Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.
And Sartre on anti-semitism:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
Fascism is boring. It hasn’t fundamentally changed in almost a hundred years.
It says a lot about the human condition, that a sadomasochistic death cult is still so deeply appealing to so many of us.
Quite literally from the “book” of fascism:
Per: Umberto Eco - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
Also Orwell on Hitler:
And Sartre on anti-semitism:
Fascism is boring. It hasn’t fundamentally changed in almost a hundred years.
It says a lot about the human condition, that a sadomasochistic death cult is still so deeply appealing to so many of us.
That last line from Sartre reminds me of this Innuendo Studios video about the “alt right”: https://youtu.be/yts2F44RqFw
Remember the kinder, gentler days when we all invoked Goodwin’s Law. As of 2017, Godwin himself called the GOP and Trump Fascists.
If the jackboot fits…