The 10 tactics of fascism | Jason Stanley | Big Think — Transcript

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1. 0:00- Fascism is a cult of the leader,
2. 0:03who promises national restoration
3. 0:06in the face of supposed humiliation by immigrants,
4. 0:10leftists, liberals, minorities,
5. 0:13homosexuals, women,
6. 0:15in the face of what the fascist leader says is a takeover
7. 0:20of the country's media, cultural institutions, schools
8. 0:25by these forces.
9. 0:26And that's why you need a really macho,
10. 0:29powerful, violent response.
11. 0:31The fascist leader says he will solve the problem.
12. 0:35Fascism is right-wing by nature.
13. 0:38It's based on ultra-nationalism.
14. 0:40However, you can have ultra-nationalist movements
15. 0:44that are ultra-nationalist movements of minority groups.
16. 0:46There is left-wing authoritarianism.
17. 0:48There are bad things on the left.
18. 0:50Stalin killed many, many people.
19. 0:53Mao killed many, many people.
20. 0:55These are terrible figures.
21. 0:56But not all terrible things are fascist.
22. 0:59Fascism is a very particular ideological structure.
23. 1:02When thinking about fascism, you can't think
24. 1:04about these individual elements in isolation.
25. 1:07They come as a bundle.
26. 1:09My name is Jason Stanley.
27. 1:10I'm the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy
28. 1:13at Yale University and the author of five books,
29. 1:16most recently,
30. 1:17"How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them."
31. 1:27We forget that many fascist regimes started off
32. 1:32as democratic political parties.
33. 1:34We forget that Hitler, the Nazi Party, ran in an election.
34. 1:40Fascist parties start
35. 1:42as fascist social and political movements
36. 1:45before they come to power.
37. 1:46So it's important to see that these tactics occur even
38. 1:49in societies that do not have a fascist regime.
39. 1:52(dramatic music)
40. 1:54All nationalism involves a mythic past.
41. 1:57You can say, "Look, we're Polish people,"
42. 2:00people who spoke Polish and were sheep herders
43. 2:03and another bunch of Polish people who were fishermen,
44. 2:05and you can talk about how things were wonderful
45. 2:08when we were all Polish together.
46. 2:10That's a fine mythic past,
47. 2:11but then there's the fascist mythic past.
48. 2:14In the past, we were great.
49. 2:16Wherein did our greatness consist?
50. 2:18In our military.
51. 2:20And in the past,
52. 2:21the dominant racial group ruled over others.
53. 2:24And then the fascist leader says,
54. 2:26"That has been taken from you
55. 2:28by the leftists and communists.
56. 2:30They wanna weaken our military.
57. 2:32They wanna weaken our greatness."
58. 2:37Propaganda is ubiquitous, and everyone uses propaganda.
59. 2:40In political propaganda,
60. 2:42your main message is something other
61. 2:44than the the information you're conveying.
62. 2:45Fascist propaganda is a very particular structure.
63. 2:49It's based around a friend/enemy distinction.
64. 2:52The political opponent, they are a merciless threat
65. 2:57to your very existence and your traditions.
66. 3:00They are the other.
67. 3:01When they are in charge, it subverts the nation.
68. 3:05So the structure of fascist propaganda is based on the idea
69. 3:08that the other are fundamentally opposed to the nation.
70. 3:15As Hitler says in "Mein Kampf,"
71. 3:17"Science is only useful insofar
72. 3:19as it strengthens the nation."
73. 3:21Fascism is a cult of the leader.
74. 3:23It involves the leader setting the rules
75. 3:26about what's true and false.
76. 3:28So any kind of expertise, reality,
77. 3:31all of that is a challenge to the authority of the leader.
78. 3:35If science would help him,
79. 3:37then he can say, "Okay, I'll use it."
80. 3:41Institutions that teach multiple perspectives on history
81. 3:45in all its complexity are always a threat
82. 3:49to the fascist leader.
83. 3:52The center of democracy is truth.
84. 3:54You're not free if you've been lied to.
85. 3:57Nobody thinks the people of North Korea are free.
86. 4:00The people of North Korea will vote
87. 4:02for Dear Leader every time because they've been lied to.
88. 4:05It's not a free vote
89. 4:06because they don't have access to the truth.
90. 4:09Equality, similarly, requires truth
91. 4:12because equality and democracy doesn't mean
92. 4:14we all have the same amount of money.
93. 4:16It doesn't mean we all have the same car.
94. 4:18It means political equality,
95. 4:21that each of our voices matters the same.
96. 4:25And political equality means speaking truth to power.
97. 4:28If someone really powerful is humiliated
98. 4:32when they're caught lying,
99. 4:33that's the core of political equality.
100. 4:35So if you're gonna rip the heart out of democracy,
101. 4:39you get people used to lies.
102. 4:42Here's a fact about humans:
103. 4:43we all pretty much suck to the same degree. (laughs)
104. 4:47One group of us is not better than another group of us.
105. 4:50Hierarchy is central here
106. 4:53because it's the big lie at the center of things.
107. 4:56What racism but one big lie?
108. 4:59Racism is a lie that one group is better than another.
109. 5:02You're told this religion is better,
110. 5:05this race is better, this gender is better.
111. 5:07It's really a moral claim, has more moral worth.
112. 5:10And then once you have hierarchies set up,
113. 5:13you can make people very nervous and frightened
114. 5:17about losing their position on that hierarchy.
115. 5:21Hierarchy goes right into victimhood
116. 5:24because once you convince people
117. 5:26that they're justifiable higher on the hierarchy,
118. 5:30then you can tell them that they're victims of equality.
119. 5:34German Christians are victims of Jews.
120. 5:37White Americans are victims of Black American equality.
121. 5:41Men are victims of feminism.
122. 5:43Once you convince people that they should be better,
123. 5:47that they have earned a position
124. 5:49on the hierarchy over others,
125. 5:50then you can tell them that equality is actually victim.
126. 5:56Loyalty to the dominant group means law-abidingness.
127. 6:00And the minority group is by its nature not law-abiding.
128. 6:06Law and order in fascist politics means the members
129. 6:10of a minority group who accept their subservient role,
130. 6:15they're law-abiding,
131. 6:16and the members of the dominant group
132. 6:18by their very nature are law-abiding.
133. 6:20By definition, the leader can't violate law and order.
134. 6:24So law and order doesn't mean justice.
135. 6:27Law and order doesn't mean equality.
136. 6:29Law and order structures who's legitimate and who's not.
137. 6:35Everywhere around the world,
138. 6:36no matter what the situation is,
139. 6:39in very different socioeconomic conditions,
140. 6:42the fascist leader comes and tells you,
141. 6:44"Your women and children are under threat.
142. 6:46You need a strong man to protect your families."
143. 6:50They make conservatives hysterically afraid
144. 6:53of transgender rights or homosexuality,
145. 6:57other ways of living.
146. 6:58These are not people trying to live their own lives.
147. 7:02They're trying to destroy your life,
148. 7:03and they're coming after your children.
149. 7:05What the fascist politician does is they take conservatives
150. 7:09who aren't fascist at all, and they say,
151. 7:11"Look, I know you might not like my ways.
152. 7:14You might think I'm a womanizer.
153. 7:16You might think I'm violent in my rhetoric.
154. 7:18But you need someone like me now.
155. 7:20You need someone like me 'cause homosexuality,
156. 7:23it isn't just trying for equality.
157. 7:25It's coming after your family."
158. 7:29Fascist movements typically, though not invariably,
159. 7:33rest on an urban/rural divide.
160. 7:36The cities are where there's decadence,
161. 7:38where the elites congregate, where there's immigrants,
162. 7:42there's criminality, there's Sodom and Gomorrah.
163. 7:45In the city, there's not real work.
164. 7:48The pure, hard-working, real members of the nation live
165. 7:53in the rural areas, where they work hard with their hands.
166. 7:57When our politicians talk about inner-city voters
167. 8:00or urban voters, we all know what they mean.
168. 8:05Arbeit macht frei, "Work shall make you free."
169. 8:08This was written on the gates of Auschwitz.
170. 8:11The idea is that the minority group, they're lazy,
171. 8:16and they need to be made to work.
172. 8:17Free labor.
173. 8:19The minority group and the leftists,
174. 8:21they're lazy by their nature,
175. 8:23and it gives them a work ethic.
176. 8:25Labor unions are run by communists
177. 8:28who are trying to make things easier.
178. 8:30Hard work is a virtue.
179. 8:32In liberal democracy,
180. 8:34we don't value people by how hard they work.
181. 8:37What would happen to disabled people who can't work?
182. 8:40They would then have no value.
183. 8:41It's why the Nazis had the T4 program to murder the disabled
184. 8:46because the disabled were Lebenunwertes Leben,
185. 8:50life unworthy of life,
186. 8:52because to be valued was to be capable of hard work.
187. 8:56Each of these individual elements is not
188. 8:58in and of itself fascist,
189. 9:00but you have to worry when they're all grouped together,
190. 9:03when honest conservatives are lured into fascism
191. 9:06by people who tell them, "Look, it's an existential fight.
192. 9:09I know you don't accept everything we do.
193. 9:12You don't accept every doctrine.
194. 9:14But your family is under threat.
195. 9:16Your family is at risk.
196. 9:17So without us, you're in peril."
197. 9:20Those moments are the times
198. 9:23when we need to worry about fascism.