Jason Stanley (1)

This book by Jason Stanley is brilliant. I wish I could say the book has no relevance to our times, but this will be a lie.

Fascism is like diabetes. Unless you control it from the start, it will eat your insides. Diabetes eats your body, whereas fascism eats society.

In this brilliant book, Jason Stanley has dissected the political belief system of fascism and fascists. The chapters explore the different facets of fascism and make for compelling reading.

Why is the book relevant? After all, Hitler and Mussolini died several decades ago. When you read the book, and analyse what is happening in democracies around the world, you understand the dangers and risks we face.

Once again, an excellent and relevant book.… (altro)

This is a bad book. The author attempts to characterise fascist politics, but unironically commits commits most of the tactics he attributes to fascists. He defines what he means by "fascist" and by implication "fascist politics", and then appears to write parts of the book based on two other definitions. I don't think the author is disingenuous or attempting his own propaganda - I think he's guilty of wooly thinking and/or wooly writing, possibly in an attempt to make the book accessible to lay readers. This "lay reader" was not impressed.

On page xiv, the author writes "I have chosen the label 'fascism' for ultranationalism of some variety (ethnic, religious, cultural), with the nation represented in the person of an authoritarian leader who speaks on its behalf." He continues later on the same page "My interest in this book is in fascist politics. Specifically my interest is in fascist tactics as a mechanism to achieve power. ... Fascist politics does not necessarily lead to an explicitly fascist state, but it is dangerous nonetheless."

His chapter titles provide a list of what he presents as fascist political tactics/stances/myths:
1. The Mythic Past
2. Propaganda
3. Anti-Intellectual
4. Unreality
5. Hierarchy
6. Victimhood
7. Law and Order
8. Sexual Anxiety
9. Sodom and Gomorrah
10. Arbeit Macht Frei

His evidence for the list is simple - he finds authors he can label fascist who wrote something of the kind. Or failing that, he finds historians who attribute such beliefs to one or other of the fascist states of the world war II era. He never looks for non-fascists doing the same thing. And as the book progresses, it becomes clear that not supporting various American left wing political beliefs (presumably those shared by the author), is adequate evidence for fascism, though he prefers to pick fascist examples at least associated with a political party or candidate labelled "right wing".

Worse, I routinely caught him using tactics similar to those he attributes to "fascist politics". Given my cynicism about political writing in general, this failed to surprise me - many of these are things politicians routinely do, regardless of affiliation. But I can surely use this book as an existence proof for several of these tactics not being limited to fascists - unless you want to argue that this book consists of "fascist politics" in support of modern American left wing causes.

This list might be useful to someone unfamiliar with what I'd prefer to call right wing preoccupations and shibboleths. Many of these do, in my opinion, turn up more frequently among right than left wing political tracts, platforms, shibboleths, etc. (I note, of course, that there's no clear definition of "right wing" to be had, particularly if you don't limit yourself to the last few decades of history in a single country.) Even fewer are the exclusive domain of the "right wing" - or "fascists", for that matter, unless you use a circular definition ("fascists are people who use any of these tactics").

And as for the politics of "us and them", well this author clearly sees fascists/populists/right wingers as very much "them". Whereas his book is addressed to an "us" that takes various mostly US left wing positions as self evident truths.

The best use of this book is for it to be read by "true believers" to who want to be confirmed in their beliefs, reinforce their negative views of their opponents, enhance their sense that those opponents' goals are catastrophically bad, all while adding a veneer of intellectualism and system to their chanting of The Political Truths (TM).

Sadly, this author is my political "ally", in the US two party system. I wish my allies would show some sign of bring better, on average, than my opponents, but it's all too easy to find gems like this that bring their average down - easier, for me, than finding similar rubbish among my opponents, where I can't as easily distinguish my own biases from reality. And to be fair, while this book is very disappointing, the average person-in-the-street I encounter regularly emits worse.… (altro)