Fascism absolutely is both left and right. Fascism is defined as “extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or oppressive ideas or behaviour”.
Let’s have a look at the current “left”. Pro-censorship of any and all opinions that they don’t agree with. Trying to make laws that outlaw things they disagree with. Encouraging riots and harassment and violence against people they disagree with. Blame white people for all the problems in the world.
A political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
The emphasis on race and economic / social regimentation are the major break from the left.
That’s literally the whole American “MAGA” movement. They want Trump or someone like him as an absolute dictator and have no problem taking rights away from people.
Right. All the thousands of “god emperor” and “president for life” memes really make me confident in that…
Not to mention also the “helicopter ride” memes which were popular for a while. Face it. The right loves strongman populist authoritarians just as much as the tankies do.
@Whirlybird@Roundcat, Fascism is not a political system, but a system of oppression, in which a minority or a single person decides the rules for the rest, it doesn’t matter if it is called dictatorship, democracy or communism, which in these circumstances is always a mere label. In real communism and real democracy, it is always the vast majority that dictates the rules, not the other way around. This is why capitalism always favors fascism, it is money that dictates the rules, not people.
I’m not sure where you got your definition of fascism, but I think the more formal definitions of it would say otherwise. But! Your definition, I think, is more in-line with how we use that word in the modern times. So, I’ll stick with it.
I think the left side fascism is lot harder to spot whereas the right side fascism is very obvious.
The extreme rights literally go around waving the nazi flag. They’re obvious fascists.
The extreme left has a different approach to fascism. They’re like, “Oh what you say is offensive, and it’s not nice. You need to be nicer and say these things. You’re hurting people’s feelings.” But by doing that, they’re effectively taking away speech and enforcing their world views on others. They’re just as intolerant of opposing views and will happily snuff them out. The cancel culture that has become the main weapon of the extreme left is most certainly fascism.
I also don’t believe extreme left are for being actually nice, they only want to push their specific agendas in a fascistic manner since they happily ignore other marginalized population and will even make fun of them. They are not nice people. For example a straight white man (which I am not) could be struggling to live for any reason. Could be illness, could be abused, anything really. But just because he is in the category of the straight white man, they’ll just insult him and how he deserves what happened to him, all the while ignoring everything else about him. He isn’t the oppressor, he isn’t the one who did wrong. Does it matter? No. That’s prejudice. And no one will defend those people, because if you do, you’re also not a nice person and must be cancelled. Guess which group does defend them? The extreme right. I wonder which side he’ll pick then.
Yeah, I definitely felt the same. As a bona fide straight white male, I felt pushed to the right by the left, despite also being against prejudice, being pro-lgbt, supportive of minorities, and for preserving culture (that last one is actually very anti-left if you consider history). But I have learned that the things we hear are almost exclusively the extremists on one side opposing the extremists on the other side, and both feed each other. Everyone seems to forget there is a nice moderate just-left-of-centre position where people pay for healthcare with their taxes and aren’t royally fucked by corporations.
That meme that musk posted ages back where the left keep pushing further and further left, to the point where they claim that people that were moderate left and haven’t changed their position at all are now far right, is spot on.
Can anyone explain how fascism as defined above could apply to the right extreme? Apart from the Nazis? Its really descriptive of the far left. Although oppressing non-cis/het relations is stereotypically right
EDIT: kind of important, fascism was auto-corrected to racism, corrected now
@luthis@Whirlybird, Racism, xeno- and homophobia have nothing to do with political orientation, but with personal aversions, fears and problems. They tend to be people, either indoctrinated by religion or looking for a strong leader because they lack their own ideas or initiatives. For this reason they are aligned in their vast majority with the fascist ideology and to a very lesser extent in the leftist sphere.
Fascism absolutely is both left and right. Fascism is defined as “extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or oppressive ideas or behaviour”.
Let’s have a look at the current “left”. Pro-censorship of any and all opinions that they don’t agree with. Trying to make laws that outlaw things they disagree with. Encouraging riots and harassment and violence against people they disagree with. Blame white people for all the problems in the world.
Thats…fascism.
And once again we come around to the fact, that the basic understanding of nazis has been dumbed-down, to basically “bad”.
Fascism as defined by Merriam-Webster says
The emphasis on race and economic / social regimentation are the major break from the left.
That doesn’t match the “right” either though.
That’s literally the whole American “MAGA” movement. They want Trump or someone like him as an absolute dictator and have no problem taking rights away from people.
No one is asking for trump to be a dictator lol
Right. All the thousands of “god emperor” and “president for life” memes really make me confident in that…
Not to mention also the “helicopter ride” memes which were popular for a while. Face it. The right loves strongman populist authoritarians just as much as the tankies do.
Literally never seen any of those. Guess I don’t hang around in enough “far right” places.
Fascism is a lot more intricate than that. There are tenets within fascist ideology that are entirely incompatible with leftism.
Totalitarianism and fascism are not the same thing.
Also, none of the things you mentioned were explicitly leftist even. Hell, not really even implicitly leftist.
@Whirlybird @Roundcat, Fascism is not a political system, but a system of oppression, in which a minority or a single person decides the rules for the rest, it doesn’t matter if it is called dictatorship, democracy or communism, which in these circumstances is always a mere label. In real communism and real democracy, it is always the vast majority that dictates the rules, not the other way around. This is why capitalism always favors fascism, it is money that dictates the rules, not people.
(We’re all gonna get super downvoted anyway)
I’m not sure where you got your definition of fascism, but I think the more formal definitions of it would say otherwise. But! Your definition, I think, is more in-line with how we use that word in the modern times. So, I’ll stick with it.
I think the left side fascism is lot harder to spot whereas the right side fascism is very obvious.
The extreme rights literally go around waving the nazi flag. They’re obvious fascists.
The extreme left has a different approach to fascism. They’re like, “Oh what you say is offensive, and it’s not nice. You need to be nicer and say these things. You’re hurting people’s feelings.” But by doing that, they’re effectively taking away speech and enforcing their world views on others. They’re just as intolerant of opposing views and will happily snuff them out. The cancel culture that has become the main weapon of the extreme left is most certainly fascism.
I also don’t believe extreme left are for being actually nice, they only want to push their specific agendas in a fascistic manner since they happily ignore other marginalized population and will even make fun of them. They are not nice people. For example a straight white man (which I am not) could be struggling to live for any reason. Could be illness, could be abused, anything really. But just because he is in the category of the straight white man, they’ll just insult him and how he deserves what happened to him, all the while ignoring everything else about him. He isn’t the oppressor, he isn’t the one who did wrong. Does it matter? No. That’s prejudice. And no one will defend those people, because if you do, you’re also not a nice person and must be cancelled. Guess which group does defend them? The extreme right. I wonder which side he’ll pick then.
Edit: Grammar
Yeah, I definitely felt the same. As a bona fide straight white male, I felt pushed to the right by the left, despite also being against prejudice, being pro-lgbt, supportive of minorities, and for preserving culture (that last one is actually very anti-left if you consider history). But I have learned that the things we hear are almost exclusively the extremists on one side opposing the extremists on the other side, and both feed each other. Everyone seems to forget there is a nice moderate just-left-of-centre position where people pay for healthcare with their taxes and aren’t royally fucked by corporations.
That meme that musk posted ages back where the left keep pushing further and further left, to the point where they claim that people that were moderate left and haven’t changed their position at all are now far right, is spot on.
Can anyone explain how fascism as defined above could apply to the right extreme? Apart from the Nazis? Its really descriptive of the far left. Although oppressing non-cis/het relations is stereotypically right
EDIT: kind of important, fascism was auto-corrected to racism, corrected now
Racism and leftism go together like water and oil. There is nothing egalitarian about racism.
Yeah, actually I mean fascism but auto correct ruined it
@luthis @Whirlybird, Racism, xeno- and homophobia have nothing to do with political orientation, but with personal aversions, fears and problems. They tend to be people, either indoctrinated by religion or looking for a strong leader because they lack their own ideas or initiatives. For this reason they are aligned in their vast majority with the fascist ideology and to a very lesser extent in the leftist sphere.
I actually meant fascism but auto correct incorrected my comment