{"id":25211,"date":"2023-02-18T13:35:19","date_gmt":"2023-02-18T21:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=25211"},"modified":"2023-02-18T13:35:20","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T21:35:20","slug":"how-fascism-became-the-mostsuccessful-brand-of-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/02\/18\/how-fascism-became-the-mostsuccessful-brand-of-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"HOW FASCISM BECAME THE MOST
SUCCESSFUL BRAND OF THE 21ST CENTURY<\/a>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"umair<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>umair haque<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feb 17, 2023 (eand.co)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Big Lie That Freedom Is My Right to Take Yours Away \u2014 And Why It\u2019s So Seductive<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
Image Credit: Twitter<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The most successful brand of the 21st century. It\u2019s not Google, Apple, Facebook, or Tesla. It\u2019s not even a country, like South Korea or America, making an historic comeback. It\u2019s fascism<\/mark>. Only we don\u2019t see it as such. Because this brand is made of many smaller ones. The crazy lady in Congress explaining that, why, no, \u201cJewish Space Lasers<\/a>\u201d weren\u2019t part of an anti-semitic conspiracy theory \u2014 totally reasonable! The manfluencers sex trafficking young women<\/a> \u2014 to global fame and fortune, no less. The governor of a sunshine state who thinks that history\u2026shouldn\u2019t be taught in school<\/a>. The list grows every day now, and it spans the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fascism is the most successful brand of the 21st century, and it\u2019s marketed itself as new, fresh, and exciting. It\u2019s been able to do that because, well, our societies are playing a game of self-deceit. <\/strong>Let me give you a simple example before we dig in. A far right party rocketed to power recently in Sweden. It was literally founded by an SS member<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> as in, a literal Nazi. But the line that this party has pushed goes like this: \u201cWe\u2019re not like that anymore<\/em>!\u201d And, gullibly, predictably, this line swallowed up by people who should know better, from columnists to pundits right down to politicians, and so\u2026fascism gets legitimized<\/em>, and we don\u2019t see it as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not nearly enough, anyways. When I point out that it\u2019s not only misogynist to sex traffic young women, because you think they\u2019re subhumans, and men of a certain kind of purity and faith belong on top, able to subjugate anyone, violently abuse them \u2014 a light goes off in people\u2019s in minds. That\u2019s fascism<\/em>. The thread that connects all these sinister developments \u2014 and they are sinister, not in the conspiracists\u2019 sense, but in civilization\u2019s \u2014 is that they are all fascist, but, through a kind of self-deceit, our societies go on legitimizing all this. And so fascism has become, like I said, the most successful brand of the 21st century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a thing that happened recently in music. It\u2019s weird, and it\u2019s funny. Innovation kind of stopped, and people started rehashing old genres. So \u2014 me being a moonlight DJ sometimes \u2014 I trawl through records. In genres with names like \u201cNu Disco\u201d or \u201cFuture House\u201d or what have you. Mostly, they suck<\/em>. Because they\u2019re made of nostalgia for a bygone age, without the\u2026musicianship, skill, ability\u2026that made, for example, real disco<\/a> so seductive. The \u201cNu\u201d is funny, no? We can\u2019t say \u201cnew,\u201d because it\u2019s not new<\/em>. \u201cNu\u201d means nostalgic, new in the sense of a return to the old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world\u2019s being seduced by fascism all over again. Sometimes, in my head, I call it \u201cNu Fascism.\u201d It\u2019s not new\u2026but it\u2019s not exactly the old kind, either. It\u2019s transmogrified and evolved, and that\u2019s a bad thing.<\/strong> It\u2019s grown more sophisticated, and for that reason, it\u2019s been able to sweep through our societies while we watch. Too many of us wondering, \u201chey, what the hell is wrong with those people?\u201d The answer to that question\u2019s pretty simple, in the end. They\u2019re fascists<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We play a game these days, or a game is played on us. Take your pick, choose your level of complicity.<\/strong> It goes like this. The bad guys say, do, something outrageous. Provocative. Not just \u201cdeliberately\u201d so, in a kind of cynical sense, but because they really mean it<\/em>. And then the denials begin. Oh, that person\u2019s not so bad! Hey \u2014 people vote for them, like them, follow them, listen to them, and that\u2019s democracy in action, right<\/em>? Wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fascism sweeps through our societies like this, with barely a complaint, sound, whimper. Sure, you and I might talk about it, even a lot \u2014 but apart from us? Take a hard look. You\u2019ll barely see the word fascism mentioned, officially, in newspapers, on networks, in columns, and so forth. So the bad guys go on pushing the boundaries, crossing the red lines, one step at a time, and they get away with it, because all this is said to be somehow OK. But is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a simple example. The governor who\u2019s <\/strong>banned everything<\/strong><\/a> from books to words to being gay as a teacher to, now, history itself. Is that\u2026OK? In a democracy?<\/strong> Well, the justification for it doesn\u2019t just come from his side. It comes from every angle. \u201cLiberal\u201d columnists and pundits will raise little complaint about it, at least in the ways they should, and so while it\u2019s ugly, it gets a free pass, mostly. It\u2019s legitimized, in other words. And so the slow creep goes on. It\u2019s legitimized under a flimsy guise \u2014 this is democracy in action! Hey, people voted for this guy, and now he can do whatever he wants!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hello, that\u2019s not democracy at all<\/em>. In a democracy, we have things called \u201cinalienable rights.\u201d The entire point of a democracy is to defend and protect them \u2014 not take them away<\/em>. If all a putative democracy is doing is attacking people\u2019s rights, it\u2019s acting anti-democratically, which is perfectly possible, much like a doctor who\u2019s also a drug addict. Democracy isn\u2019t just \u201chey, the people want it! Anything goes!!\u201d It\u2019s precisely the idea that all of us have rights, and consent must be given in sophisticated ways, for institutions to breathe life into those rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

See my point a little bit? Sure, you\u2019ll hear murmurs, every now and then, that there\u2019s an anti-democratic tide running through our societies. But those murmurs are not enough. They are too quiet and too disconnected. They happen when overt violence breaks out, in spectacular ways \u2014 Jan 6th. But the seeds of such events are sown long before that, in subtler ways. And so it\u2019s not enough to just exclaim \u201cthat\u2019s anti-democratic!\u201d after<\/em> the fact. Obviously it is \u2014 but the question is how we prevent the scourge of fascism from spreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to that, as minds explained to us, with great care and pain, after the Holocaust, after the last World War, was to recognize<\/em> it. <\/strong>Arendt and Orwell thought long and hard about this, and understood a bitter truth \u2014 self-deceit was the soil in which fascism laid it\u2019s poisoned roots. We\u2019re vulnerable to fascism because self-deceit has set into our soceties, in ways that leave us shockingly, startlingly blind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take the rise of the <\/strong>manfluencers<\/strong><\/a> as an example. There they\u2019ve been, for years<\/em>, spreading a gospel of hate.<\/strong> Incels take their cues from them, and invent whole cosmologies of their own \u2014 at the top are \u201cChads,\u201d with perfect genetics, who monopolize sexual relationships, because, as we all know, all women are really interested in is good-looking guys, not, say interesting, mature, intelligent, sophisticated, real ones. No, women are inferiors \u2014 genetic robots \u2014 whose only real drive in this life is to have sex with \u201cChads.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So of course incels then turn to violence, of bizarre, extreme kinds. They mutilate their own faces<\/a>, trying to achieve the perfect dimensions of a Chad \u2014 and that, they made up, too. Or they go out there and shoot up women<\/a>. Meanwhile, the manfluencers are telling generations of young men more or less the same thing<\/em>. What do women really want? An age-old question, if you don\u2019t think women are, wait for it, people<\/em>. Money? Power? That\u2019s misogyny. This? This is different. Women want to be violently abused, beaten, dominated \u2014 they can\u2019t help it, the poor things, the subservience is in their genes. Just like Chad is in mine, say the manfluencers. Young men are being poisoned by this nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we\u2019re turning a blind eye. How long has it been since this stuff\u2019s been going on? <\/strong>And our societies are more or less OK with it, because the manfluencers? Well, they have \u201cfreedom.\u201d This isn\u2019t freedom<\/em>. Freedom isn\u2019t me teaching you to go out there and violently abuse someone, because that\u2019s what they deserve, as their destiny \u2014 and yours, too. That\u2019s not free speech, expression, association, any of it. In the ends, it curtails <\/em>all those things, sharply and severely. Instead of having a relationship, I\u2019m an abuser. Instead of letting that person \u2014 a young woman \u2014 speak out about her own desire for liberation and purpose and self-determination, I send her death threats. Freedom? Don\u2019t kid me, or yourself<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps you see my point. Under the flimsy excuses of things like \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201cdemocracy,\u201d we let fascism corrode our societies. But it\u2019s the antithesis <\/em>of all those.<\/strong> Sure, say what you like \u2014 but of course, there are limits. Nobody yells fire in a crowded room. Telling people you\u2019re going to kill, rape, hurt, murder them \u2014 because their genetics are inferior to yours \u2014 that\u2019s\u2026fascism<\/em>. It has no place \u2014 none \u2014 in a democracy, because, like I explained, it limits freedom for everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you think I\u2019m kidding, or I go too far, well, let\u2019s go back to the sunshine state. Is the governor who banned words, books, attitudes, sexual orientations, right down to history\u2026expanding freedom<\/em>? Surely even a fool can see that, no, he\u2019s not<\/em>. That is because fascism is antithetical to freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now. I highlight that point because most of us partake in this fake, foolish debate. One side says, \u201chey, me being able to hate and threaten and intimidate is just free speech!<\/em>\u201d And our side confused, baffled, bewildered, not wishing to be an enemy of freedom, backs down, most of the time. <\/strong>Then that side says, \u201cNow I\u2019m going to use this \u2018free speech\u2019 of mine to try and take your rights away!! That\u2019s my <\/em>right, after all! It\u2019s my right to take your rights away, burn them, throw them in the gutter!\u201d And our side, by this point even more baffled and confused, doesn\u2019t quite know how to retort, which way to turn, what to say, do, think \u2014 because, well isn\u2019t it anti-democratic to object to that<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course it\u2019s not. Let me say it again, because it needs to be said. Me taking your rights away isn\u2019t democratic<\/em>. It\u2019s profoundly hostile to democracy. You can say that it\u2019s democratic, because, hey, some vague justification or claim to populist power \u2014 but, like I said, democracy is about inalienable rights. For all. Being enacted universally, by institutions we all consent to be governed by. For some lunatic to come along and say \u201cYou don\u2019t deserve rights!! You don\u2019t deserve anything at all, because, well, you\u2019re inferior, you woman, you minority, you liberal, you weakling, you subhuman!!\u201d\u2026that\u2019s never <\/em>democratic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet this is the game we play. We\u2019re afraid, at least our institutions and our halls of power are, to really get in there and mount a muscular defense of democracy and freedom. <\/strong>Saying something like, hey, in what universe does it expand freedom to take the rights away of\u2026 women\u2026 the LGBT\u2026 kids\u2026 an endless list of groups? How can that possibly be enlarging and growing freedom? If freedom is just your right to take mine away, to demean, abuse, belittle me\u2026then how can democracy ever work<\/em>? How can the word mean much at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accusation that comes back if you even broach this set of ideas, instantaneously, is, LOL, \u201cwokeness.\u201d <\/strong>Me? I\u2019m about as moderate as they come. I find wokers pretty annoying most of the time, with their insistence on semantics, and the way they get worked up about the smallest things. But hey, I also<\/em> fully support your right to be called what you want. To live the life you want. To be the person you want to be. Because that is what democracy is. It\u2019s not<\/em> me taking away those rights. It never has been, and never will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWokeness\u201d has become the great canard of the 2020s. But what does it really mean? Say the word to someone, and what do they really hear? <\/strong>They hear: they\u2019re coming for your kids! They\u2019re going to pervert them. They\u2019re coming for your wives, who belong in the kitchen \u2014 and bedroom. Coming for your status in society, which is at the very top. They\u2019re coming to change things. <\/em>And hey, you don\u2019t ever have to evolve, grow, change, in order to maximize freedom in society, which is the very enactment of<\/em> democracy. You can just stay there, nursing yesterday\u2019s biases and grievances and resentments. In fact, go right ahead \u2014 blow up at someone. Hate\u2019s perfectly OK. That\u2019s your right<\/em> \u2014 to hate, to intimidate, threaten, to be violently abusive, to take away the freedoms and rights of all those groups who are just, for the first time, maybe, wide-eyed with wonder: we can have some freedom, too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Say the word \u2014 and what do people hear? They hear the age-old conspiracy theories of fascism, basically.<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>The Jews control the world \u2014 and they\u2019re the ones keeping you down. The LGBT are after your kids \u2014 they want to end the bloodline. Immigrants? Refugees? Anyone not like you? They\u2019re a threat, an existential one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Say the word, and what do people hear<\/em>? Freedom is a zero-sum game<\/em>. <\/strong>If those people are freer \u2014 if they have self-determination, dignity, respect, if you call them what they want you to, if they can love the way they want to, if kids know they exist and think, hey, maybe I\u2019m more like that than this, if they can go where they like, say what they like, hold hands, kiss, work, be themselves as they truly are \u2014 well, that\u2019s the end of your <\/em>freedom. Your freedom comes at the cost of theirs<\/em>. The more that all those groups are liberated, to the point they enjoy self-determination \u2014 the less free you <\/em>are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the idea naturally springs up, snarling, in the mind of the one who\u2019s been taught to believe all this \u2014 hey, I\u2019d better not let them have any freedom!<\/strong> Because their freedom takes mine away<\/em>! <\/strong>Why, they might get my kid, or my wife. They\u2019re the reason I don\u2019t have a girlfriend and can never get a date \u2014 not my own simmering rage and the way it poisons me. They\u2019re what\u2019s going to take my next job \u2014 not the billionaire laying me off. They\u2019re the reason I struggle \u2014 not because we all don\u2019t have enough freedom yet<\/em>. But because freedom is a negative sum game, and their freedom costs mine<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not true. It is the greatest myth of the 21st century, but not just that. It was the greatest one of the 20th, too. <\/strong>What did we learn in the last century? Precisely that freedom isn\u2019t a zero or negative sum game. Women gaining the freedom, to work, to be educated \u2014 it turned out to be the single determinant<\/em><\/a> of a successful society. Freeing everyone to have advanced public goods like healthcare and education and transport as basics? It created the European Miracle<\/a>, and living standards exploded even ahead of America. What we learned in the last century, over and over again, was that freedom is never<\/em> a negative sum game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most terrible, painful, and stupid way this lesson was learned was the Holocaust<\/em>. The Nazis\u2019 central idea was that the mere existence of Jews \u2014 and the LGBT, and other hated minorities \u2014 were making Germans less<\/em> free. And so all that had to be done was to annihilate them. But that didn\u2019t make Germany more free. It just made it\u2026ashes<\/em>. We have never, ever seen an example, not one, anywhere in history, of freedom being a negative or zero sum game, my freedom costing you yours<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freedom is the opposite. It\u2019s a positive sum game, a virtuous circle. The freer I am, the better off you are.<\/strong> You might resist it, because you believe the lies, in fear, in paranoia, because letting go of old hatred is uncomfortable. But in the end? When my kid becomes a scientist \u2014 even if he\u2019s gay, brown, black, this, that, whatever \u2014 and cures your cancer, well, you\u2019\u2019re going to live, my friend. The examples are countless, and they don\u2019t need dwelling on. The point does. Freedom is a virtuous circle. If it wasn\u2019t, well, we would all have been better off as slave societies, warring with each other endlessly, but none of us are<\/em>. We have modernity and its explosion in living standards precisely because freedom has been a virtuous circle \u2014 slow, unsteady, but there \u2014 for an era now, one group after the next struggling for liberation, and finding it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t tell this story enough. Our side. We don\u2019t drum it into people the way that the other side drums their Big Lie into them \u2014 your freedom is under threat, from their freedom! <\/strong>It\u2019s you or them!! This story is old<\/em>. Today\u2019s QAnon paranoid conspiracies are basically the same old Nazism, just rehashed, with a new gloss. They\u2019ve got Space Lasers, this time, instead of just secret vaults of gold. They still drink the blood of kids, the purer and truer of faith the better, because that\u2019s still the secret to eternal life. They still congregate in Satanic rituals, where they sacrifice kids for eternal power. In their minds, they\u2019ve always <\/em>been the ones keeping us down. It\u2019s us or them. Their freedom is the end of ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can see why the Big Lie works. It\u2019s been told for millennia now, and so letting go of all that residue \u2014 even if its unconscious \u2014 is hard<\/em>. That is why fascism became the most successful brand of the 21st century.<\/strong> It was incredibly rare in human history that democracy<\/em> became its great success, for a time. And when we make the mistakes above \u2014 legitimizing fascism through self-deceit \u2014 my friends, we make a grave error. Because the Big Lie is easy to believe, and that means we must fight it all the harder. We must be vocal, much more so, in telling the real story of human history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My freedom? It has never<\/em> cost you yours. My freedom isn\u2019t a gift you give me. It\u2019s a gift I give you. Because freedom isn\u2019t a negative or zero sum game. It\u2019s a virtuous circle. My liberation is yours, too. You<\/em> are freer when I can determine my own life, as paradoxical and strange as that might seem, because, in the end, freedom is a thing we create together<\/em>.<\/strong> Nobody is free in a vacuum, in a jail cell, in an isolation tank. Freedom is a social good, the most foundational form of public good and common wealth of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What costs you your freedom, in the end? Believing that your one true job is to take mine away<\/em>. <\/strong>Because, my friend, then, instead of making choices you really believe in, want, need, ache for \u2014 you waste your life trying to subjugate me, and the wheel of time? It grinds to a halt. It\u2019s ground down into dust. And all that\u2019s left is conflict, hate, violence, ignorance, all the forms of futility and folly. Trying to take my freedom away is the truest <\/em>way to lose yours. That is why demagogues since time began have used this old trick to conquer both <\/em>sides, at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us tell the story of history as it really is and was. Freedom is a subtler and truer thing<\/a> than the Big Lie that\u2019s made fascism the most successful brand of the 21st century. But telling that story is up to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Umair
February 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

umair haque Feb 17, 2023 (eand.co) The Big Lie That Freedom Is My Right to Take Yours Away \u2014 And Why It\u2019s So Seductive The most successful brand of the 21st century. It\u2019s not Google, Apple, Facebook, or Tesla. It\u2019s not even a country, like South Korea or America, making… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,105],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25212,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25211\/revisions\/25212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}