton understands that fascism was a unique political innovation of the 20th Century, and that the conditions that gave it birth have intensified in the 21st Century.
Paxton helps us think beyond the power of individual leaders and to look at larger social forces. In her New York Times essay written in 2004 when the book first appeared, Samatha Power wrote:
One of Paxton's main contributions is to focus less on the ''Duce myth'' and the ''Führer myth'' and more on the indispensable ''conservative complicities'' behind the fascist takeovers. Paxton debunks the consoling fiction that Mussolini and Hitler seized power. Rather, conservative elites desperate to subdue leftist populist movements ''normalized'' the fascists by inviting them to share power. It was the mob that flocked to fascism, but the elites who elevated it.
Paxton offers a definition of fascism that is critical for us today. He says that fascism is:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
A companion to Paxton is the work of Hannah Arendt. Her Origins of Totalitarianism helps us think about the roots of fascism in modern capitalist societies. In a wonderful essay discussing the connection between loneliness and fascism, Sean Illing and Lyndsey Stonebridge highlight the individualistic grounds of fascism. They quote Arendt who offers, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, in other words, the reality of experience, and the distinction between true and false ... people for whom those distinctions no longer exist.”
Arendt grapples with the cultural forces that give rise to isolated individuals within mass society, or what she calls the “unorganized mass” of “mostly furious individuals with nothing in common except for their contempt for the present order.”
In this individualized, capitalist, consumer culture she identifies the “negative solidarity” that is the “raw material of totalitarianism, because it’s a world without connection and friendship, where the only basis of collective action is some kind of awful combination of anger and desperation.”
Some commentators today recognize the destruction of a social reality but incorrectly view it as a sign of ignorance or stupidity. Arendt offers a different perspective. Stonebridge summaries “Often the question is, well, how can people be so stupid? How can anyone fall for this? That’s the wrong way to think about it. Totalitarian politics is a verdict against the world in which people are forced to live. It’s a slap in the face. It’s a finger up against the real conditions of existence.”
The ability to overrun reality begins with the destruction of the relations among people and in their own capacity for judgement. It is this loss of confidence in “self” and in one’s own judgment that forms the basis of fascism. For with this loss of self comes with the loss our ability to be “trusting and trustworthy”.
Creating relationships of experienced community are essential now. If we are to develop a shared understanding of the world in which live, the people we love, and the future we hope to create, communities of respect, care and joy are essential first steps.