Me: Look, think about this thing we read about fascism. What is wrong with this fascism? Would we like to have it, here in this classroom?
Zombie class: (Silent looking at me.)
Me: It is all about the good of the state, that fascism. Everything we do as fascists will be for the good of the state. We'll re-make ourselves into fascist women and men, so that we want The Good of the State and work for it.
Zombie class: (Silent.)
Me: Do we want that?
Me thinking: (Duh, people. Hello??)
Zombie class: (Some stirring.) Armmpuv. Mmmh.
Me: It sounds OK to me! (more silence from zombies.) What is wrong with fascism? Maybe we should have fascism.
One zombie student: It sounds OK. It looks OK on paper.
Me: What could go wrong?
Zombie student: What if the fascist leader wants to have a war?
Me: (Ignoring fact that student has not taken into account the idea that in fascism, we all want the same thing, although I've stated that already 20 times) Yes, what about that? It all depends on what The Good of the State is, right? That's the problem, we don't know what 'The Good of the State' is. What if it's something evil?
Zombies: (silence)
Me: But it could be something good.
Me thinking: (If Barak Obama wanted to have fascism, that could be a good thing. I would want that fascism.)
Me thinking: (But I can't use Barak Obama as an example of good fascism, or they'll know that I'm a BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL ACADEMIC OUT TO BRAINWASH THEM.)
Me: We could have good fascism. What if 'The Good of The State' was to bake cookies and pet puppies? We would all want that!
Zombies: (silence)
Me: Don't you guys like cookies and puppies?
Zombies: (silence.)
15 comments:
good fascism? I don't get it.
axm
Fascism gets a bum rap because of Hitler and Mussolini. They were jerks. But if the leader of your country isn't a paranoid-delusional megalomaniac, it could work.
It does seem that wherever there's fascism, there's a paranoid-delusional megalomaniac. Still, it could just be a coincidence.
It could be a coincidence!
We only read excerpts of Mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism." My contention was that fascism as described was 'value empty' at its center. There's a very strong state and unity of interests among the population. Though it's clear that people all agree on what 'the good' is, it's not clear what 'the good' is. Leaving open the possibility, I argued, that it could in fact be something good, like baking cookies. Or that a leader I agree with (Barak Obama) could lead a fascist state that I'd want to live in. The problem is, what happens to dissenters? But according to this view of fascism, there are no dissenters, not because they've been suppressed, but because of the mystical power of fascism to re-make people into fascist selves who do indeed want what the leader wants. (And if Barak were the leader, this might be good!)
But you could also argue that even in what we read, Mussolini delineates a certain 'good' (for example, he says that fascism values imperialism).
I was totally on board with fascism until you had us baking cookies. I'm all for petting puppies, but baking cookies?
And I've been living with a fascist for 2 months now. They are not fun. They have more lady drama than a department full of lesbians.
I still don't get your argument about the good fascism.
axm
the point being that the object - whatever it is, baking cookies, petting puppies, taking over foreign countries - cannot be good if it means suppressing dissenters. by this argument, choice is the only real good, all others being but virtual goods covering up the evil of non-choice (i.e. totalitarianism). is that it?
Wait, do the cookies have chocolate in them? Because then that would make the baking cookies a tasty (hence, good) fascism. If so, I'm in on the ground level of the fascism you're starting which ,means that you'll be making me a minister of something important...until, paranoid that I'll stop petting puppies because I love cookies so much, you off me. Until then though I should run something big in the new CookiePuptopia we're building for the good of...wait...for the good of who again?
Yes, your love of cookies will not exceed your love of petting puppies, here in fascist cookie-baking, puppy-petting. If it did, well, that would be impossible, because since we are the fascist state, we can't oppose the fascist state. The state is an expression of us, and vice versa. Every part of human life is within the state. Therefore, opposition is simply not possible. We won't squelch opposition to cookie baking and puppy petting. We won't have to! It's impossible!
If V Girl did stop petting puppies, that would pose a real puzzle, because it's not possible. How would we respond? By expressing a desire that was not our's/the state's, V Girl would have created her own little state of exception in which only she existed. Curious. Hmm.
OOH legitimate philosophical debate! On a blog!
But first I'd like to point out that the twin policies of dog petting and cookie making, without another policy of hand-washing, might make for a public health-crisis.
This concept of the fascist "good" only makes sense if you accept a single objective "good". And then the only problem is getting people to recognize the good. Which leads to suppression of dissent, for the dissenters own good.
Which is essentially the structure of the nuclear family.
So not it's necessarily bad. The saving grace of the nuclear family is that it's small. So if one family-leader is a megalomaniac, it only affects a small group. Also the leader is able to immediately see the effects of his/her policies and dissent can be expressed directly to the leader rather than through intermediaries.
Which is why it's the dominant family model. And it works for families (generally), but not so much for countries.
For example, if your mom decided that everyone was going to bake cookies all weekend, that might (depending on how old you are) be fun. And in the end you'd have hundreds of cookies. But if Mussolini decided that the entire country of Italy would spend the weekend making cookies, well, that would be a problem.
Fascism is an acceptable form of governance, but it doesn't scale well. And the value of choice, then, is that responsibility is distributed. And the effects of poor judgment are limited.
What I'm saying is, the concepts of "dissent" and "suppression" don't make any sense in this context. They presume a liberal individual, a "self-interested" chooser. Fascism has a fascist individual, who, as cultivated, will in fact want the singluar good that everyone else wants.
(The good is singluar because we fascists are unified, by the nature of our fascists selves. We are an expression of our nation's spirit, history, and culture.)
Now you're thinking "brainwashing!" But let me just say, there's a host of contemporary left theory current right now that holds that all subjects are cultivated--we make ourselves as subjects; the world makes us; there's no real separation between the 'becoming' subject and the world, etc. Liberal individuals can be "brainwashed." Post-liberal individuals can't be. Ya know what I am saying?
And as we now know that the supposed free and rational chooser, the liberal individual, was just a cover for slavery, patriarchy, class oppression, and persecution of sexual outsiders, I am not so into it like I used to be. (Though at times I revert.)
I agree that there's something fearful about fascism. But if we leave of using liberalism to critique fascism, can we articulate what's fearful about it?
I'm extrapolating from Mussolini's doctrine. I think I've added the idea of cultivated subjectivity from a book I read called Making the Fascist Self (Mabel Berezin). But if you're interested, here's a link to the Mussolini doctrine.
http://www.historyguide
.org/europe/duce.html
OK. Outside the realm of liberalism, the critique of fascism is that it posits the perfectibility of many systems.
A) the system that educates the members of the fascist state must be perfect.
B) the members of the fascist state must be perfect in practicing the rules of the fascist state.
C) the rules of the fascist state must account for every possible event.
D) the rulers of the fascist state must always and in perpetuity make decisions that perfectly apply to the education of the members of that state
E) the fascist society must be kept perfectly insulated from outside influences
So, sure, if you're willing to believe that perfection of all those things is possible, then I suppose fascism as your describing it could work.
all I can say is, no wonder your class didn't understand it.
AXM
Ahh. You have a point there. It is a system set up to work, rather than a system like liberalism that's set up to deal with extreme situations and failures (with "safeguards.")
But we do all like cookies and puppies.
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