- cross-posted to:
- gauchisse@jlai.lu
- cross-posted to:
- gauchisse@jlai.lu
If the Twitter/X thing teaches you one thing, let it be this: Twitter was a neoliberal place. Then Elon Musk made it into X, a fascist place. Once again, neoliberalism laid the foundations of fascism. But that’s not the (whole) lesson… Neoliberal folks are still using X, calling it Twitter to make themselves feel better, and pining for the good old days. And there’s the real lesson: When neoliberalism turns into fascism, neoliberals will adapt to life under fascism. Right, class dismissed.
(We really need a better way to crosspost from mastodon…)
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Wikipedia says neoliberalism is considered an insult 🤔
It says the same thing about TERF. When people find accurate, clinically boring descriptions of themselves offensive, it’s not the term that’s at fault.
I think it’s just that people use it as an insult. I think that is the case with many insults. I think retarded started as just a descriptive word.
Well, think of it this way. Have you ever heard anybody call themselves a ‘neoliberal?’
I’ve seen people try to reclaim the word.
Any links? I’d like to see their reasoning.
Neoliberal is an accurate descriptor for most liberals, progressive or conservative. The politics they support are similar more than they are different. The strong social safety net libs are social democrats who are either confused or in denial. I can’t fault them too much, good political education is basically non-existent in most schools. That still doesn’t mend the whole “caving to fascism” thing, social democrats still advocate capitalism. See how Sweden or Finland have been doing lately for a prime example
How are social democrats confused?
They’re confused about the nature of capitalism and how power structures function for one but I think you misunderstood my initial comment. I was saying that there are a lot of people that self identify as liberal who, if you listen to their rhetoric, would be better described as social democrats. Not that self identified social democrats are confused, but there are a lot of social democrats who seem to think they’re liberal
Ah ok, I understand what you mean. Thank you for clarifying. :)
Anytime!
You’re off the rocker lol. How are most liberals neoliberal. It’s like you just regurgitate words you saw without knowing what any of them mean.
The status quo in the US is neoliberalism, shifting towards fascism. Joe Biden is upholding the status quo with little in the way of real mitigation of the greatest problems in our country, doubly so for congress. Ardent supporters of the democratic party (a neoliberal party since the Clinton administration) are neoliberal. They vote for, and vocally support a neoliberal party. How aren’t they neoliberal?
I’m not talking about confused social democrats. People who call themselves liberal despite falling in line with a social democrat platform.
I’ll agree that Twitter is a mess right now, but fascist? I think y’all throw the word around too much, and risk making it lose its meaning.
Fascism is not everything evil. Fascism is a specific flavor of evil. It’s only fascism if it:
- Has a dictator with absolute power
- Is militaristic
- Suppresses opposition with force
- Has a social hierarchy
- Prioritizes the nation over its members
- Has strict rules for society and the economy
Otherwise, it’s just sparkling authoritarianism. Don’t get me wrong, that can still be just as evil or worse depending on how it’s done, but spreading misinformation is not automatically fascism.
Frankly, I don’t have a real issue with calling it fascism if it only meets some of the points above, but if it doesn’t even meet half, I think you’re stretching.
Fascism is a political strategy that seeks to preserve, create, and entrench structures and relationships of power imbalance by means of promoting and facilitating mass, broad-spectrum chauvinism in ways that are likely to encourage widespread individual and systemic violence.
“Chauvinism” here-in refers to an irrational belief that one’s own identity makes them superior. Note that this definition essentially covers the 14 characteristics of fascism as detailed by Umberto Eco, and generalizes them. It is not, as you imply, a type of governance nor is it a coherent political philosophy as so many seem to think. Under this definition, the conduct and statements of Elon Musk in general and his management of Twitter in particular certainly qualify.
Thanks for mentioninng Umberto Eco’s 14 traits of fascism. I hadn’t seen them before, but the summary was a good read. I’ll list them out here, with a few tweaks to the phrasing because I’m like that:
- Tradition has all the answers.
- Rejection of modern culture.
- Action for action’s sake.
- Disagreement is treason.
- Fear of difference - and different people.
- Middle class vs lower class.
- The enemy is always scheming something.
- The enemy is both dangerous and weak.
- If you’re not fighting, you’re with the enemy.
- Chauvinism.
- Everyone must be a hero of the cause.
- Machismo.
- The common will, as interpreted by the leader, subsumes individual opinions.
- Control of language to control thought.
I can accept this definition. It’s notably not meant to say “it’s only fascism if it covers all 14 points.” Eco states that fascism might coagulate around only one of these points, but I don’t think that should be taken to mean “if it meets one point, it’s fascism,” just that it could be. Otherwise, an order of knights is a fascist regime for meeting point 11.
I think it’s also valuable to take these points and do a little introspection to make sure you’re not being fascist (or fascist-like) yourself. I know my beliefs can be construed to hit around 2-5 of the points partially.
All that said… What you defined is violent systemic chauvinism (I’ll call it VSC for short.) There’s definitely major overlap between that and fascism, but I don’t think it covers all of fascism, and I think it covers things that are fascist-adjacent without technically being fascist (even though they’re still very evil.) For example, you could have a more communist flavor of VSC where the majority demographic of the middle class actually rules themselves and gets violent against anyone else, but it’s not fascism because there isn’t a placable dictator or even oligarchy. Or you could theoretically have a fascist regime without chauvinism, which doesn’t meet VSC.
I don’t think it covers all of fascism, and I think it covers things that are fascist-adjacent without technically being fascist
Can you provide some examples of each? That is, things that are useful to think of as “fascism”, but are not covered by my definition and things that are convered by my definition but considering them “fascism” is utility-negative? Having those to work off of would help me further refine my definition. The purpose of the definition is having a foundation to make inferences about the nature of fascism that are useful when discussing (among other things) strategies to counteract it, and so examples of the former are more valuable than examples of the latter.
Sure. Be warned that my arguments aren’t rock-solid here. I’m not a professional debater, I’m a casual who prefers to portray my thoughts more honestly rather than filtering out the inconvenient.
Fascism that isn’t covered by VSC
See 1984. Even though they don’t directly target minorities (or maybe I missed that part, either way it’s not prominent,) they still check all the other boxes of fascism and are very evil. If you think chauvinism is a necessary component of fascism, you might delude yourself into thinking a movement is okay because they’re not fascist (especially if they portray their enemies as fascists, making them the lesser of two evils,) and unknowingly become a fascist yourself.
VSC that isn’t fascism
The definition you gave includes a systemic combination of power imbalance, chauvinism, and violence. Totalitarianism is not necessary there. You could take an otherwise normal country, and if anyone with the authority to do so tells them “anyone who’s not a straight white person is lesser and not protected by the law,” it immediately fits the bill of VSC (if I interpreted it correctly.)
Don’t get me wrong, this is dangerously close to fascism, but the key difference is that straight white people are allowed to disagree and perhaps even campaign for equal treatment. They’re not being coerced into violence, just encouraged by the statements and lack of punishment for doing so.
I don’t have a problem with condemning this just as much as you’d condemn fascism, and it’s definitely fascist-adjacent. But I don’t want fascism redefined to include fascist-adjacentism, because then there’s a new ring of fascist-adjacentism ready to get redefined in as well, and no clear stopping point.
I know this is a bit of a slippery slope, but if you’re able to frame an ideology such that everything evil to you is fascist, then it becomes convenient to think that only fascism is evil, and miss non-fascist evil. I don’t expect you to fall into that pitfall, but I expect that if this trend continues, some people will. That’s where it’s utility-negative.
you might delude yourself into thinking a movement is okay because they’re not fascist
I’d like to point out that it’s fallacious to think that not fascist implies not bad, and I recommend not trying to incorporate the assumption that someone else will commit that fallacy into your argument.
With that said I would say that Oceania qualifies as fascist under my definition since they are depicted as strategically using deliberately cultivated chauvinism to maintain their power. It’s been a while, so I don’t recall all of the details, but the most obvious instance is how the main character is treated worse by children because they are aware he is a “thought criminal”. The children have been subjected to propaganda that cultivates a sense of superiority in identifying with the regime; they belive that “thought criminals” are, in essence, sub-human. I don’t recall any instances of explicit interpersonal violence being depicted in the story, but it’s probable that true believers attacking known thought-criminals would be a common occurrence given the rhetoric we are exposed to. The key component here is that this is used to deliberately maintain power; no one will rebel if everyone who even doubts is The Enemy.
Totalitarianism is not necessarily there.
The key component you’re missing is that fascism deliberately uses VSC to accumulate and maintain political power.
I know this is a bit of a slippery slope, but if you’re able to frame an ideology such that everything evil to you is fascist, then it becomes convenient to think that only fascism is evil, and miss non-fascist evil.
I agree. However, I don’t currently seek to address this particular issue.
Huh, I hadn’t considered that chauvinism doesn’t have to be demographic-based. Yeah, that makes a difference.
I don’t think it really fits, Elon Musk bought the place. If anything the lesson is that money rules the world, ideology is secondary.
I wonder if theres an ideology that is more in line with "Money Rules the world " hmmm
I meant that if it had been bought up by someone favouring socialist users and wanted to further that ideology, it would seem a bit strange to me that someone’s takeaway would be that neoliberalism laid the foundations for socialism.
It’s a website that got bought. If you meant that “money rules the world” is capitalism or neoliberalism then their point becomes a bit muddled, with capitalism laying foundation for capitalism or neoliberalism laying foundation for neoliberalism. What would that even mean?
I don’t see any sort of ideological struggle or laying foundations. It was just a purchase. My friend didn’t lay the foundations for me to drive to places when I bought his car and used it to drive places hah.
There are ideologies that believe control rights over firms belong to the workers in those firms. In these ideologies, the control rights can’t be given up or transferred even with consent from the workers in the firm i.e. are inalienable. Neoliberalism specifically endorses the alienability control rights over firms. The non-democratic nature of the firm under neoliberal capitalism creates a class used to democratically unaccountable power
not a meme, please use the sister communities for content like this
(I hate to do this bc I agree with it, but my brain hates twitter posts or just generally walls of text in a meme community)Was that posted on Twitter/X?
Clearly posted on mastodon.
Never used it so don’t know the interface. But now that I take out the magnifying glass and not skip over the handle I can see it there.
There’s a source in the post text and their handle is in a mastodon instance :P
Sigh. Why would I go to the source when it’s posted. And handle is what I said. (Clearly what I posted.)
Because perhaps you were curious about whether it was posted on Twitter… The thing you asked about…
And just like whitepeopletwitter, people can take from one place (Twitter) and post on another (mastodon). JFC. Ciao.
This seems like pretty blatant deflection when you had multiple opportunities to find out your exact question by clicking one link or reading a little closer. Both things faster than making a comment.
You assumed wrong twice, made an inciting comment, and now you’re upset about it. Interesting.
Also why bring up whitepeopletwitter? This isn’t reddit…
Libs love fascism but Twitter could be turned into X and made fascist isn’t an argument for that. Maybe on the extremely loose way that private property allows this to happen.
- intensely_human ( @intensely_human@lemm.ee ) English2•8 months ago
Definition of fascist: that which we say is fascist.