Quote of the Day: Fascism

 

“The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’” – Eric Blair (George Orwell)

I recently listened to a discussion between Nick Gillespie, Jonah Goldberg, and Zach Weissmueller about whether Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s incoming prime minister, was a fascist and whether it really did indicate Italy was returning to fascism.  (Be warned if you click, it is 87 minutes long.)

I listened mainly because I wanted to hear what Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism, had to say on the issue.  The book was groundbreaking, inextricably linking fascism with the left.  It remains relevant today.

I was not expecting much, and I pretty much got what I expected. The three concluded that Meloni was not a traditional fascist in the sense that she opposed the formula “Everything Within the State, Nothing Against the State, Nothing Outside the State” espoused by Mussolini (and today’s Progressives in the United States and the Davos crowd). However, she was a nationalist, and opposed globalism, and we don’t like her, so yeah, maybe she has fascist tendencies.

Also she opposed big bankers, which means she is anti-Semitic. (Which is true only if you believe Jews run the world economy. What serious person believes that? Even back in the day, most big moneymen, the Rockefellers, Mellons, and Morgans, weren’t Jewish.) The Nazis were anti-Semitic, the Nazis were fascists, and therefore all fascists are anti-Semitic. (Except, of course, the Italian fascists were not. The two safest countries to be a Jew in mainland Europe during the late 1930s and early 1940s were fascist Italy and fascist Spain.)

So, yeah, they are using fascism to label something they do not like. Almost 80 years of proving Orwell right.

Kim du Toit points out in his blog (if you are not following it, you are missing something) that fascism wants the state controlling everything. We can argue what fascism is, but that is the defining credo of fascism. Any movement to shrink the size, power, and intrusiveness of the government, whether Meloni’s party or small-government conservatives in the US, is antithetical to government control. No matter how much you dislike it, it is not fascist. Except if you use Orwell’s definition of “something not desirable.”

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  1. WillowSpring Member
    WillowSpring
    @WillowSpring

    It is amazing to me that the quote is from Orwell and not someone more recent.

    I am reminded over and over that History is much older than you think it is!

    • #1
  2. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Even Orwell’s definition leaves out something important:  Fascism is something “not desirable TO ME.”

    In other words, “Anything I don’t like or want.”

    • #2
  3. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    An excellent piece in the American Conservative on Meloni. The basic upshot is that Europeans are importing present-day American conservatism to great effect: Brexit, Orban, and now Meloni. 

    Of course, neocon snots like those three, aren’t present-day American conservatives. Fortunately.

    • #3
  4. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Just another example of how the definition of words keep changing so words no longer have meaning except to be used as cudgel by the Left against the Right.

    • #4
  5. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Seawriter, great quote and post.  I have a couple of questions.

    When did Orwell say, or write, that quote?

    When did “fascist” become an epithet?  Was it only after WWII, or during, or before?  My impression is that it was during the war, but I’m not sure.

    • #5
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I used to have a modicum of respect for Gillespie, and I was a fan of Jonah’s going way back to The Corner. If this Weissmueller chap signed off on that nonsense, he’s a doink.

    • #6
  7. Dunstaple Coolidge
    Dunstaple
    @Dunstaple

    I really like this article posted yesterday on The American Mind. It basically argues that “fascism” is a term that should really only be applied to Mussolini’s Italian state. Its meaning has since been watered down to the point of uselessness.

    From the conclusion of that article:

    Paul Gottfried argues in his fine recent book Antifascism: The Course of a Crusade, antifascism has become little more than the opium of intellectuals who cannot abide democracy marked by due respect for the good sense of the people and the salutary inheritance of Western civilization.

    People such as Jonah Goldberg, apparently.

    • #7
  8. Dunstaple Coolidge
    Dunstaple
    @Dunstaple

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Seawriter, great quote and post. I have a couple of questions.

    When did Orwell say, or write, that quote?

    When did “fascist” become an epithet? Was it only after WWII, or during, or before? My impression is that it was during the war, but I’m not sure.

    Its use as a general epithet was pushed by communists, particularly Stalin.

    • #8
  9. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    When did Orwell say, or write, that quote?

    The quote is from Essays, first published in 1944.

    When did “fascist” become an epithet? Was it only after WWII, or during, or before? My impression is that it was during the war, but I’m not sure.

    Universally? After WWII started. Probably 1941 based on Dorothy Parker’s Harper’s Magazine article “Who Goes Nazi.”

    I do know in Dorothy Sayers’s Novel Gaudy Night at one point a character in Oxford states “What this country need is an ‘Itler.” He meant it positively. It probably did not reflect Sayers’s op[inion,. but it did reflect the opinion of some working class British. The novel appeared in 1935. So some time between 1935 and 1941.

     

    • #9
  10. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Seawriter: I was not expecting much, and I pretty much got what I expected. The three concluded that Meloni was not a traditional fascist in the sense that she opposed the formula “Everything Within the State, Nothing Against the State, Nothing Outside the State” espoused by Mussolini (and today’s Progressives in the United States and the Davos crowd). However she was a nationalist, and opposed globalism, and we don’t like her, so yeah, maybe she has fascist tendencies.

    Unsurprising.

    • #10
  11. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    From catholicvote.org, Giorgia Meloni is indeed dangerous to some, at the very least dangerous to all the collectivists.

    • #11
  12. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Seawriter, great quote and post. I have a couple of questions.

    When did Orwell say, or write, that quote?

    When did “fascist” become an epithet? Was it only after WWII, or during, or before? My impression is that it was during the war, but I’m not sure.

    Before WWII. Take a look at these huge “Anti-Fascist Action” banners of the German Communist Party in the 1930’s.

    • #12
  13. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Seawriter: Kim du Toit points out in his blog (linked, if you are not following it you are missing something) that fascism wants the state controlling everything. We can argue what fascism is, but that is the defining credo of fascism. Any movement to shrink the size, power, and intrusiveness of the government, whether Meloni’s party or small-government conservatives in the US is antithetical to government control. No matter how much you dislike it, it is not fascist. Except if you use Orwell’s definition of ‘something not desirable.’

    It is quite common for Americans on the left–even self-described liberals–to brand as fascists those who advocate for smaller government and greater individual liberty.

    • #13
  14. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Seawriter, great quote and post. I have a couple of questions.

    When did Orwell say, or write, that quote?

    When did “fascist” become an epithet? Was it only after WWII, or during, or before? My impression is that it was during the war, but I’m not sure.

    Before WWII. Take a look at these huge “Anti-Fascist Action” banners of the German Communist Party in the 1930’s.

    Paul, my impression is that it wasn’t widespread before WWII, but was a Communist thing before WWII.

    My hypothesis is that the use of “fascist” as an epithet began with the Communists, and when we sided with the Communists in WWII, we ended up adopting it too — with the “we” being essentially the US and Britain.

    I’ve been reconsidering my understanding of WWII history recently, and the “Communist plot” hypothesis seems to fit the facts pretty well.  If Britain and the US had set out to make the world safe for Stalinism, we would have been hard pressed to do a better job.  It doesn’t appear that this was the intention of the American or British people, or of the top leadership, at least based upon what they said.  It was the outcome, though.

    • #14
  15. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I’ve been reconsidering my understanding of WWII history recently, and the “Communist plot” hypothesis seems to fit the facts pretty well.  If Britain and the US had set out to make the world safe for Stalinism, we would have been hard pressed to do a better job.  It doesn’t appear that this was the intention of the American or British people, or of the top leadership, at least based upon what they said.  It was the outcome, though.

    What would the alternative have been?

    • #15
  16. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I’ve been reconsidering my understanding of WWII history recently, and the “Communist plot” hypothesis seems to fit the facts pretty well. If Britain and the US had set out to make the world safe for Stalinism, we would have been hard pressed to do a better job. It doesn’t appear that this was the intention of the American or British people, or of the top leadership, at least based upon what they said. It was the outcome, though.

    What would the alternative have been?

    Nonintervention.  Let the Fascists and the Commies fight each other.

    • #16
  17. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I’ve been reconsidering my understanding of WWII history recently, and the “Communist plot” hypothesis seems to fit the facts pretty well. If Britain and the US had set out to make the world safe for Stalinism, we would have been hard pressed to do a better job. It doesn’t appear that this was the intention of the American or British people, or of the top leadership, at least based upon what they said. It was the outcome, though.

    What would the alternative have been?

    Nonintervention. Let the Fascists and the Commies fight each other.

    Britain was already in the war, and Hitler declared war on us.

    • #17
  18. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Whatever other culture wars stuff Meloni feeds off, here’s an opinion I definitely agree with:

    In the video, Ms. Meloni tells her supporters that what’s “disgusting” is a “France that continues to exploit Africa by printing money to 14 African countries, charging them mint fees, and by child labor in the mines and by extracting raw material, as is happening in Niger,” where “France extracts 30 percent of the uranium it needs to run its nuclear reactors, while 90 percent of Niger’s population lives without electricity.”

    There was more. “Do not come to teach us lessons, Macron, the Africans are abandoning their continent because of you,” Ms. Meloni thundered, adding, “The solution is not to transfer Africans to Europe, but liberate Africa from some Europeans.”

    boomBOOM!

    • #18
  19. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Whatever other culture wars stuff Meloni feeds off, here’s an opinion I definitely agree with:

    In the video, Ms. Meloni tells her supporters that what’s “disgusting” is a “France that continues to exploit Africa by printing money to 14 African countries, charging them mint fees, and by child labor in the mines and by extracting raw material, as is happening in Niger,” where “France extracts 30 percent of the uranium it needs to run its nuclear reactors, while 90 percent of Niger’s population lives without electricity.”

    There was more. “Do not come to teach us lessons, Macron, the Africans are abandoning their continent because of you,” Ms. Meloni thundered, adding, “The solution is not to transfer Africans to Europe, but liberate Africa from some Europeans.”

    boomBOOM!

    I don’t know much about it, but supposedly EU trade policy really holds back Africa. 

    • #19
  20. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Seawriter: “The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’” – Eric Blair (George Orwell)

    First published in 1946 in Horizon (London) in April 1946.

    • #20
  21. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    When did “fascist” become an epithet? Was it only after WWII, or during, or before? My impression is that it was during the war, but I’m not sure.

    Before WWII. Take a look at these huge “Anti-Fascist Action” banners of the German Communist Party in the 1930’s.

    Paul, my impression is that it wasn’t widespread before WWII, but was a Communist thing before WWII.

    You may be right: I have not made a careful study of that timeline of rhetoric.

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    My hypothesis is that the use of “fascist” as an epithet began with the Communists, and when we sided with the Communists in WWII, we ended up adopting it too — with the “we” being essentially the US and Britain.

    I’m confident that it began with the Communists, but it seems that even without the war our “intellectual classes” would have been likely to adopt that epithet as they had and have a natural weakness for such totalitarian pseudo-utopian schemes. And even after embracing that ideology many continued to publicly describe themselves as liberals.

    • #21
  22. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    Seawriter: Kim du Toit points out in his blog (linked, if you are not following it you are missing something) that fascism wants the state controlling everything. We can argue what fascism is, but that is the defining credo of fascism. Any movement to shrink the size, power, and intrusiveness of the government, whether Meloni’s party or small-government conservatives in the US is antithetical to government control. No matter how much you dislike it, it is not fascist. Except if you use Orwell’s definition of ‘something not desirable.’

    It is quite common for Americans on the left–even self-described liberals–to brand as fascists those who advocate for smaller government and greater individual liberty.

    On my side of the Atlantic one constantly hears that Trump (and the GOP- I don’t treat them as one and the same) are “authoritarian”. No such view is taken of the Party that locked down schools for excessive periods, suppresses free speech, arrests its  enemies and generally wants the Federal Government to have as much power as it can get away with. Where I live, there is no Party with elected representatives who don’t buy into Big Europe.

    • #22
  23. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    Seawriter: Kim du Toit points out in his blog (linked, if you are not following it you are missing something) that fascism wants the state controlling everything. We can argue what fascism is, but that is the defining credo of fascism. Any movement to shrink the size, power, and intrusiveness of the government, whether Meloni’s party or small-government conservatives in the US is antithetical to government control. No matter how much you dislike it, it is not fascist. Except if you use Orwell’s definition of ‘something not desirable.’

    It is quite common for Americans on the left–even self-described liberals–to brand as fascists those who advocate for smaller government and greater individual liberty.

    On my side of the Atlantic one constantly hears that Trump (and the GOP- I don’t treat them as one and the same) are “authoritarian”. No such view is taken of the Party that locked down schools for excessive periods, suppresses free speech, arrests its enemies and generally wants the Federal Government to have as much power as it can get away with. Where I live, there is no Party with elected representatives who don’t buy into Big Europe.

    A number of Brits have written that the Conservatives and the upper class began to embrace big government socialism when they realized that they could keep their wealth and privileges. Your perspective on this?

    • #23
  24. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    Seawriter: Kim du Toit points out in his blog (linked, if you are not following it you are missing something) that fascism wants the state controlling everything. We can argue what fascism is, but that is the defining credo of fascism. Any movement to shrink the size, power, and intrusiveness of the government, whether Meloni’s party or small-government conservatives in the US is antithetical to government control. No matter how much you dislike it, it is not fascist. Except if you use Orwell’s definition of ‘something not desirable.’

    It is quite common for Americans on the left–even self-described liberals–to brand as fascists those who advocate for smaller government and greater individual liberty.

    On my side of the Atlantic one constantly hears that Trump (and the GOP- I don’t treat them as one and the same) are “authoritarian”. No such view is taken of the Party that locked down schools for excessive periods, suppresses free speech, arrests its enemies and generally wants the Federal Government to have as much power as it can get away with. Where I live, there is no Party with elected representatives who don’t buy into Big Europe.

    A number of Brits have written that the Conservatives and the upper class began to embrace big government socialism when they realized that they could keep their wealth and privileges. Your perspective on this?

    I’m not British, but I respect the fact that a majority of voters there rebelled against creeping federalism and struck out in their own. I also admire the Tories who vindicated the wishes of the majority and completed the process of withdrawal in the teeth of outrageous hostility from within and without.

    Finally, I envy any country which offers a choice of different political philosophies to its voters rather than bemoaning “divisive” elections which might put conservatives or eurosceptics of any stripe in power. 

    • #24
  25. Lilly B Coolidge
    Lilly B
    @LillyB

    Thanks, @seawriter,  for demonstrating that even, and perhaps especially, familiar quotes are great conversation starters when applied to current events.

    ********

    This post is part of the Quote of the Day (QOTD) Group Writing project on Ricochet. We welcome regular contributors and newbies who want to share a quote from the past or present and start a conversation! The October QOTD Signup Sheet is here.

    • #25
  26. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    When did “fascist” become an epithet?

    Back in the 40’s and 50’s, some liberty-minded people referred to Communists as “red fascists”. Very apt.

    • #26
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