Umberto Eco’s List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism

Creative Commons image by Rob Bogaerts, via National Archives of the Netherlands

One of the key questions facing both journalists and loyal opponents these days is how to remain honest when euphemisms and trivializations dominate the discourse. For example, can a word like “fascism” be used faithfully to its meaning in world history? After all, the term evolved into a cliché decades after World War II. fascist pigUmberto Eco wrote in a 1995 essay:ur fascism“, “Thirty years later, American radicals used it to refer to police officers who disapproved of their smoking habits.” Meanwhile, in the ’40s, the fight against fascism was “a moral obligation to all good Americans.” ” was. (And every good Englishman and French partisan might add:)

Eco grew up under Mussolini’s fascist regime. The regime was “certainly a dictatorship, but it was not completely totalitarian, not because of its benevolence, but rather because of the philosophical weakness of its ideology.” Contrary to popular opinion, Italian fascism had no particular philosophy. But there was a style, a way of dressing, and “when it came to black shirts, it was far more influential than Armani, Benetton, or Versace.” The black humor in this comment shows a common critical view of fascism. As a form of extreme nationalism, it eventually takes on the contours that every national culture produces.

It may seem burdensome to explain in one word the so many different cultural manifestations of authoritarianism across Europe and even South America. Italy was “the first right-wing dictatorship to take over a European country” and may have given its political system its name. However, Mr. Eco is confused as to why that word is used. fascism It became synecdoche, a word that could be used for various totalitarian movements. ” For one thing, fascism is “ fuzzy Totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a honeycomb of contradictions. ”

While Eco is adamant that “there was only one Nazism,” he says, “The fascist game can be played in many different ways, and the name of the game remains the same.” Eco distills the nature of what he calls “ur-fascism,” or eternal fascism, into 14 “typical” characteristics. “These characteristics,” writes the novelist and semiotician, “are Many of them contradict each other and are also typical of other types of despotism and fanaticism. But the presence of one of them is enough to allow fascism to coagulate around them. ”

1. Worship of tradition. “One need only look at the briefs of any fascist movement to find the main traditionalist thinkers. Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretist, and occult elements.”
2. Rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. Action worship for action’s sake. “Because action is beautiful in itself, it must be done before or without prior reflection. Thinking is a form of castration.”
4. Dissent is treason. “The critical mind makes distinctions, and making distinctions is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community celebrates disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or premature fascist movement is an appeal against the infiltrators. Ur-fascism is therefore racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to society’s grievances. “One of the most typical features of historical fascism was its appeal to a frustrated middle class, suffering from economic crisis and feelings of political humiliation, and fearful of the pressures of subordinate social groups.”
7. Obsession with the plot. “Therefore, at the root of Ur-Fascist psychology is probably an obsession with international conspiracies. Believers must feel besieged.”
8. Enemies can be strong or weak. “The constant shift in rhetorical focus makes the enemy simultaneously too strong and too weak.”
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism, there is no struggle for life. Rather, life is lived for the struggle.”
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of reactionary ideology.”
11. Everyone is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This hero worship is strictly connected to the worship of death.”
12. Masculinity and weapons. “Machismo means both contempt for women and intolerance and condemnation of non-standard sexual practices, ranging from chastity to homosexuality.”
13. selective populism. “Our future involves TV and Internet populism, where the emotional responses of select groups of citizens are presented and accepted as the voice of the people.”
14. Ur-Fascism speaks of Newspeak. “Nazi and Fascist textbooks all utilized poor vocabulary and rudimentary syntax to limit the tools for complex critical reasoning.”

One detail in Eco’s essay that receives less attention is his characterization of the unlikely coalition of Italian rebel movements. The Resistance also included communists who “exploited the Resistance as if it were their own property” and leaders like Eco’s childhood hero Franchi, who was “very strongly anti-communist and Because of this, he joined extreme right-wing groups after the war.” This in itself may be a unique feature of Italian resistance, something that cannot be observed in many countries that have resisted totalitarian governments. Regarding the seeming total lack of common interests between these parties, Eco simply said, “Who cares?…Emancipation was a common act for people of different skin colors.” Just say it.

Read Eco’s essay in new york book review. There he explains each element of fascism in more detail. Please support NYRB by becoming subscriber.

Note: This post originally appeared on our site in 2014.

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