First. I don’t want to deny the genius of Socrates, but we came a long way since Antiquity. Umberto Eco was a philosopher, a scholar. We should expect better from him than from Socrates.

Second. We know there are cars and it makes sense to talk about cars, to study them, to make legalization and regulations about cars. We also know there are vehicles that include cars, lorries, carts, etc. The same thing with them. We can also talk about means of transportation that would also include planes, ships and so on. The same thing with them. But what if we talk about dogs, cars, oaks and planes? Let’s call the totality of those things foobars. Does it make sense to talk about foobars in general? To study foobars? Does it make sense to get a degree that is concerned with the study of dogs, oaks and cars? To make legalization particular to foobars? Are foobars a real thing in the same way vehicles are? Umberto Eco doesn’t provide a convincing argument that ur-fascism he is talking about is a sensible thing like bees or vehicles and not foobars. To be clear, I don’t deny that it is a real thing, I am just saying that Umberto Eco doesn’t show it in any convincing way.

The first point seems rather impulsive. Should we give up functional but old paradigms simply for innovation's sake, even if we know they work? Socrates clearly did not ever argue the topics brought up by Eco, so what you're saying is Eco should come up with a different way to express himself. Innovation is great, but why should anything not innovative in its method simply be disregarded?

The second point seems to be an argument against any social science in general, rather than a critique or analysis of the essay. If every political science discussion had to start with a justification of why such phenomena are studied in the first place, we would get nowhere. Should we not study "democracies" or "states"? Is anything not tangible not worthy of study?

This also ties in to my last point: it's very disingenuous to call fascism "not sensible" without any real argument for it. It's been a giant hurdle in the history of many nations, it makes sense to want to analyze it and understand it. If your argument is that it's not sensible as in fascism is a far too general concept for it to be an effective label, then I'd expect you to directly challenge the list proposed, as it seems to me Eco does manage to describe an acceptable way to do such labeling.

>Should we give up functional but old paradigms simply for innovation's sake, even if we know they work?

Of course no! We should give up old paradigms that don't work.

>Eco should come up with a different way to express himself.

No, I am saying that Eco should come up with good, convincing and coherent arguments and we shouldn't judge him by the standards of 400BC.

>The second point seems to be an argument against any social science in general, rather than a critique or analysis of the essay. If every political science discussion had to start with a justification of why such phenomena are studied in the first place, we would get nowhere. Should we not study "democracies" or "states"? Is anything not tangible not worthy of study?

That's a weird way to understand what I've said. Do you think political theorists don't study and argue about what "democracy" or "state" means? That's a part of their job. They also study what "fascism" is. And that's what Umberto Eco tries to do in his essay. The problem is that the way he does it is rather unconvincing.

>This also ties in to my last point: it's very disingenuous to call fascism "not sensible" without any real argument for it. It's been a giant hurdle in the history of many nations, it makes sense to want to analyze it and understand it. If your argument is that it's not sensible as in fascism is a far too general concept for it to be an effective label, then I'd expect you to directly challenge the list proposed, as it seems to me Eco does manage to describe an acceptable way to do such labeling.

What exactly was a giant hurdle? You have a list of fourteen properties. Some movements in some countries shared those properties. Can we understand and analyze them by deferring to the study of nebulous ur-fascism that Umberto Eco proposes us to accept? Will it help us understand Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, Baathism, Conservatism, Progressivism, modern US, modern Russia, modern China, modern Sweden, McDonalds, Amazon, Tesla, SF VC culture? Can it even help us determine which of those things are fascist and which are not? What is even the connection between ur-fascism that Umberto Eco invented and real fascist movements that you say are a giant hurdle?

I'm sorry but it is very hard to understand what you said when the arguments against my various points are, in order:

> we should give up old paradigms that don't work

Why and how don't they work?

> Eco should come up with good, convincing arguments

Why are they not good? Why not explain how they don't convince you?

> The problem is that the way he does it is rather unconvincing

Again, how is it not convincing you? Elaborate...

> Can it even help us determine which of those things are fascist and which are not?

He does provide a very simple way to do exactly that. Why not argue against such a method, instead of implying it be a stupid method through countless examples, but never explaining how it would not work in such scenarios? This seems like such a destructive way to approach conversation. I can agree rhetorically on some points, but you are just pushing for the impossibility of effectively describing anything intangible.

I apologize if I am misinterpreting your arguments, but as I think I've shown there's very little of it around for me to meaningfully engage with it..

> Why and how don't they work?

If you tell me exactly how the Socrates’s dialogue with Meno is relevant to this question, I will explain to you what's the problems with that particular argument.

> Why are they not good? Why not explain how they don't convince you?

I've already tried to explain by example. Let's look at Umberto Eco's own words,

> But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

I want to emphasize "many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism". And as he notes before that quote, "fascism had no quintessence". How can that convince that ur-fascism Eco talks about is a real phenomenon worth studying and not a mish-mash boogeyman like postmodern queer neo-marxism?

> He does provide a very simple way to do exactly that.

He doesn't. There is no operational definition. He says that a fascist movement may or may not have some of that properties. And moreover, he says that non-fascist movements may or may not have those properties too. So what are the criteria?

> Why not argue against such a method, instead of implying it be a stupid method through countless examples, but never explaining how it would not work in such scenarios?

The examples show why it doesn't work. Again, you have a bunch of properties that apply to a set of things. And then you claim that those things don't have any quintessential properties that they all share. Ok, so is this kind of things a useful grouping? Why should we even care about it? How can I explain that it wouldn't work? Well, maybe it would, but the onus of proving such weird things is on Eco.

> This seems like such a destructive way to approach conversation. I can agree rhetorically on some points, but you are just pushing for the impossibility of effectively describing anything intangible.

People use vague and ambiguous language all the time. But when whether you should be punched and outlawed depends on a mere definition, it is very advisable for the speech to be as precise as possible.

Note here you haven’t contradicted him. Your first argument isn’t substantiated, just an appeal to recency. Your second argument makes a false dichotomy between physical and non-physical phenomena that is irrelevant to the underlying issue. It may have escaped your recollection, but Meno and Socrates were discussing the physical phenomenon of bees as an analogy to studying the non-physical concept of virtue. Reading up on the history and the logic here helps.

Again, I would love analysis, but it seems like most of what you’re doing is asking epistemologically uncoordinated questions, and failing to make assertions/counter-assertions of your own. It does not follow, simply.

It’s not an appeal to recency. I am just saying that appeal to the authority of Socrates is unwarranted. Not to mention interpretive arguments about Plato’s writings which makes the whole reference even more needless.

I didn’t imply any dichotomy between physical and non-physical. Not sure what you are talking about. Identifying common features of foobars is simply not a good endeavor no matter whether they are physical or abstract.

Another example as we have talked about bees. Imagine that you have been studying bees. You come up with an ad boc description without any coherent explanation of these features. Some of bees bite you, some of them only sting you, some make honey, some don’t, some are big, some are small. Their features are contradictory, some have most of them, some have only few of them. And all of that looks weird until you realize that you’ve been confusing bees, wasps, hornets and whatnot. Our modern understanding of science can help us distinguish those things to the point of tracing their ancestry by analyzing their DNA. The understanding of ur-fascism by Umberto Eco rather looks like inability to distinguish bees from wasps.

We can also talk about fish. And how grouping dolphins with fish may lead you astray in your inferences. Grouping things together based on superficial similarities is just bad science. That’s all.

This is a straw man through and through. I’ve seen enough, thanks for the time.

It’s called an analogy.

You don't deny fascism is a real thing but you strawman his arguments as disconnected and therefore false.

No: you must prove his arguments disconnected. He has demonstrated their connection and given examples in each truly fascist movement. The onus is on you to take any of the 14 and show why it is false.

No fallacious comparisons to dogs and planes.

Prove it. Show it.

He doesn't demonstrate their connection. He just says,

>But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

I want to emphasize "many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism". And as he notes before that quote, "fascism had no quintessence". So how is it a real thing? It has no quintessence and whatever properties it may or may not have are also properties of other despotic and fanatical systems. So how is it in any way a real thing that could be studied and reasoned about and compared to other systems that are not fascist?