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Not a breather, just doing a lot of writing...
ER — (archived)

All fascism can be characterized as an arbitrary division of mankind into two intrinsically separate parts, US and THEM. Defining a polarity is not restricted to fascism, of course, almost every form of factionalism and ideology does this, what distinguishes fascism is that the division is inherent, fundamental, it is genetic. Those who belong to THEM cannot help but do otherwise, while those with US are that way from birth, they are entitled to the exalted status just as their counterparts are condemned to being the opposite.

Under this operational definition the mid-twentieth century fascists of MittelEuropa with their racial theories and anti-Semitism are just an extension of other exclusionist philosophies. In the past, race, caste, culture, even membership or non-membership in an aristocratic class was enough to identify the OTHER. There was nothing you could do to avoid it if you had the wrong parents. Even the ancient slave-owning societies of Classical history recognized that slavery was something that happened to you, when your nation was conquered or defeated. Perhaps the children of slaves were destined to be slaves, but it was still recognized that even slaves may have once had noble ancestors. For fascists, slavery is something the slaves deserve, they were born that way, they inherit it from their parents.

Modern fascists, cloaking their own sense of inherent psychosocial superiority in a mantle of meritocracy are able to have it both ways. They are superior because they have succeeded in a meritocracy that rewards the virtuous. Those who fail are therefore obviously inferior. Those who have not failed but still do not accept this cruel calculus must be fools or class traitors. The fact that some have failed is evidence that they are intrinsically flawed, down at the very core of their nucleic acids, because we obviously live in a Darwinian meritocracy and they certainly could have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps if they weren't fundamentally inferior to begin with. After all, aren't the annals of history filled with personalities who struggled up from poverty and persecution to become individuals of great power?

Clearly, nothing kept those heroes down. Those of THEM who can't do the same are lazy, or weak, or inferior, not like US. Of course, there are many of US who are not successful, who have failed in spite of our genetic/intellectual/racial superiority. This can only be explained by a conspiracy of the inept and the envious, led by a treacherous elite; a collectivist cabal operating behind the scenes which toils ceaselessy to prevent the best among US from rising to the rightful positions of power and privilege we have earned by our work ethic and our ambition and our courage and our innovation and our entrepreneurial spirit.

This is panoid political anomalism of the highest order, read between the lines: elites, conspiracies, hidden orders and secret societies, a conspiracy theory originating with the educated, the artists, the press, the intelligentsia, the academics, the literati, the trade unionists, and of course, the workers. Everyone is an enemy, except, of course, our beleaguered and abused managerial and entrepreneurial yeomanry, our poor, bashed, misunderstood shrugging Atlases, groaning under the weight of their ceaseless stuggling for an ungrateful rabble. And every attempt to deny or question or challenge this fantasy is yet another collectivist conspiracy. This is the mentality and rhetoric of Creationism and Ufology applied to politics. The logic of the Bermuda Triangle made manifest in Conservative economics.

Every fascist community has had it's nemesis, the Oligarchy had the Demos, the Cavaliers the Roundheads, the Aristocracy had the Bourgeosie and the Bourgeosie the Proletariat; the Nazis had the Jews and the Neocons have the Liberals. Foreigners, blacks, immigrants, Muslims, intellectuals, the list of enemies stretches on to infinity, it will never end. The fascists and their Kampf followers need their enemies, or they will have none available for their endless struggle.

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