How does fascism happen?
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Its weird because we basically all agree its bad but its happening anyway. I keep feeling like someone should do something, but then like I'm someone and cant really do anything.
Are we all just waiting for someone to do something about it?
This. It's such a helpless, defeating feeling. If I looked out my window, and saw people rioting in the streets and fighting the police/ military, I'd immediately be engaging (and most likely immediately getting neutralized), if I had a company of like-minded individuals behind me I'd say let's determine a target. But all of us, you, me, everyone, have the same mindset: If we try, we will win, but if I try, I will die.
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
Fascist propaganda is highly effective, and no one is immune to propaganda. Humans are emotional creatures, prone to being whipped up into a frenzy. You identify a(n imaginary) threat, and offer a very simple solution to it. The logic of whether or not the solution sounds morally correct doesn't matter because 1.) The problem is made up anyways and 2.) The propagandist is appealing to the id, not the superego.
Remember that thinking is the greatest threat to fascism, exercise your brain as often as possible.
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
Any political extremism is propagated by providing easy answers to complex problems.
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Dude just look outside.
Edit: i used to have big long lectures about the psychology of it, or how it exists as a system. But now you can just look outside.
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
If you are up for a big, dense piece of 1950s social philosophy, Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism" is a classic. It covers imperialism, racism, mob violence, antisemitism, propaganda, tolerance for lies, and the development of mythologies. It's got a lot of ideas - many of which have been challenged. It's also excessively wordy.
One thing to keep in mind is that most of the components have been around for a long time -- supremacist ideologies, conspiracy theories, propaganda systems. -
I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
Bigotry, that's how. People have problems, the economy is struggling. They need a scapegoat. So someone like Hitler or Trump convince them that all their problems are caused by jews or immigrants or LGBT people or some other minority group and that everything will be fixed by getting rid of that group
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If you are up for a big, dense piece of 1950s social philosophy, Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism" is a classic. It covers imperialism, racism, mob violence, antisemitism, propaganda, tolerance for lies, and the development of mythologies. It's got a lot of ideas - many of which have been challenged. It's also excessively wordy.
One thing to keep in mind is that most of the components have been around for a long time -- supremacist ideologies, conspiracy theories, propaganda systems.Thanks. If anything, I have a lot of reading to catch up on!
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
Populism
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Dude just look outside.
Edit: i used to have big long lectures about the psychology of it, or how it exists as a system. But now you can just look outside.
Yeah. Trying to put it all into sense, perhaps using the lessons of history as a guide.
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Any political extremism is propagated by providing easy answers to complex problems.
Yes, but along the way, we'd expect there to be questions and common civility perhaps being a guide. It's not happening, so I'm wondering why the masses and leaders sit and do nothing while it unfolds.
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From They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933 - 1945, in which the author Milton Mayer got to know and interviewed 10 Nazis (the mentioned "friends") about the rise of fascism:
Because the mass movement of Nazism was nonintellectual in the beginning, when it was only practice, it had to be anti- intellectual before it could be theoretical. What Mussolini’s official philosopher, Giovanni Gentile, said of Fascism could have been better said of Nazi theory: “We think with our blood.” Expertness in thinking, exemplified by the professor, by the high- school teacher, and even by the grammar- school teacher in the village, had to deny the Nazi views of history, economics, literature, art, philosophy, politics, biology, and education itself. Thus Nazism, as it proceeded from practice to theory, had to deny expertness in thinking and then (this second process was never completed), in order to fill the vacuum, had to establish expert thinking of its own— that is, to find men of inferior or irresponsible caliber whose views conformed dishonestly or, worse yet, honestly to the Party line. The nonpolitical pastor satisfied Nazi requirements by being nonpolitical. But the nonpolitical schoolmaster was, by the very virtue of being nonpolitical, a dangerous man from the first. He himself would not rebel, nor would he, if he could help it, teach rebellion; but he could not help being dangerous— not if he went on teaching what was true. In order to be a theory and not just a practice, National Socialism required the destruction of academic independence. In the years of its rise the movement little by little brought the community’s attitude toward the teacher around from respect and envy to resentment, from trust and fear to suspicion. The development seems to have been inherent; it needed no planning and had none. As the Nazi emphasis on nonintellectual virtues (patriotism, loyalty, duty, purity, labor, simplicity, “blood,” “folk- ishness”) seeped through Germany, elevating the self- esteem of the “little man,” the academic profession was pushed from the very center to the very periphery of society. Germany was preparing to cut its own head off. By 1933 at least five of my ten friends (and I think six or seven) looked upon “intellectuals” as unreliable and, among these unreliables, upon the academics as the most insidiously situated.
Anti-intellectualism isn't the only ingredient, but it's one of the most important. It's a reactionary movement that injects hate into people's hearts in order to consolidate power for the privileged. Those "little men" who support the regime feel that they were elevated above the people whom they hate, and were often the beneficiaries of the cruel treatment and dispossession of the victims.
It's terribly discouraging. Like you're being punished for taking the time to build yourself up. 'And the meek shall inherit the earth' also has these control undertones, as does every skilled worker made to work under the policies and management of an unskilled manager because he 'knew a guy'. 'Inferior' lol.
In my country we sarcastically remark 'its not what you know, it's who you know', while the quality of the workforce abd personal education continues to decline. More true now than ever.
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Yeah. Trying to put it all into sense, perhaps using the lessons of history as a guide.
Shit. Okay, ill type that up at some point when im the right amount of sober.
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Yes, but along the way, we'd expect there to be questions and common civility perhaps being a guide. It's not happening, so I'm wondering why the masses and leaders sit and do nothing while it unfolds.
My impression is that 1/3 of the population is always ready to accept tyranny. On that topic, I have a couple of other suggestions that are easier reads than Arendt, and specifically about the usa:
- Who Goes Nazi (a short, almost fun essay)
- Huey Long is sometimes considered America's fascist governor.
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My impression is that 1/3 of the population is always ready to accept tyranny. On that topic, I have a couple of other suggestions that are easier reads than Arendt, and specifically about the usa:
- Who Goes Nazi (a short, almost fun essay)
- Huey Long is sometimes considered America's fascist governor.
1/3 kinda sounds about right. Some are finding the system isn't working for them, and want a change, no matter how drastic. The other group wants to control the system for their needs.
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My impression is that 1/3 of the population is always ready to accept tyranny. On that topic, I have a couple of other suggestions that are easier reads than Arendt, and specifically about the usa:
- Who Goes Nazi (a short, almost fun essay)
- Huey Long is sometimes considered America's fascist governor.
Read through the parts of 1. that I was allowed to by the paywall. Fascinated at how different the characters are (reached F and a half). Will try to find the rest. Thanks!
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
If you're seriously wondering then I'd highly recommend reading Daniel Guerrin's Fascism and Big Business. And Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebook, particularly the section The Problem of Political Leadership in the Formation and Development of the Nation and the Modern State in Italy.
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
wrote last edited by [email protected]When the governments are so useless and out of touch that they put aside the people and forget that it is because of them that they even exist, someone will come spewing nonsense about restoring order and focusing on the people. That person gets so many votes that it gets elected.
It's basically a democracy problem. This wouldn't happen if we had an eternal emperor.
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I've always been curious how fascism takes hold, and how people like Hitler, Stalin. etc rise to power. Do people not see what is happening? Shouldn't hindsight, foresight and common sense kick in at some point? I used t think they were like mob bosses early on - anyone disagreeing with them ends up in a barrel, but surely were civilized and educated by now?
It seems the people don't want to jeopardize their comfortable livelihoods and individual lives so expect the 'powerful elected officials' to do their bidding. After all, the public gave them the power to do just that. Otoh, the politicians don't want to jeopardize their cushy jobs and accumulated power by challenging the majority, so are waiting for the public to start a jan6 situation so they can point and say, 'see, the people are unhappy so we should act'.
It's a shitstorm of no consequences and a man child hacking away at the country and no one seems to be doing anything meaningful. I'm literally watching fascism take place.
History/ psychology/ sociology majors care to chime in?
wrote last edited by [email protected]As I'm sure many have already told you Stalin was not a Fascist. I'm not sure if you're asking about fascists in specific and used a wrong example or about totalitarianism in general and used the wrong word.
For fascism in specific it's usually about a common enemy and economic crisis that can be pinned on that enemy. But there are other stuff as well, there's a great movie called "Die Welle" (The Wave) which is based on an actual scientific experiment called The Third Wave in which a teacher showed how fascism is able to take root.
For totalitarianism in general the answer is a lot more complex, each dictator grew to power their own way, but populism and fear mongering are common practices.
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As I'm sure many have already told you Stalin was not a Fascist. I'm not sure if you're asking about fascists in specific and used a wrong example or about totalitarianism in general and used the wrong word.
For fascism in specific it's usually about a common enemy and economic crisis that can be pinned on that enemy. But there are other stuff as well, there's a great movie called "Die Welle" (The Wave) which is based on an actual scientific experiment called The Third Wave in which a teacher showed how fascism is able to take root.
For totalitarianism in general the answer is a lot more complex, each dictator grew to power their own way, but populism and fear mongering are common practices.
I…. Love/Hate the fact that a lot of people complained that the ending of the book and the movie differed so much, and only few of those people actually understood the meaning of the book
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As I'm sure many have already told you Stalin was not a Fascist. I'm not sure if you're asking about fascists in specific and used a wrong example or about totalitarianism in general and used the wrong word.
For fascism in specific it's usually about a common enemy and economic crisis that can be pinned on that enemy. But there are other stuff as well, there's a great movie called "Die Welle" (The Wave) which is based on an actual scientific experiment called The Third Wave in which a teacher showed how fascism is able to take root.
For totalitarianism in general the answer is a lot more complex, each dictator grew to power their own way, but populism and fear mongering are common practices.
I asked about fascism in particular in the title, but certainly welcome input about other types of authoratarianism/ totalitarianism. It's the psychology of how they slip though the public view and entrenches itself that I'm most interested in, because of what is happening around us atm.
During psychology class, we were taught about the authority figure dilemma, in that normal, decent people proceeded to inflict (acted) pain on another just because some person in a lab coat asked them to. Just trying to form my understanding from the myriad inputs, as to why the public and elected joes seem so unable/ unwilling to act.
