Umberto Eco on common features of fascism (2016)
openculture.com
openculture.com
2. The rejection of modernism.
3. The cult of action for action’s sake.
4. Disagreement is treason.
5. Fear of difference.
6. Appeal to social frustration.
7. The obsession with a plot.
8. The enemy is both strong and weak.
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy.
10. Contempt for the weak.
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero.
12. Machismo and weaponry.
13. Selective populism.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
Also:
3. The cult of action for action’s sake.
What does this mean?
That said the point of #3 is to act without consideration. A call to immediate and decisive action with no consideration of consequence.
See also: January 6th, armed occupation of state capitols etc
To paraphrase my recollection: "This is horrible but we don't know what to do! But we have to do something, and $X is something, therefore we have to do $X!"
What’s happening in Florida is a good example. The state, which is dominated by the right, called a special legislative session to dissolve a management district overseen by Disney because the company spoke up against the state’s “don’t say gay” bill.
From the state’s standpoint, it doesn’t make sense, though; this action wiped out a tax revenue stream of hundreds of millions and dropped $1B to $2B in debt on the counties Disney property straddles.
Disney has been “punished” in the eyes of the far-right, but residents now have concerns about the long-term impacts of what this decision has wrought.
More details: Disney is one of the largest employers in the state and big contributor in taxes to it’s tourism-driven economy. Disney also oversaw its own land management district (the 27k acres which make up Walt Disney World property was, in essence, its own city with a tiny government to boot).
When the bill passed, Disney didn’t speak up. It was criticized by gay employees and fans (of which there are many!). Disney eventually expressed its opposition to the law.
Florida’s state government has a significant GOP majority and didn’t like this. A special session was called by the legislature to eliminate the laws which gave Disney ability to oversee its land management district. (Other districts were caught up in this as well.)
The problem is, this district has $1B to $2B in bonds that Disney was responsible for. Florida law requires the bonds to be assumed by counties when special districts are disbanded. Unless something else changes, the two counties Disney properties straddles are on the hook for this. It’s estimated it would increase the tax burden to over $2,000 for every resident in those counties.
To give you a sense of how quickly this moved, Disney’s CEO publicly came out against the law on March 9. Florida eliminated Disney’s special district this past week.
Note: Disney is a major sponsor of politicians in Florida (duh), so they were seen as approving of the bill ( because they were continuing to pay Florida politicians while they had significant leverage over them).
In my opinion, point 3 is closely related to points 2, 4, and 11. Point 3 specifically notes that in fascism, thinking itself is emasculation - hence action taken without thinking, for its own sake. At least in Germany, we can see this rejection of thinking as a rejection of the intelligentsia and a perceived "elite" (which feeds into point 6). We can get a more full picture looking at points 2 and 4, which discusses the rejection of modernity to see that this rejection of thinking also derives from a fear that thinking can lead to criticism, and that this rational process leads to modernity and away from the traditionalist values often espoused by fascist leaders. The idea here is that to think isn't to improve action, it is to undermine society itself, and to identify the inherent contradictions and pointlessness within fascism. In a different direction, point 3's identification that thinking is _emasculating_ links to point 11's identification of fascism's cult of heroism and machismo. The aesthetic judgment thus becomes that the citizens of fascism do not need to think, and that there is only beauty in rushing into struggle.
In short, the cult of action for action's sake expresses Eco's identification of fascism as necessarily irrational, and thinking before acting would undermine this. Fascism also turns action outwards, at its many perceived enemies, glorifying violence as a means of self-perpetuation, and creating both a cult of action, and the citizens who take action.
* https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf
* https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/
> "The cult of action for action's sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#Umberto...
As I understand it (AIUI), don't bother thinking of the consequences or long-term effects, just get shit done. If one thinks Trump was an Ur-Fascist, it would be him ordering the border wall built—which turned out to be fairly useless.
You're not going to get a formulaic assessment that is a perfect indicator of any major social or political trend of this sort. To go back to horoscopes, they are successful because they throw a bunch of things at the wall but get people to focus on only the one piece that's correct. In the case of this list, you need multiple hits, and
1. The superstitions of the savages must be replaced by modern, scientific progress.
2. Primitive technologies and social arrangements should be replaced with civilized government.
3. Political action should be moderated, and conducted after slow deliberation.
4. Freedom of speech, within reason, has always been a superior characteristic of our civilization.
5. Certain territories are benighted by backwardness and xenophobia, as is demonstrated by their treatment of our visitors.
6. The social order may not always be perfect, but our institutions are essentially just.
7. The world is not shaped by conspiracies of elites, but by inevitable economic forces. You will sooner alter the seasons.
8. No power can seriously threaten our Empire, on which the sun never sets. At most there will be little peacekeeping actions -- the savage wars of peace.
9. Pacifism is the way forward, just like Oswald Mosley said.
10. We are all lambs, who are protected by our Good Shepherd, the Crown.
11. A proper education teaches each of us to do our own small duty within our rightful place.
12. We are not brutes but gentle-men.
13. The masses require guidance from the better sort.
14. The English language was perfected in Shakespeare's time, and it is for us simply to speak it correctly.
Also, some of the statements in my post, like (6), are at direct odds with what's currently trendy to say.
The main point, though, is that although I like Umberto Eco, this article has still never made a lot of sense to me.
The solely purpose of both words is to state that there is only one valid position and people having different opinions either shouldn't be taken serious or being treated as enemies to democracy as they are basically extremist or spreading misinformation.
Especially "Corona Leugner" is in line with "Holocaust Leugner" and intends to label every person criticizing Corona to be put in the Nazi camp. And Nazis of course you do not discuss but fight them.
And this is actually taking place. People protesting against government laws are now being labeled as right wing or Nazis. Even "Corona Leugner" is already recognized by judges being a defamation but it is still used in discussions on public broadcaster.
For me this is actually Newspeak and a step further towards Facisms. To promote that there is only one valid political position and different views should not be seriously discussed.
Note that none of these are militaristic. Fascism has a strong military component. Large numbers of troops in formation haven't been militarily useful for a century, and people's visions of war today involve stuff blowing up and dead bodies, not troops marching. So a militarized vision of the future doesn't sell.
Humans still tend to band together under insane males, though. That seems to be hard-wired.
and i most certainly don't see a shortage a charismatic women taking the charge in these movements. i mention this only to push back against any idea of "hard wired" which i reject on principle. "natural" machines as complex as "micro-societies banding together under charismatic males" is too complex for me to believe it is not a sociological construct.
I read a sci-fi book where simulations had advanced to the point where no one bothered to wage war anymore because the simulations we're so good that everyone knew who the winner would be. Of course that presupposes rationality.
Given the length of human child raising, I don't see why you would exclude this from 'hard wiring'. Things don't have to be encoded into DNA to have an increadibily high probability of inheritance.
Some of the Q-Anon stuff is pretty wild as well, but the core tenets cannot be as strongly disproved as the core of the Flat Earth Society's that the earth is flat.
The fact that it is easily disproved isn't really a problem for these kinds of conspiracy theories. It actually kind of acts as a purity test for members. Kind of like how scams still use the "nigerian prince" trope, because it ensures only the most promising marks fall for it.
A great documentary on the topic by Dan Olson aka Folding ideas:
But as you said, there is a lot of overlap between the groups. Pretty much all flat earthers also believe in geocentrism, though most of the time not necessarily biblical literalism.
Looking up at the night sky in Europe, you’ll see a dome shaped sky, spinning nightly around a still point. The planets will “wander” not going with the general rotation.
The appearance of the sky suggests that both earth and sky are spherical.
If they earth were flat, we’d see the entire “dome of night” - all the northern constellations - all of the night. They wouldn’t appear and disappear over the course of 24 hours.
Simple, naked-eye, stargazing can easily disprove the flat earth theory.
Geocentrism is a bunch harder problem to solve. Naked eye star gazing strongly reinforces a geocentric universe.
In fact, naval officers are thought celestial navigation using geocentric cosmology, because the additional accuracy of heliocentrism isnt helpful when stranded on life raft. No naval office will have sextant and accurate clock, but not a gps device.
So flat earth defies common sense and plain sight observations. Heliocentricity is much more complicated.
If I recall, it’s impossible to prove heliocentricity with the naked eye- telescopes are necessary.
Knowledge of earth’s roundness is ancient, by the way. Several cultures discovered it before the classical area in which Christianity was founded.
Edit: Also, the flat earth thing has not been believed by mainstream since the ancient Greeks for more than 2000 years.
Presumably because there were eye witnesses? See also:
I’m much more worried about the low quality crap on Facebook than Q-Anon,
The worst isn’t even “disinformation”, it doesn’t bother to deal in fact.
“Press like if you remember when Americans loved their country!”
“Student loan forgiveness punishes everyone who everyone who worked their way through college!”
“Remember the ‘Socialist’ in ‘National Socialist.’”
Just low quality crap that riles people up.
Facebook does a good job filtering out actual Q-Anon stuff, but every now and then I’ll see whacky stuff - both left and right.
“JK Rowling chose her pen name after one of the proponents of gay conversion therapy.”
She didn’t but that didn’t stop all the trans activists I’m friends with for believing it.
That’s craps still up.
"[...] And then the internet suddenly means that each of those [geeks] in each of those towns gets to find all the other people like them. And suddenly, they’re empowered. And they are mighty. And that is glorious. What we didn’t think was, And by the way, in each of those towns, there’s also a Nazi. There’s a Nazi who’s too ashamed, too embarrassed, or too socially unwilling to stand up there and go, “Yes! I happen to be a Nazi!” Which was actually kind of a good thing. And the fact that all of those Nazis got to meet each other on the web and get together and go, “Hey, I am not alone! Look! There’s a million people like me.”"
https://www.vulture.com/2017/04/neil-gaiman-american-gods-is...
The internet can help create communities across the world - that has both the advantage of connecting people, and the risk of reinforcing undesirable behaviour. The ability isn’t inherently good or troubling.
Ur-Fascism By Umberto Eco (1995) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742179 - March 2022 (99 comments)
Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26156901 - Feb 2021 (191 comments)
Eternal Fascism (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20455521 - July 2019 (28 comments)
Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13081368 - Dec 2016 (1 comment)
Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173823 - July 2016 (173 comments)
It looks vaguely intuitively appealing on the surface level, but I don’t think it deserves the fame it has.
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.
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.
>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?
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.
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?
> 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..
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.
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.
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.
I'm not sure how to interpret the rise of Superhero movies in light of this observation. Or their frequent narrative of an outside enemy trying to destroy or enslave us all.
Any group or person who has had an enemy that is only strong is no longer with us. I'm not sure this is a distinguishing feature, it seems like something that is always true.
Same shit, new package, so to speak.
The root of the problem that Eco identifies is that we see something called "fascism" in both Italy and Germany, but aesthetically, ideologically, and politically these two nations look fairly different. So what exactly fascism is becomes difficult to pin down and taxonomize. If I'm not mistaken, I think fascism isn't not strictly modernist, and mostly rejects modernity in favor of traditionalist structures. The aesthetic modernity associated with German and Italian industrialism derives either through their love of technology as a means to realizing an imperialist and nationalist ideology, as well as a sort of hyper-masculinity associated with weaponry and militarism that feed into fascism's constant hero-making.
Somewhere I read an anarchic graffiti saying “power is always fascist”.
To give an idea of the first, the Russian TV half jokingly suggested that the first day of the "special operation" would end with fireworks and a victory concert in Kyiv.
(Taken from Threatened by Michael Jackson)
That's one core component of fascism, fear.
Of course it's not exclusive to fascism, but it's a very strong motivator. Fear to lose something, fear that some external force comes and takes "what is rightfully yours".
Fear is the base for a lot of movements as fear makes people gullible.
Fearmongers rejoice!
Reality not only has liberal bias but also tendency towards ur-fascism.
- On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
- Road To Unfreedom
(I include the 4 here because the article presents disagreement as a property of critical rational thinking. Which is protested by romanticism).
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.”
Mussolini's policies were socialist, like those of Franco, Hitler and others, nothing to do with Trump. Biden is also not a fascist if we apply the textbook. My father and grandfather grew up with Mussolini.
There's an obsession to relate fascism with modern politics, and this article mainly can be applied to any modern president anywhere in the world
I was thinking as I read this how many of the items applied to modern politics especially in the US, in both parties. I don’t think either party gets all of them, and the combinations are a bit different. Both parties certainly exhibit some of the uglier items
So the question becomes if they both aren’t quite ticking all the fascism boxes, but are ticking most…what are they?
I’d even go as far to say that most of the other things that cause people to consider Trump as a fascist, were mostly based on that rhetoric as opposed to direct actions.
It really doesn't. Like, I understand false equivalence is the end form of modern internet political philosophy, because it's the most cynical take and requires the least effort, but the premise that all human ideologies are essentially equivalent to fascism seems at best aggressively naive.
Can you explain why his attributes are specific to fascism and not to others? Those of us who are less philosophically equipped would love to learn from your expertise.
It's really only the most mindless middle school name calling of the last two years or so where you get Trump people saying "oh, but it's national socialist" and now Putin. It's trolling, "flooding the zone with shit". The Nazis were better than that.
That's because they (and their Italian buddies) hadn't yet etched in world consciousness the image problem fascism and Naziism has that such attacks seek to leverage.
They did accuse their enemies of being all of the (often mutually contradictory) equivalent boogeymen of the day, though.
I will add that confirmation bias is powerful: all of the listed traits are easy to find almost anywhere you look. One exception might be traditionalism, but lots of revolutionaries quickly pivot to having their own traditions if they have any success anyway.
Has been a strange shift.
The same can of course be said for the GOP, Mitch McConnel is very much for the continuation of what is now with perhaps slightly harsher rhetoric while the flank is very counter-revolutionary.
I've seen too much "We're on the brink of $Horrible-evil-calamity-brought-on-by-out-group!" immediately followed by "The storm is coming there is nothing that can stop us now!" to think otherwise.
The weak-minded, constantly-triggered, safe-space seeking, snowflake libs control the entire world with an iron fist.
That ticks a few boxes.
Since it's quite impossible to disagree with the idea of "New York Liberal" and "globalist" being an anti-semitic dogwhistle once you've heard of it, the downvotes must be... intense disagreement with statement that makes absolutely no sense to them?
7. The patriarchy, institutional racism, rape culture. The extent to which these are comparable to conspiracy theories is a matter of perspective and proportion. But it seems obvious that as a group they portray themselves as perpetually besieged, no matter what.
8. Oppressors who are nevertheless exhibiting white or male ‘fragility’
"If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism."
I think this is the most relevant aspect of his characterization today because it rings true when you look at the combination of memes and traditional imagery that is often used by extremist groups. Fringe figures on the political extremes like "Bronze age pervert" seem to fit into that mold that Eco describes. Viewed through that lens fascism is not so much an appropriate label for the stereotypical arch-conservative who is just reactionary, but you may even find it in tech circles where you often encounter the same obsession with speed, youth, and the future but at the same time no trust in democracy, egalitarianism and so on.
If we don’t change we are going to the point of no return into fascistic tech dystopia, from where current Chinese system would look like a distant dream of human rights and democracy.