On 8/22/2013 6:39 PM, Chris de Morsella wrote:
Nazism took it somewhere much darker, but Fascism already was exulting the fever pitch
of ethno-nationalism.
Fascism may have become a generic word we use now a days for that kind of
totalitarianism, but in its time and in history, time after time, fascist regimes and
parties have always exulted in ethno-fetishism and have promoted an us versus them
Manichean world view.
Sure, that's part of the idea of the nation as a super-organism: If you're not part of it,
you're an enemy of it. There's no room for individualism or dissent.
In each country where Fascism has arisen it has been characterized by pronounced
nationalism most often framed and presented in ethnic terms.
But also in cultural terms. As a super-organism, a nation should strive for glorious
achievements as an individual should. This generally meant conquering some 'inferior'
people and bringing them into the glory of your superior culture.
Nazism clearly took this notion and ran with Aryan Supremacism, but all the other
Fascists then: Mussolini, Franco, and yes Jabotinsky as well (because he was a Fascist)
they all saw themselves as leaders of ethnically rooted nationalist movements. In fact
show me a famous fascist who was not also a virulent ethno-nationalist.
Fascism unlike Communism (at the level of lip service at least) never preached a
Universal Fascist state -- an 1000 year Reich of one tribe over other inferior races
maybe, but that idea lacks universal appeal.
Communists sang Internationale as expressed in a line from the lyrics in English:
"There simply IS a ruling class, and there is a working class. One day the majority must
triumph over the oppression and terror of the minority."They clearly framed their
struggle as an international class struggle. Their slogan was workers unite... or as
expressed in the Chilean protest song against Allende "El pueblo unido jamás será vencido"
Fascism instead has always been nationalist (as opposed to internationalist) and framed
in terms of ethnic and cultural chauvinism... so if there is a difference between Hitler
and Nazism and the other fascist Parties and personalities it is a matter of degree and
not of substance.
Enough degrees and they become a substantial difference. Fascism was admired (as was
communism) for "making the trains run on time". I don't think Nazism would have had
admirers if the death camps had been known about at the time.
Brent
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