Fascism: A Precursor to Postmodernism
by Bill Crouse, The Imaginative Conservative:
You hear the word fascism bandied about in the press and media quite a bit nowadays but almost always as a pejorative describing one’s enemy.[1] Zeev Sternhell says, “The label fascist has become the term of abuse par excellence, conclusive and unanswerable.”[2] It is also the ultimate way to insult an opponent though no one ever claims the label. Unfortunately, its increased usage today is not accompanied by a proper or historical understanding of the term. When most people think of fascism today, they think of an egomaniacal fuhrer, or possibly an ideology that was defeated in WWII, and more recently espoused by uneducated skinheads or militants in northern Idaho. The most common, but largely false and simplistic answer given to the question, What is Fascism? is: The extreme right wing of the political spectrum, i.e., conservatism, or, the polar opposite of Marxism. The term itself originates from the Latin; fasces, literally meaning: the bundle of rods sporting an axe-head that symbolized the unchallenged state authority of Rome. (You can see this symbol on the backside of a silver Mercury dime, cir. 1916). Later it came to mean: high office or supreme power or command. The first apparent use of the term: Fascist, was by Benito Mussolini when he formed the Fascist Party of Italy in 1919.
The definition given in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary: “Any program for setting up and centralizing an autocratic regime with severely authoritarian politics exercising regulation of industry, commerce and finance, rigid censorship, and forcible oppression of opposition.” I find this unsatisfactory in that it gives mostly the symptoms of fascism. It’s not just a dictatorship.
The two most frequent answers I received as a young student when I asked: “What is fascism?” were: “Why it’s National Socialism (Nazism)”, or: “It’s right wing extremism and racism.” While these popular definitions contain some truth, I maintain they are superficial in describing one of the most powerful movements of the 20th Century. Most definitions of fascism seem to focus on its political and economic elements. There is a reason for this: for almost 70 years the intellectuals telling the story of fascism have been disseminated by leftists who sought to portray fascism as a tool of big business to control the masses.[3] Though political and economic theory do assuredly emanate from ones world view, it won’t be our primary focus here.
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