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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (20063)	2/26/2002 11:39:02 AM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

very excellent depiction of Islamic states being fascist /jw

To: Ilaine who wrote (20063)	2/26/2002 11:57:40 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Interesting, CB. But Paxton's definition leaves out what I always thought of as the distinguishing characteristic of modern totalitarian systems: thought control. Thought control was the new device of the modern age. Ancient empires were content to control word and deed; it was the Communists and the Nazis who attempted to reshape thought, to turn their practitioners into a new kind of human being, a member of the Master Race or a New Soviet Man.

To: Ilaine who wrote (20063)	2/26/2002 6:45:37 PM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

I have always doubted the proposition that because you can't find an earlier book about something, that means that the author was the first person to think of it. Me too. A primary characteristic of fascism is denial of time. That what happened between the "golden age" and the present has no meaning, consequence, etc. Or even what happened before some defining moment and after it has no consequence, meaning, etc. This is a denial of both modernity (the present) and history (the past). (A cyclical view of history is a denial of time and a denial of modernity - it holds change is illusory). Deriving fascism from Plato It need not be derived from him. His ideal state is fascistic, up to and including mind control. I can't believe it's [fascism] philosophical in origin. To me, that's like saying that philosophers invented monarchy. Philosophers didn't invent fascism. Some systemized it. Some have been apologists for it. (I suspect Plato was highly original with his invention of mind control as a formalized proposition). I think the desire to hang fascism on Hegel and Marx is a reaction by the right to the desire of the left to hang it on the right. Both "right" and "left" have owned fascism. Hegel's exposition of "spirit" both individual and collective and of "culture" was abused by German fascists of the 20th century. He became too metaphorical in places drawing a parallel between the state and organic life - which, according to fascists, may become diseased by impurities such as Jewish culture. I don't think this was Hegel's view at all. Marx's ultimate end of history was derived from his reaction to Hegel and Plato. It was applied with great gusto in the 20th century. See Russia, China, Cambodia. The importance of philosophers in this context isn't whether they invent something but the tool they give to others. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidently. Paxton's list is correct. Drawing a parallel, his list is like a nineteenth century naturalist's handbook. It allows you to identify a species. It doesn't give you its genetic description. The usefulness of Eco's article and the analysis by Al Azmeh is that they dig further into the psychological acts giving rise to fascism. What we regard as fascism is not culture bound and it's good to have a "genetic fingerprint" in that it might allow us to identify it in very early stages and perhaps do something about it.