How Fascism Works By Jason Stanley

How Fascism Works-The Politics Of Us And Them

(Published 2018;  The author, Jason Stanley, an American philosopher,  is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, USA)

The author begins by defining fascism as “ultra-nationalism of some variety-(ethnic, religious, cultural) with the nation represented in the person of an authoritarian leader who speaks on its behalf.”

The core characteristic of fascist politics, it is argued, is the division of the population into ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ and the dehumanizing, often demonizing, of ‘them’. This in turn justifies inhumane treatment of ‘them’.

The threat posed by ‘them’ is often sexualized—the purity of ‘our’ bloodlines’ is often portrayed as being threatened.

The process of dehumanization is facilitated by political propaganda, an important instrument of fascist politics. By way of illustration the author states that Hitler in Mein Kampf is ‘clear that the purpose of propaganda is to replace reasoned argument by irrational fears and passions in the public sphere.’

Fascist politics often invokes a glorious mythic past, lost by humiliation -cherry picking history for its purpose- and uses this to ‘weaponize the emotion of nostalgia’ to power the process of changing the present. A sense of ‘aggrieved loss and victimization’ amongst dominant groups is weaponized for political gain.

Propaganda serves to promote the irrational over the rational and fanatical emotion over the intellect. Language is ‘used to elicit emotion not convey information’. Fascism attempts to undermine the credibility of institutions of higher education that promote diversity of views and independent voices of dissent. Institutions that provide checks and balances to power are either subverted or discredited. Free speech, which facilitates public discourse about policy amongst citizens, is portrayed as violent and aggressive- ‘a protest becomes a riot.’

Fascist politics replaces truth by power and destroys the information space by regular and repeated lies. It replaces the ideal of equality by hierarchy and attempts to create amongst the dominant group a group identity opposed to the cosmopolitan ethos and individualism of liberal democracy.

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