Fascist (epithet)
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The word "fascist" ( or "fascism") is sometimes used to denigrate people, institutions or groups that would not describe themselves as fascist and that do not fall within the formal definition of the word. As a political epithet it has been applied to people and groups on the extreme left, the extreme right and most points in between. It has also been applied to people of many religious faiths, particularly fundamentalist groups, and it has been used to label a broad range of people and institutions. Its use as an epithet generally serves to imply that the supposed "fascist" is unreasonably authoritarian. At best, it is considered mildly offensive, although many people find it highly offensive and inappropriate.
In this sense, the word "fascist" is generally meant to mean "oppressive," "intolerant," "chauvinist," or "aggressive," all concepts that are at least loosely inspired by the ideology of actual fascism. For example, one might accuse an inconveniently placed police road block as being a "fascist tactic" or an overly authoritarian teacher as being a "real fascist." Terms like "Nazi" and "Hitler" are often used in similarly superficial contexts.
By 1944, the term had already become so widely and loosely employed, that British essayist and novelist George Orwell was moved to write: " ... the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox hunting, bullfighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else."[1]
During the late 1960s and 1970s, it was popular for many leftists to describe a wide range of individuals, governments, and public institutions as fascist. The term was often paired with other insulting terms, the most common being pig, as in fascist-pig. In this context, the term fascist generally referred to authoritarian positions which prioritised the maintenance of existing social relations over various personal rights upheld by protesters and dissidents. It basically served as an emotive substitute for "authoritarian", though it could also serve specific analytical functions (such as emphasising the privileging of order over freedom in an opponent's discourse, the implicit racism of 'imperialist' practices, or even specific Marxist theories of the origins of fascism).
In the 1980s the term was used by leftist critics to describe the Reagan administration and in the 2000s, the George W. Bush administration. In her 1982 book Beyond Mere Obedience radical activist and theologian Dorothee Sölle, coined the term "Christofascist" to describe fundamentalist Christians.
By the 2000s, the term was just as frequently used in the opposite direction. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a number of right wing commentators, particularly in the United States, began using the term "Islamofascism" to describe Militant Islam. On August 10, 2006, in the wake of an alleged terror plot foiled in London, President Bush described the war on terror as a war against "Islamic fascists".
National Review Online editor Jonah Goldberg has made a career of trying to demonstrate that fascism springs from a liberal, not conservative tradition, and to associate fascism with liberalism, as the title of his upcoming 2007 book Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton asserts.
So by 2004, Samantha Power, lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, reflected Orwell's words from 60 years previously when she said, "Fascism -- unlike Communism, socialism, capitalism or conservatism -- is a smear word more often used to brand one's foes than it is a descriptor used to shed light on them." [2]
The term is also often used as an insult with regards to the ruling party being too heavy handed in certain actions for instance it is frequently used against Margaret Thatcher's rule particularly for the actions of the police during the miner's strike.
The cult British sitcom, The Young Ones, regularly had the term "fascist" as an insult. Even though it was often used to get a laugh at the expense of Neil, the Hippy.
[edit] Possible justifications for use
While attracting criticisms for imprecision and for downplaying the extremity of actual "fascism", the use of "fascist" as an epithet for authoritarian and intolerant power-holders has a distinct analytical basis, suggesting that fascism is a continuum or a social relation rather than simply a political system, and that acts of repression are in some way homologous with fascist ideology.
For instance, the description of authoritarian politicians as "fascist" may well be more accurate than their depiction as liberal democrats, since they often attach more importance to social stability, order and the 'national interest' than to individual rights, social inclusion or the avoidance of discrimination.
Theories such as Felix Guattari's concept of microfascism and Wilhelm Reich's theory of fascism as repressive desire provide an analytical basis for interpreting intolerance, chauvinism and authoritarianism as "fascist". The idea of authoritarian personalities prone to fascist attachments may be one reason why "fascism" is used as an epithet for the same kind of people who might be called "anal-retentive". On An(Archy) and Schizoanalysis by Rolando Perez is an example of a text which uses the word "fascist" in an analytically-informed way which is almost coterminous with the usage of "epithet", showing that such usage is not necessarily ill-informed or unsystematic. One basic point of these perspectives is that a libertarian or emancipatory outlook requires openness of social space, tolerance or celebration of difference and opposition to arbitrary authority; an absence of such an outlook contributes to social closure and exclusion, thus producing social effects similar to a fascist regime (oppression of minorities, lack of basic liberties and so on).
There are also Marxist theories which back up particular uses of "fascism" beyond its usual remit. For instance, Poulantzas's theory of state monopoly capitalism could be associated with the idea of a military-industrial complex to suggest that 1960s America had a fascist social structure; this kind of Maoist or Guevarist analysis often underpinned the rhetorical depiction of Cold War authoritarians as fascists. The German anti-fascist group AFA and Basque separatists ETA take continuities in the Spanish and German states after the supposed fall of fascism to indicate a continuation of fascism in ongoing repressive practices. Some Marxists from groups such as the Indian section of the USFI and the Hekmatist groups in Iran and Iraq have also provided analytical accounts as to why the term "fascist" should be applied to groups such as the Hindutva movement, the Iranian regime or the Islamist sections of the Iraqi resistance.
Similarly, some commentators associate the Bush presidency with the alleged Underground Reich conspiracy because of the Bush family's historic links to Nazi Germany, Bush's Skull and Bones membership and the authoritarian tendencies of the regime.
[edit] Other usage of the term
The word is applied similarly to programming languages which place (perceived) excessive syntactic restrictions on the programmer, such as insisting on one space (and no more) between parameters in a command line. The motif of authoritarianism is frequently applied to restrictive computer environments, as in the similar expression "bondage-and-discipline language". [1]
