Search results for: fascist

American Fascist: The Reality Show

23 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Fascism, Politics, Trump

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So, Herr Drumpf is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and the concern about fascism coming to America has itself taken on yet another layer of poignancy. Concerns are being raised by individuals as diverse as neo-con and Iraq war cheerleader Robert Kagan, and leading expert on the structural characteristics of fascist movements, Robert O. Paxton. It is Paxton’s work on the subject that most interests me here. While this post can be viewed as a follow up to my earlier one (hence the recycled picture), this post can also be viewed as the first of a two part series on aspects of those structural characteristic Paxton so carefully analyzed, and how they are visibly playing themselves out this election cycle. My argument here will be a fairly informal one – I’ll not be providing detailed endnotes or extensive quotations (although, such quotes as do appear will have their location in the Kindle text provided). This is because the details I’ll be offering from Paxton’s work are entirely uncontroversial readings of his arguments. Besides which, Paxton’s book is readily available, eminently readable, and an essential book for any citizen caught up in contemporary events.Fascists

My concern here is to remind folks not only of some of the essential characteristics that go into making a fascist movement – and fascism is always a movement, a populist one at that, and not a party or a collection of policies – and consider some of the ways the Trump phenomenon differs from other post WWII forms of conservative extremism, ways that actually push it closer to fascism. The movements I’ll be describing will be European ones, and most of what I’ll have to say about these European forms of conservative extremism will be based on chapter 7 of The Anatomy of Fascism. First, however, it will be useful to remind ourselves about the nature of fascism itself. Continue reading →

What’s In a Name?

20 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in Community, Fascism, Politics

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A great many persons who manifest what Altemeyer has called the “right wing authoritarian” type of mindset will also, often enough, display some rather strikingly childish, if not downright infantile, traits with respect to basic cognition. In particular, among this group one will find many persons who will insist that the contemporary GOP retains its status as “the party of Lincoln,” or that the Nazis were “really socialists” because the word “sozialismus” appears in their name. In both instances there is nothing more than a name in common between the one thing (Lincoln did belong to what was then called the Republican party) and the other (today’s GOP is absolutely tarred by Trump and his blatant fascism.) The laughable rubes who make this association – often enough loudly and in public, with utter self-assurance not to be impinged upon by any shred of logic, principles, evidence, or facts – might otherwise be dismissed as merely uneducable and pathetic, were it not at least one aspect of their behavior that is worthy of note: their use of names, as exemplified above, is magical. And not “magical” in the benevolent sense of “charming,” “truly special,” or “delightful,” but magical in the primitive and pernicious sense of actual magic – specifically, “name magic.”Wizard

There is a connection between magical thinking and fascism, one that has been recognized for some time now. Ernst Cassirer addressed this connection in his important work, The Myth of the State.i Published at the end of WWII (and shortly after Cassirer himself died), Cassirer applied his enormous insights regarding symbolism and modes of thought (his three volume The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms remains an unparalleled intellectual achievement) to the forms of mythological thinking that were such a driving force behind nationalism and fascism. (Cassirer was Jewish and an eye witness to the rise of Nazism in Germany. Seeing the writing on the wall, he was able to escape with wife, going first to Sweden, then England, and finally the United States, where he wrote Myth of the State while working at Columbia University.) As such, it is also a valuable source of insight into our own Trumpistas, and their unflagging devotion to “Dear Leader.” Continue reading →

What is Populism?

06 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Fascism, Metaphysics, Politics

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The question came up on social media, What is populism? I had my own little St. Augustine moment, where I realized that, as long as no one asked me, I knew exactly what I meant by the term, but as soon as someone asked I had no idea. (In fairness to Augustine, his moment was around the significantly more subtle notion of “what is time?”) I could run off to the dictionary and waste people’s time by quoting that, but I won’t. For one thing, the dictionary (like Wikipedia itself) is not the answer to a question (other than “how do I spell this word?”), it is the starting point for asking questions. Further, dictionary answers aren’t always that well considered. Thus, the dictionary will tell you that an ad hominem fallacy occurs any time you say something bad about a person, ignoring the fact that, in order to be an actual fallacy, it must be either irrelevant or untrue (or both). Finally I’ve enough acquaintance with the word “populism” via use – both my own and other peoples – that the dictionary will either tell me nothing new or, like ad hominem, tell me something wrong.Mob action

After I make of quick gloss of the sorts of things that populism is at an absolute minimum, I’ll go on to suggest two different developments of the idea. One development leaves populism as a relatively “morally neutral” political method or technique, while the other will put it squarely in the negatives as a substantially fascist instrument. Neither one of these approaches represents the “truth” about populism, or the “real definition”; they are simply different ways in which the word can be used, ways that should never be conflated. I’ll finish with some thoughts from Whitehead and Dewey about the philosophical underpinnings of the kinds of popular relationalism that strengthen genuine democracy. Continue reading →

Argumentum ad Baculum

12 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in Academia, Bullying, Critical Thinking, Fascism, Power, Professoriate, Social Media

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According to the American Association of University Professors (as reported by CNN), “In the last year, more than 100 incidents of targeted harassment against professors have been reported on college campuses.” These reactions have reached the level of actual death threats, so that some professors have been banned from campuses, so as not to expose the rest of the community to potential violence. This is not the kind of situation that would be rendered more secure by everyone carrying guns, since that would erase the distinction between the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” a distinction that would NOT become clearer once someone started shooting, since no one would know who started shooting first, or if it was a “bad guy” or “good guy” that started it. This is why, happy as I would be for permanent employment, I would never accept employment at a college or university that permitted any form of civilian “carry” on campus: a wild-eyed pack of posturing, untrained rubes with deadly weapons at the ready makes no one safer; it takes a special kind of stupid to imagine otherwise.

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But here we find ourselves in a situation where professors are receiving enormous volumes of vicious, if not always credible, threats upon their very lives for the kinds of things they have said in public. How did all these poor little, anonymous (because the cowards are always anonymous), tragically butthurt babies come to decide that the legitimate response to the public expression of a reasoned conclusion (I avoid the vacuous notion of “opinion”) is a threat of violence or even death? Certainly the election of the “crypto”-fascist Trump has energized many white supremacist and neo-nazi groups and sympathizers, and silencing by way of the threat (or act) of violence has long been a favored technique of such people. Which brings us to the title of this post, which is the fallacy of the argumentum ad baculum, the “argument from the stick”: using threats of violence and other forms of intimidation to compel others to accept your position. Continue reading →

You’re So Vain

25 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Critical Thinking, God, Religion, Trump

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(Respects to Carly Simon. Minor amounts of “adult” language in the following.)

So, the story is making the rounds that Trump’s “spiritual advisor” (who knew that was a cabinet position?) is saying that Trump, “whether people like it or not, has been raised up by God.” She says this in the context of how the Bible says God “raises up kings,” apparently indifferent to, and unaware of, the pitifully uneducated irony of classifying Trump as a “king” (regardless of how much the fascist Trump would like that to be true.) She (and yes, it is a female televangelist) goes on to say that,

God says that he raises up and places all people in places of authority. It is God who raises up a king. It is God that sets one down. When you fight against the plan of God, you are fighting against the hand of God.

This has been making the news rounds quite a bit of late; you can find one example (from which the previous quotes are taken) HERE.Me

It is easy enough to mock the infantile stupidity of this blathering numskull; indeed, such mockery is well deserved and as likely to have any positive effect as any effort at reasoned discussion. But the number of people who swallow – and then, in turn, spew – such fatuous twaddle is not so small as can be safely dismissed out of hand. I suspect some, possibly many, of my own family members fall into this category. So I want to point out a fact about these people’s own belief system, a fact that is based exclusively ON their belief system, and the sacred text known as “the” Bible. Because you see, the woman above, and so many others like her, are, by their own supposedly fervently held beliefs, doing is committing a sin: these people are so pathetically self-absorbed, they believe God is their string puppet to command; in so doing they are taking God’s name in vain. Continue reading →

The World is a Circle

15 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Authoritarians, Critical Thinking, Logic

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The title is an ironic gesture to a disturbingly cheerful (some, like me, might say saccharin) tune by Bacharach and David, but my intention is to talk about what is less happily categorized as circular reasoning. This is one of those fallacies that has been recognized for so long that the medievals gave it a Latin name: petitio principii. It is also one of those painful failures of basic reasoning that goes beyond the narrow confines of formal logic, or introductory critical thinking classes. This is one of those monsters of bad thinking that empower authoritarian minded individuals and their enablers to unshamefacedly spout about “alternative facts” and other infantile drivel. You see, the problem with a circle, as well as with a mind that reasons in one, is that the circle is closed; inquiry, on the other hand, is (by necessity) open and ongoing.disturbing-1

I’ve talked before (several times, in fact) about what Altemeyer describes as the “compartmentalization” that occurs in authoritarian belief and ideology. One can scarcely dignify this latter as “thinking,” regardless of the degree of sophisticated cleverness employed in maintaining those compartments as air tight against all facts and logic. Authoritarian thinkers, following Hamlet’s example, keep their minds, bounded in a nutshell and count themselves kings of infinite space, were it not that they have bad dreams. (Of course, Hamlet was being ironic, and mocking his interlocutors, something the Mango Mussolini’s enthusiasts entirely fail to grasp.) The thing is, these people choose to be bounded by a nutshell, all the while imagining themselves in princely command of infinite space. Meanwhile, their bad dreams (which are the trailings of reality, dogging them despite their dogmatism) are the sources of their willing embrace of Trumpian neo-fascism. Because the nutshell – the “nut house” – in which they have bound their minds is a tightly enclosed circle that permits no entry from reality. Continue reading →

Butthurt Baby in Chief

03 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Donald Trump, Logic, Psychology

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Well, the first two weeks of Trump’s presidency bore no real surprises: the Butthurt Baby in Chief acted exactly the way you would expect a narcissistic psychopath with a fascist agenda to behave. Quite aside from the lack of organization, the total inability to grasp what governance is or ought to look like, executive orders pouring out like water from the fountains of the Nile, including the objectively illegal ban on Muslims entering the country (except, coincidentally, from those countries where Trump has business interests); indeed, there has not been a single terrorist attack committed by a refugee from any of the banned countries within the US since at least 1980. (One writer has suggested this ban is a “headfake” to test the loyalty of various departments, and the limits of what the courts will permit Trump to get away with.) We also have his infantile need to bring a cheer-leading squad along when he gives a press conference or a speech. He has declared the New York Times to be “fake news” for their failure to be his obedient and unquestioning mouthpieces, and has essentially put the Breitbart propaganda outlet in charge of the National Security Council, while removing persons with actual experience in and with intelligence. I mean that last in all the less flattering ways you can construe it. With regard to the non-voter fraud lie that Trump revels in spewing, the fact that such fraud is essentially non-existent is a matter of no concern for Trump: he doesn’t need facts, because the slack-jawed who swallow whatever lie that is spoon-fed to them by the paid professional liars at Fox “News” agree with Trump, so that makes it all true. This is so mind-numbingly childish that is seems to give it more credit than it merits to point out that it exemplifies the fallacy of the argumentum ad populum. And don’t even get me started on the Twitter storms …butthurt-baby

What kind of a “man” does this? (And yes, I use the term “man” guardedly, because I take the word to mean something more than merely an adult featherless biped with a penis.) Well, I’ve already said a fair amount about how and why Donald Trump is a fascist. I’ve made it clear that I do not use the term casually, or as a throw-away fallacy. But what about the other terms I’ve been using? I’ve characterized Trump as a narcissist for a while now, and have recently shifted from describing him as a sociopath to a psychopath. What sort of legitimacy can I give those terms, especially since I’m not really qualified to make such a diagnosis with any expertise? Continue reading →

Reason as Revolutionary

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Ignorance, Inquiry, Intelligence, Logic, Politics, Relativism, Trump

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So now this appears to be happening: several users out in the Twitter-verse apparently are crowing about the repeal of Obamacare while defiantly bragging about keeping their insurance through the ACA. Again, to all appearances, these people are real. Meanwhile, racist Trump designee for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, questions whether women and LGBTQ people face any serious discrimination in the world. Examples could readily be multiplied. This is because fascism is a movement that does not center on any sort of intellectual framework, while its appeal is to persons of an authoritarian mindset that rigidly compartmentalizes concepts and experiences so that genuine intelligence can never get a foothold on the person’s thinking. Under such circumstances, exercising reason – genuine reason – becomes itself a revolutionary act.revolution

But beyond that quip, what more can be said about the matter? Isn’t that a bit like dismissing Trump’s followers as being stupid? Even if this was true, would it really be an effective approach to dealing with the current consolidation of power by the fascists? In response, I would encourage people to read the above linked posts on the authoritarian mindset, but I’ll have a few more words to say about the nature of genuine intelligence below the fold. But mostly I want to think about the revolutionary aspects of reason around the topics of memory, logic, and leadership. Continue reading →

The “Savage” Mind

31 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by in Community, Donald Trump, Fascism, John Dewey, Martin Luther King

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The phrase that opens this post is one that has been around for some time. Claude Levi-Strauss used it as the title to what has since become his most famous, and possibly most important, book. Even in 1962, when the book came out, one could use such a phrase without irony and be accepted as a scholar. These days, the imputation of a “savage mentality” is likely to be met with considerable resistance, and general antipathy (at least from those with a more liberal political orientation.) “Savage” is a pejorative term, and its application (especially in matters of thought and mentality) was almost always applied to aboriginal peoples whom colonial invaders (almost always of European descent) wished to demean, degrade, and – rather savagely – exploit. Such attitudes have been quite rightfully (even righteously, in the non-pejorative sense of that word) denounced for many decades now.trump-rally-nazi-salute

Nevertheless, I submit that there really is such a thing as a savage mind, where such a mentality is understood as an antithesis to that of a civilized mind. It is an example of the genetic fallacy to reject the term because it has been seriously abused in the past. This is not a comparison between persons in pre-scientific, non-technological, &/or aboriginal societies and our own, “gloriously” developed Western cultures. Rather, I submit that the distinguishing characteristic of savagery is its rejection of community in various forms and to varying degrees. Continue reading →

Foolish Consistency

16 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Donald Trump, Inquiry, John Dewey, Logic, Martin Luther King, Philosophy of Logic

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It is certainly disturbing to see how many people prefer a convenient lie over a disquieting truth. But more importantly, we should make note of how many people will flee in abject terror to the warm, terroristic embrace of a convenient lie when confronted with an indisputable uncertainty, the unavoidable knowing that you do not know. I should get that tattooed somewhere … somewhere where no one will ever see it …dunce-cap

There is a formal structure to at least some kinds of disruptive uncertainty, and that structure is not all that hard to understand. I’ll mostly be discussing that logical structure, which often requires a kind of patience with inconsistency. But I will turn to the psychological issues of those who embrace inconsistency without thought at the end. What I wish to address here are kinds of inconsistency, most importantly noting that there are genuinely and importantly different kinds. I’ll mainly draw on investigations by Nicholas Rescher and Robert Brandom, coupled with developments by Jon Barwise and John Perry. Continue reading →