EDIT: Figured I'd go pull the full quote.
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When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet Press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.
Given the absolutely absurd number of real-world experiments run over the last 2,000 years the ultra-short-term view people have of political history is a bit silly. Eg, I don't even know what the whipping boy was before facism. Possibly Bonapartism. We've tried everything at least thrice by this point and it is clear most people don't want to learn from the past and aren't particularly interested in having a clear language to discuss politics with.
It depends on the time and place. The favorite boogeyman of the Bolsheviks were the bourgeoisie at first, followed by the Mensheviks (communists of slightly wrong persuasion), and then counterrevolutionaries. The boogeyman for the royal regimes of the 19th century Europe was the French revolution, anything not sufficiently orthodox was automatically suspect.
Oh, like "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" - Kennedy.
Fascism goes beyond that. "The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value." - Mussolini. The core concept is a single all-encompassing authority. Not just a dictatorship or ruling party, but no other centers of power at all. It's top down military organization of the non-military parts of society.
Words (like this one) can change their meaning in their popular use and that's fine but probably better to use better terms, especially with emotionally loaded ones.
That's not entirely true.
As Umberto Eco says[1]:
> Eco grew up under Mussolini’s fascist regime, which “was certainly a dictatorship, but it was not totally totalitarian, not because of its mildness but rather because of the philosophical weakness of its ideology. Contrary to common opinion, fascism in Italy had no special philosophy.” It did, however, have style, “a way of dressing—far more influential, with its black shirts, than Armani, Benetton, or Versace would ever be.”
And he identifies 14 typical features of fascism:
> 1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
> 2. The rejection of modernism. “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. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
> 4. Disagreement is treason. “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.”
> 5. 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. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the 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.”
> 7. The obsession with a plot. “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.”
> 8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
> 9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
> 10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
> 11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
> 12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
> 13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
> 14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “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.”
Many of which absolutely apply to the previous US presidency.
[1]: https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list...
Most of the things on the list are actively bad in any political system. Half of them are inexcusable. A few are essentially descriptions of populism being acted upon, and a few are typical reactionary features.
For example, current Polish governing party fits: 1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14.
In the Marxist sense, we are a synthesis . Our competition is most likely the Chinese Communists which have broadly adopted capitalism, but retain the oligarchic power structures at the top, and state control of enterprises. They represent a different synthesis
Or, are we talking about someone that believes in controlled/regulated speech, a controlled press, speech codes, reductions in private property, Law as a living construct, supports cancel-culture, thinks of the State as the Church, wants massive wealth redistribution, supports violence as a means to change govt, and does not support the constitution?
At the time (1794), this was resolved by amending the constitution to make the desired change. If the same unintended wording had gone unnoticed until today, it is very likely that the supreme court would simply decide that the outcome as written was not desirable and throw out the suits.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#/media/File:Map_of_...
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In using the Constitution as a living document which can be interpreted by an activist judge, rather than the constitution as written [2], as passed by the states/amendment (originalism), interpreted by precedents from the collection of rulings, and caselaw.
[1] https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/constitutional-la...
[2] https://www.swindlelaw.com/2017/10/originalism-living-consti...
Free speech, reduction of private property, dissolution of centralized state and wealth redistribution are all very classic bottom left (anarchist) principles for instance.
I would think anyone below the center line vertically (so anarchists to free market libertarians) would support what you call “cancel culture” since is a powerful form of direct action.
No liberal is the other alike, but some would argue that privacy is a prerequisite of freedom. Calling out someone with intent of harm is a violation of their privacy and civil rights. This can have a chilling effect and promote homogeneous thought and expression, which is inconsistent with basic liberal values. Maybe a distinction between anarchism and liberalism is that the former want no regulation at all, while the latter embrace legislation that protect civil and human rights.
What fascism used to be was ultra nationalistic, non democratic, centralised control of people's lives and the economy for the greater good of the state. And I means these to the most extreme you can possibly take these ideas, that's fascism.
The word has no meaning when you throw it around against anyone with slightly conservative view points.