[March 23, 2017] There’s been a lot of name-calling lately; in the media, among politicians, and on the streets. Likely the common reaction today is to call someone a fascist who we disagree with politically. But fascism is not what most people think it is, or its history, and therein lays a problem that leaders should quickly fix.
Today marks the 98th anniversary of the founding of the first fascist party. On March 23, 1919, Benito Mussolini, an Italian World War I veteran and publisher of Socialist newspapers established the nationalist Fasci di Combattimento (named after the Italian peasant revolutionaries).1,2 The ideology itself exists now, of course, but is only a shadow of its former self.
“The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute; individuals and groups relative.” – Benito Mussolini, Il Duce
It is not my intent here to describe the basics of Fascism (see footnote 3 below for a few thoughts). To do so would not be relevant to my main point which is that fascist ideology (or fascism) is little understood to most of us and thus misconstrued and misused. There should be no doubt that the ideology has been used historically as one of the most brutal thought systems ever devised by humankind.
To call someone a fascist today shows both the ignorance of the accuser and belittles the damage people have done in the name of that ideology. People simply caricaturize anyone who differs from them in a personal opinion (imputing a political motive) or someone who opposes the current set of globalist ideologies (rejecting all existing political borders and economic barriers).
Fascism is not your mother’s ideology. No one today, knowing the history of Italian fascism or the follow-on German and Spanish fascist movements, can rightly refer to someone in a democratic government as a fascist if they promote a republican system of government. I was always a firm believer that I should never do anything my mother would be embarrassed to find out about so I won’t be calling anyone a fascist.
Fascism grew quickly as a result of the problems created during and after World War I and as a firewall to the growth of Communism. There is a senior leader lesson here that being magnanimous in victory is a good plan to avoid future problems. And, name calling (or by inference) is not good leadership but sophomoric and should be avoided.
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- http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mussolini-founds-the-fascist-party
- In January 1925, a Fascist state was officially proclaimed with Mussolini as Il Duce, or “the leader.”
- Second only to Communism, fascism is the opposite of democracy (some recommended sources on this distinction can be found here, here, and here). Under fascism we find a close association to nationalism (another misunderstood idea), expansionism through military conquest, racial superiority, totalitarianism, corporatist economies, age and gender role divisions, and elevation of the state over the individual.