Why Can't Anyone Define Fascism? — Transcript

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1. 0:00Ask a leftist what fascism is, and he'll
2. 0:02tell you whatever Trump is doing. Ask a
3. 0:04low IQ YouTube historian, and he will
4. 0:06give you some generic answer like
5. 0:08authoritarianism plus nationalism, while
6. 0:10ignoring that describes 99% of
7. 0:13governance throughout history. And when
8. 0:14academics try to define fascism, they
9. 0:17often fail and up resorting either to
10. 0:19reductionism, or they just make stuff up
11. 0:21to fit a narrative. Defining fascism in
12. 0:24the modern day is challenging because
13. 0:26first, it's an ideology that lives
14. 0:28outside the agreed-upon left-right
15. 0:30political spectrum, and markets itself
16. 0:33as a third way. And second, its
17. 0:35association with Nazism, with which it
18. 0:37is often confused. Therefore, in this
19. 0:40video, I'll be listing its core
20. 0:42principles. The first of which is state
21. 0:45worship. Mussolini and Gentile wrote it
22. 0:47plainly, the state is all embracing,
23. 0:50outside of it, no values can exist.
24. 0:53Here's the interesting part. If no
25. 0:55values can exist outside the state, then
26. 0:57the characterization of fascism as
27. 0:59nationalistic or traditional is
28. 1:02reductionist. As it is the state that
29. 1:05defines what the nation and its
30. 1:06traditions are. Whereas others would
31. 1:09define their nation along ethnic or
32. 1:10cultural lines, the fascist defines it
33. 1:13by its own bureaucracy. Imagine a state
34. 1:16which claims to be a servant of the
35. 1:17nation, and yet tries to arbitrarily
36. 1:20decide what defines that nation.
37. 1:23Following this logic, economics in such
38. 1:25a nation isn't capitalist or socialist,
39. 1:28it's corporatist. Fascists hated both
40. 1:30free market liberalism as selfish, and
41. 1:33Marxist class warfare as too
42. 1:35international, and therefore [music]
43. 1:36outside their state's control.
44. 1:38Instead, they invented the quote third
45. 1:41way. Mussolini and Gentile wrote that
46. 1:43they recognized the conditions that led
47. 1:45to socialism, and address it, not by
48. 1:48abolishing private property, but rather
49. 1:50through government oversight. Employers
50. 1:53and employees organize as trade unions
51. 1:54negotiate under the oversight of the
52. 1:57state and with the state's goals
53. 1:59prioritized. The result was massive
54. 2:01corporations allied with the state
55. 2:04receiving all the benefits possible,
56. 2:06whereas small businesses and the working
57. 2:08man faced crushing regulation. Imagine a
58. 2:11state which played off the natural
59. 2:13tensions between employers and employees
60. 2:15using the plight of the employee to gain
61. 2:17more control over businesses and the
62. 2:19plight of businesses to gain more
63. 2:21control over workers. With the ultimate
64. 2:23winner being the state and its cronies.
65. 2:26However, in practice fascists faced
66. 2:28practical limitations. Their own
67. 2:30population was deeply religious and
68. 2:33their most important ally was a race
69. 2:35obsessed and defined the nation strictly
70. 2:38along racial lines contradicting the
71. 2:40fascist bureaucratic power. The fascist
72. 2:43state then had to play a delicate
73. 2:44balancing act. Imagine a state having to
74. 2:47find creative solutions to synthesize
75. 2:49the positions of the religious base and
76. 2:51the racially obsessed foreign power. But
77. 2:54wait, hold on. Why does all of this
78. 2:56sound so familiar? An all-encompassing
79. 2:59state which tries to be the sole arbiter
80. 3:01of morality, culture, and economics.
81. 3:03State worship that made politics into
82. 3:05the religion of the masses. A system
83. 3:08that's neither truly capitalist nor
84. 3:10socialist, but instead has massive
85. 3:12corporations working with the government
86. 3:14crushing competition and furthering an
87. 3:16agenda. A state where its bureaucracy
88. 3:19thinks it can decide what that nation
89. 3:21is. One where you have freedom on paper,
90. 3:24but actually need the government's
91. 3:25license to do or own anything and even
92. 3:28an alliance with racially motivated
93. 3:30actors.
94. 3:32The only thing that doesn't perfectly
95. 3:34match to modern governments is autarky.
96. 3:37And yet, when we look at the history of
97. 3:39the nations doing autarky, they were
98. 3:41just trying to isolate themselves from
99. 3:43economic dependence on rival nations and
100. 3:46continued large-scale trade with their
101. 3:48allies. Is that not what we do today
102. 3:50through sanctions and resource
103. 3:52consolidation? The fascists just had
104. 3:54more enemies than we do and weren't as
105. 3:56keen on destroying the industrial sector
106. 3:58as we are. The only undeniable
107. 4:00difference between the modern West and
108. 4:02fascism is the latter's paternalism.
109. 4:05It's masculine hierarchical culture as
110. 4:07opposed to modernity's feminine
111. 4:09egalitarian nanny state. In other words,
112. 4:12if you want to know what fascism is,
113. 4:14it's the modern West without the rainbow
114. 4:17flags.
115. 4:18Should we be surprised that an ideology
116. 4:21and yet mirrors us in all ways except
117. 4:23testosterone levels is also the one that
118. 4:26we are least able to define? Should we
119. 4:28be surprised at the feminization of
120. 4:30society when the only objective
121. 4:32difference between a quote totally evil
122. 4:35ideology and modernity is masculinity?
123. 4:38The competition between the political
124. 4:40left and right resulted in a synthesis
125. 4:42causing a third way that no one, not
126. 4:45even the fascists, are happy about.