The best one I've seen so far is Robert Paxton's definition from The Anatomy of Fascism:
>"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."
by Stoicpeace 2019-11-17
>Maybe you should read Lawrence Britt's The 14 Characteristics of Fascism.
I have read it and quite frankly it seems odd that you say India is headed towards fascism based on that list as many of the things listed in it applies to many democracies especially India(and have been a part of this country long before BJP) and some don't apply at all especially the 14th point.
Maybe you should read something better and more detailed, like this perhaps.
>but I'll take the words of someone like Amartya Sen over some Redditor.
Great economist but he doesn't exactly make great suggestions when it comes to Indian politics. Quite frankly even as someone who dislikes hardcore Sanghis, I have to say people like you are the reason that there's belief that liberals in this country are out of touch with the common man and his struggles.
Everything you've posted here from stuff about your lifestyle to your poltical views(citizen of the world crap) just reeks of privilege, naivete and most importantly of all ignorance.
by PPewt 2019-11-17
>Antifa is an organized group of people with a singular common purpose. Sure, they may claim that "they aren't an organization," but they literally are. They are a loosely governed organization, but still an organization, regardless.
Local antifa groups might be organized, but antifa as a whole is not. There is no consistent "antifa policy" on how to approach things like violence, protests, etc because antifa is not an organization. You could have a group of people calling themselves antifa in City A who do nothing but tear down fascist posters, and a group of people calling themselves antifa in City B who do nothing but milkshake fascists, and that isn't a contradiction because the groups are not part of any organized movement in any more specific sense than ideologically (people who dislike fascism and want to do something about it) and probably don't even talk to each other other than in the very vague sense that they may both use social media.
What are all of these "authoritarian" and "dictatorial" things that antifa does which are so horrible?
The rest of your post argues that since antifa is authoritarian and dictatorial (????????) it's somehow fascist by stubbornly refusing to use anything but a woefully inadequate dictionary definition that nobody actually takes seriously, as evidenced by the fact that nobody unironically calls most authoritarian countries in the world fascist. You should consider looking into some actual attempts to define fascism by credible people if you want to throw the term around.
> When I say that Antifa is fascist, I don't mean that they are literal fascists like Mussolini.
"When I say that antifa is fascist, I don't mean like, you know, fascist fascists. I mean the other kind of fascists: people I don't like."
by [deleted] 2019-11-17
>>Antifa is an organized group of people with a singular common purpose. Sure, they may claim that "they aren't an organization," but they literally are. They are a loosely governed organization, but still an organization, regardless.
>Local antifa groups might be organized, but antifa as a whole is not. There is no consistent "antifa policy" on how to approach things like violence, protests, etc because antifa is not an organization. You could have a group of people calling themselves antifa in City A who do nothing but tear down fascist posters, and a group of people calling themselves antifa in City B who do nothing but milkshake fascists, and that isn't a contradiction because the groups are not part of any organized movement in any more specific sense than ideologically (people who dislike fascism and want to do something about it) and probably don't even talk to each other other than in the very vague sense that they may both use social media.
They are still operating under the name of Antifa and so they are a part of Antifa. Also, Antifa groups usually tend to be radical so I highly doubt that most of them are just "milkshake and posters" Antifa protestors.
>What are all of these "authoritarian" and "dictatorial" things that antifa does which are so horrible?
Destroying public property, assaulting people who haven't actually committed any violence against anyone (not all the people they attack, but good amount), forcibly censoring people that dont share their opinions and making threats to people that they consider their enemies.
There's literally footage of them doing this shit on the internet. They basically behave like a bunch of filthy anarchists under the guise of being "left wing."
>woefully inadequate dictionary definition that nobody actually takes seriously,
Oh that's convenient that "nobody takes it seriously" when it disproves their argument. You're also not realizing that it's literally the definition by Merriam Webster, which is basically the definitive credible source for definitions of terms.
> as evidenced by the fact that nobody unironically calls most authoritarian countries in the world fascist.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they aren't engaging in fascist practices. You don't have to directly associate yourself with the fascist party to be a fascist. Just like you don't have to associate yourself with the Nazi party to be a Nazi.
>You should consider looking into some actual attempts to define fascism by credible people if you want to throw the term around.
What makes your definition more legitimate than mine other than the fact that it proves your argument? I also trust a definition that was determined by a group of scholars more than a definition by some random author on Amazon.
> When I say that Antifa is fascist, I don't mean that they are literal fascists like Mussolini.
>"When I say that antifa is fascist, I don't mean like, you know, fascist fascists. I mean the other kind of fascist, people I don't like."
Ummm no, I mean literally the other definition of fascist that I presented to you (Of course I know that doesn't mean anything to you since "nobody takes that seriously," conveniently enough) Like I said, you don't have to associate yourself with fascism to be a fascist. You just have to hold a very similar ideology to them.
by The-Autarkh 2019-11-17
For reference, here's Prof. Robert Paxton's excellent definition from The Anatomy of Fascism:
>"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."
We're not there yet, but this thing is blossoming.
by makhnos_blackflag 2019-07-21
r/T_D aren't all nazi's. But they are a proto-fascistic movement. Go read Ur Fascism or Anatomy of Fascism and then talk to me about them.
by Harvinator06 2019-07-21
The end all be all on this discussion is historian Robert Paxton and his paper The Five Stages of Fascism or you can check out his book The Anatomy of Fascism.
by makhnos_blackflag 2019-07-21
Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson are not nazi's themselves (Molyneux & Southern are further down the white nationalist/supremacist rabbit hole). They lay the ideological ground work. You can't go directly from "normal middle-class white kid" to open fascist to right-wing terrorist directly. You have to lay out ground work, one piece at a time. And the ground work for fascism is exactly what Peterson, Shapiro, Kirk, Owens, and Rubin preach and platform.
Go read The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton and Eternal Fascism by Umberto Eco. Then line up the characteristics and ideology of fascism with what Peterson/Shaprio et all preach.
I feel like we should be mailing textbooks/memoirs on fascism to our representatives...
EDIT: To elaborate a bit on this idea...
I thought about organizing a gofundme to send the same book to all Republican representatives (senate and congress) from Amazon, but I think it would be more effective if it was sent from individual constituents in the rep's districts. I personally feel powerless since all my representatives are democrat, but I think it would send a really powerful message if people in red districts sent copies of books directly from Amazon. It would only cost around $10 to do that, and you can include a gift message with your address and why you're sending it.
People smarter than me probably have better suggestions, and could even point out passages that should be highlighted and bookmarked, but here are a few suggestions off the top of my head:
People have got to stop with this massively hyperbolic trash repost. Calling the far right 'nazis' is unworthy of discussion. Calling the far right 'fascist' is only slightly less ignorant, but is still extremely hyperbolic. 99.95% of people using the term are completely ignorant of the history.
Why?:
There is no 'definition' of fascist/fascism. This shitty '14 points list' has been floating around the internet for a while and Trump checks all 14 points (as does Obama, as does HRC, as does Bush2). 1) This list is completely fabricated (fake news?). 2) The actual definition of fascism is extremely debatable by very educated people (see below). 3) you can take these lists and look at the Obama administration and check 12-13 of the 14 points. 4) and I should have to tell you this, but if you see something thats being passed around the internet between like-minded people, its probably bullshit.
If you want to read/learn about real fascism, read these two books:
They are both excellent, and pre-Trump. They provide and excellent overview of the fascist movement(s) throughout history. The quick takeaways are: 1) there is no 'definition' of fascist (eg that 14 point list is facebook bullshit), 2) both right-wing and left-wing political movements have shown many elements of fascism (eg extreme right wingers are just as intolerant as extreme left wingers), 3) the current right movement in America bears little in common with actual fascist movements.
So why are people calling the right 'fascists'? In my personal opinion, the left is using the term to justify vilification and aggression towards the right (I say this as a political moderate). This is not to say 'the right' are the good guys - there are plenty of situations in life where there are no 'good guys' - the current left/right debate is one of those situations.
I'm sure you saw that white nationalist, Richard Spencer got sucker punched a few weeks ago. The entire left was hand-wringing about wether or not this was justified - even the NYT published a half-assed assessment. You saw it here on reddit - 'the alt-right' is so toxic they deserve violence. You know who also thinks that speech should be silenced with violence - fascists.
As a moderate I find this rationalization for 'violence to silence' horrifying. Violence is never an answer. You'll note that actual fascists use violence and threats of violence to suppress speech - so what is the difference between the left and right these days?. I stand in the middle and have a hard time telling.
TL;DR they very people that claim to be 'anti-fascist' are abusing the term to create an enemy that's (apparently) worthy of a priori violence - if you think about that for a second it should be horrifying.
And just watch - by virtue of 1) trying to inject a little reason here 2) showing a refusal to call the more extreme right 'nazi-fascists' and 3) criticizing the left for being shitty too, I am going to get called an alt-right wing Trumpeter.
The best one I've seen so far is Robert Paxton's definition from The Anatomy of Fascism:
>"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."
>Maybe you should read Lawrence Britt's The 14 Characteristics of Fascism.
I have read it and quite frankly it seems odd that you say India is headed towards fascism based on that list as many of the things listed in it applies to many democracies especially India(and have been a part of this country long before BJP) and some don't apply at all especially the 14th point.
Maybe you should read something better and more detailed, like this perhaps.
>but I'll take the words of someone like Amartya Sen over some Redditor.
Great economist but he doesn't exactly make great suggestions when it comes to Indian politics. Quite frankly even as someone who dislikes hardcore Sanghis, I have to say people like you are the reason that there's belief that liberals in this country are out of touch with the common man and his struggles.
Everything you've posted here from stuff about your lifestyle to your poltical views(citizen of the world crap) just reeks of privilege, naivete and most importantly of all ignorance.
>Antifa is an organized group of people with a singular common purpose. Sure, they may claim that "they aren't an organization," but they literally are. They are a loosely governed organization, but still an organization, regardless.
Local antifa groups might be organized, but antifa as a whole is not. There is no consistent "antifa policy" on how to approach things like violence, protests, etc because antifa is not an organization. You could have a group of people calling themselves antifa in City A who do nothing but tear down fascist posters, and a group of people calling themselves antifa in City B who do nothing but milkshake fascists, and that isn't a contradiction because the groups are not part of any organized movement in any more specific sense than ideologically (people who dislike fascism and want to do something about it) and probably don't even talk to each other other than in the very vague sense that they may both use social media.
What are all of these "authoritarian" and "dictatorial" things that antifa does which are so horrible?
The rest of your post argues that since antifa is authoritarian and dictatorial (????????) it's somehow fascist by stubbornly refusing to use anything but a woefully inadequate dictionary definition that nobody actually takes seriously, as evidenced by the fact that nobody unironically calls most authoritarian countries in the world fascist. You should consider looking into some actual attempts to define fascism by credible people if you want to throw the term around.
> When I say that Antifa is fascist, I don't mean that they are literal fascists like Mussolini.
"When I say that antifa is fascist, I don't mean like, you know, fascist fascists. I mean the other kind of fascists: people I don't like."
>>Antifa is an organized group of people with a singular common purpose. Sure, they may claim that "they aren't an organization," but they literally are. They are a loosely governed organization, but still an organization, regardless.
>Local antifa groups might be organized, but antifa as a whole is not. There is no consistent "antifa policy" on how to approach things like violence, protests, etc because antifa is not an organization. You could have a group of people calling themselves antifa in City A who do nothing but tear down fascist posters, and a group of people calling themselves antifa in City B who do nothing but milkshake fascists, and that isn't a contradiction because the groups are not part of any organized movement in any more specific sense than ideologically (people who dislike fascism and want to do something about it) and probably don't even talk to each other other than in the very vague sense that they may both use social media.
They are still operating under the name of Antifa and so they are a part of Antifa. Also, Antifa groups usually tend to be radical so I highly doubt that most of them are just "milkshake and posters" Antifa protestors.
>What are all of these "authoritarian" and "dictatorial" things that antifa does which are so horrible?
Destroying public property, assaulting people who haven't actually committed any violence against anyone (not all the people they attack, but good amount), forcibly censoring people that dont share their opinions and making threats to people that they consider their enemies.
There's literally footage of them doing this shit on the internet. They basically behave like a bunch of filthy anarchists under the guise of being "left wing."
>woefully inadequate dictionary definition that nobody actually takes seriously,
Oh that's convenient that "nobody takes it seriously" when it disproves their argument. You're also not realizing that it's literally the definition by Merriam Webster, which is basically the definitive credible source for definitions of terms.
> as evidenced by the fact that nobody unironically calls most authoritarian countries in the world fascist.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they aren't engaging in fascist practices. You don't have to directly associate yourself with the fascist party to be a fascist. Just like you don't have to associate yourself with the Nazi party to be a Nazi.
>You should consider looking into some actual attempts to define fascism by credible people if you want to throw the term around.
What makes your definition more legitimate than mine other than the fact that it proves your argument? I also trust a definition that was determined by a group of scholars more than a definition by some random author on Amazon.
> When I say that Antifa is fascist, I don't mean that they are literal fascists like Mussolini.
>"When I say that antifa is fascist, I don't mean like, you know, fascist fascists. I mean the other kind of fascist, people I don't like."
Ummm no, I mean literally the other definition of fascist that I presented to you (Of course I know that doesn't mean anything to you since "nobody takes that seriously," conveniently enough) Like I said, you don't have to associate yourself with fascism to be a fascist. You just have to hold a very similar ideology to them.
For reference, here's Prof. Robert Paxton's excellent definition from The Anatomy of Fascism:
>"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."
We're not there yet, but this thing is blossoming.
r/T_D aren't all nazi's. But they are a proto-fascistic movement. Go read Ur Fascism or Anatomy of Fascism and then talk to me about them.
The end all be all on this discussion is historian Robert Paxton and his paper The Five Stages of Fascism or you can check out his book The Anatomy of Fascism.
Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson are not nazi's themselves (Molyneux & Southern are further down the white nationalist/supremacist rabbit hole). They lay the ideological ground work. You can't go directly from "normal middle-class white kid" to open fascist to right-wing terrorist directly. You have to lay out ground work, one piece at a time. And the ground work for fascism is exactly what Peterson, Shapiro, Kirk, Owens, and Rubin preach and platform.
Go read The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton and Eternal Fascism by Umberto Eco. Then line up the characteristics and ideology of fascism with what Peterson/Shaprio et all preach.
You might be interested in Robert Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism."
I feel like we should be mailing textbooks/memoirs on fascism to our representatives...
EDIT: To elaborate a bit on this idea...
I thought about organizing a gofundme to send the same book to all Republican representatives (senate and congress) from Amazon, but I think it would be more effective if it was sent from individual constituents in the rep's districts. I personally feel powerless since all my representatives are democrat, but I think it would send a really powerful message if people in red districts sent copies of books directly from Amazon. It would only cost around $10 to do that, and you can include a gift message with your address and why you're sending it.
People smarter than me probably have better suggestions, and could even point out passages that should be highlighted and bookmarked, but here are a few suggestions off the top of my head:
People have got to stop with this massively hyperbolic trash repost. Calling the far right 'nazis' is unworthy of discussion. Calling the far right 'fascist' is only slightly less ignorant, but is still extremely hyperbolic. 99.95% of people using the term are completely ignorant of the history.
Why?:
There is no 'definition' of fascist/fascism. This shitty '14 points list' has been floating around the internet for a while and Trump checks all 14 points (as does Obama, as does HRC, as does Bush2). 1) This list is completely fabricated (fake news?). 2) The actual definition of fascism is extremely debatable by very educated people (see below). 3) you can take these lists and look at the Obama administration and check 12-13 of the 14 points. 4) and I should have to tell you this, but if you see something thats being passed around the internet between like-minded people, its probably bullshit.
If you want to read/learn about real fascism, read these two books:
Fascism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) 2nd Edition
The Anatomy of Fascism Reprint Edition
They are both excellent, and pre-Trump. They provide and excellent overview of the fascist movement(s) throughout history. The quick takeaways are: 1) there is no 'definition' of fascist (eg that 14 point list is facebook bullshit), 2) both right-wing and left-wing political movements have shown many elements of fascism (eg extreme right wingers are just as intolerant as extreme left wingers), 3) the current right movement in America bears little in common with actual fascist movements.
So why are people calling the right 'fascists'? In my personal opinion, the left is using the term to justify vilification and aggression towards the right (I say this as a political moderate). This is not to say 'the right' are the good guys - there are plenty of situations in life where there are no 'good guys' - the current left/right debate is one of those situations.
I'm sure you saw that white nationalist, Richard Spencer got sucker punched a few weeks ago. The entire left was hand-wringing about wether or not this was justified - even the NYT published a half-assed assessment. You saw it here on reddit - 'the alt-right' is so toxic they deserve violence. You know who also thinks that speech should be silenced with violence - fascists.
As a moderate I find this rationalization for 'violence to silence' horrifying. Violence is never an answer. You'll note that actual fascists use violence and threats of violence to suppress speech - so what is the difference between the left and right these days?. I stand in the middle and have a hard time telling.
TL;DR they very people that claim to be 'anti-fascist' are abusing the term to create an enemy that's (apparently) worthy of a priori violence - if you think about that for a second it should be horrifying.
And just watch - by virtue of 1) trying to inject a little reason here 2) showing a refusal to call the more extreme right 'nazi-fascists' and 3) criticizing the left for being shitty too, I am going to get called an alt-right wing Trumpeter.