Hey, sorry to necro-post. But now it’s just you and me and all the internet tough guys have left. I appreciate your point of view and I am curious about something you said.
How can the “political ideology” of fascism every “be defeated”? Even accepting that you can “defeat” an ideology, and that fascism is even meaningfully thought of as an ideology at all (which I don’t think is a helpful lens), fascism works, and it works because of elements of human psychology that we can’t simply get rid of. People will always be able to enlist the support of others by throwing vulnerable people under the bus. How is that an ideology that can be defeated? Surely we have to address the conditions that allow human psychology to be exploited in such a way, to help people empower themselves and not feel the fear that makes hatred appealing in the first place.
Fascism is a collective puzzle that has to be solved collectively. Humans are not necessarily predisposed to fail or succeed this puzzle. Fascism takes advantage of human tribalism, but any person is still capable of rationalizing that fascism is not in either their self-interest or a larger collective self-interest. Fascism is self-destructive.
Fascists have to make good on their promise to eliminate the out-groups they demonize. In order to stay in power, the fascists have to keep dividing a country’s population into new in-groups and out-groups. The subjective hierarchies they construct and adhere to are based on unattainable ideals. If this process is not stopped externally, the fascists eventually have to kill everyone. This includes the fascists drinking the flavor-aid.
The only way for humanity to survive fascism is to educate ourselves and each other about these self-destructive ideologies. That everyone is imperfect and everyone deserves to live no matter where they fall on subject hierarchies. Anyone who is seriously considering fascism as means of self-preservation can conclude that this ideology will lead to their own destruction and the destruction of the people they care about. Fascism logically contradicts it’s own false promises of security and prosperity. Once people understand this, people will then be open to other ideologies to solve their problems that do not involve demonizing groups of people.
People of course have to be given complete information as part of their education on fascism and other self-destructive ideologies. If all a person gets is fascist propaganda, as is happening in the US, then it shouldn’t be surprising when people stuck in echo chambers become fascists.
Ideologies can work as far as convincing people to adopt the ideology. However fascism does not work as far as solving the economic problems that drive people to look for solutions in the first place. No amount of genocide of a society’s existing population improves a person’s material conditions in that society. That kind of genocide is likely to eventually destabilize the society that is committing the genocide. The human psychology that can make us all susceptible to fascism does not prevent us from seeing it for what it is, inherently self-destructive. The human population destroys itself as part of implementing fascism.
There will always be con artists that try to demonize people to get what they want. But if people know that not no amount of demonizing can put food on the table or keep people safe they aren’t going to fall for it.
Not to blow you off, but maybe create a new post to continue this discussion and send me a link if you want my thoughts specifically. This post’s comment section got glowy.
