Talk:Fascism

Talk:Fascism/suggested readings
Talk:Fascism/ archive1
Talk:Fascism/ archive2
Talk:Fascism/ archive3
Talk:Fascism/ archive4
Talk:Fascism/ archive5
Talk:Fascism/ archive6
Talk:Fascism/ archive7
Talk:Fascism/ archive8
Talk:Fascism/ archive9
Talk:Fascism/ archive10

This article is a selected entry at MediaWiki:March 23 selected anniversaries (may be in HTML comment)

RTFA before contributing

RTFA before contributing please. Thank you very much.

Didn't excise since article still under edit. Kim Bruning 22:23, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have created Wikipedia:Revisionism to discuss something I have seen going on.WHEELER 23:42, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fascism does it actually have an ideology?

Can someone define an ideology or political philosophy that is distinctly fascist-there does not seem to really be a working definition if anything it seems to be more of a slur against others than a cogent belief system. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco had three very different beleif systems. Other than naming fascism as authoritarianism I can't see any place were it can actually be designated as being followed. When labeling someone a fascist what actual behavior must they engage in that would make them fascist rather than authoritarian or collectivist? There are no universal tenants or formulated philosophy other than a historical note about Italy. I think its a weak term. GrazingshipIV 20:18, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

Well, try reading geman, or find someone near you who can. Imvvvvvho we should just translate stuff on nazism and fascism from the german wikipedia, their articles appear to be very well researched. (That, and some of the editors might have just asked grandma or granddad to help out :-P ). Kim Bruning 20:52, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I tend to think Fascism is not a particularly coherent ideology. Certainly there are certain well-defined fascist movements, and there have been at least a couple (and perhaps a handful) of fascist regimes, although I'm not sure what can particularly define them as fascist. But as an ideology, fascism is distinctly lacking. Essentially, fascism was populist demagoguery - nationalistic, anti-liberal, anti-socialist, anti-status quo, anti-capitalist (to a certain extent - but generally taking this in the direction of support for a medieval corporatist ideal, rather than towards genuine socialism), anti-semitic (at least in Germany and some other places, although not in Italy), and so forth. I would contend that fascism was never a coherent political ideology, although it took some ideas from the much more coherent reactionary Catholic ideology exemplified by Action Française, or what not, although it also had strong disagreements with it. What there was little doubt of at the time, however, was that Fascism was a movement of the right - Nazis, Fascists, the British Tory government, and the Pope could all agree on Franco, for instance. What the "right" means is of course rather unclear. In the context of the time period when fascism was flourishing, however, any movement which was both anti-liberal and anti-socialist ought to be considered to be on the right. The problem is that what we mean by "the right" in the United States today (and especially on the internet, where genuine cultural conservatives are hardly to be found) is classical liberalism, or its extremist brother, libertarianism. Libertarians seem to tend to like the idea of excising the entire radical right from the right, and moving it, if possible, to the left.

So, I'd ask, let's avoid Italian fascism and Nazism entirely. TDC, WHEELER, what do you make of the various other authoritarian regimes or ideologies of the timer period that are generally seen as right wing, and which all saw themselves as closer to fascism than to either socialism or liberalism? The Portugal of Salazar, the Spain of Francisco Franco, the Action Française, Vichy France, the clericalist dictatorship of Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt von Schuschnigg in Austria, the regency of Miklos Horthy in Hungary, the ideology of the German DNVP under Alfred Hugenberg, the theorizing of Carl Schmitt, and so forth? Are these also "left wing"? Or are they right wingers who mistakenly thought that Nazism and Italian Fascism were on the same side as them? john 00:47, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

John, you lay out some strong feelings about fascism as ideology. Is there a consensus among historians and students of comparative politics or political theory? If so, this should certainly be explained in the article. Your idea about avariety of fascist movements and regimes seems very reasonable to me, although it begs the question of why they were all called (or appealed to/invoked) fascism.

However, if there is no consensus, and this is just a view that John (and i am sure others) hold, however reasonable, it must be presented as one view and contextualized. This is NPOV policiy and simply our task in writing an encyclopedia. We are not supposed to give our own analysis of Fascism but an account of scholarly views on Fascism.

That said, let's say that virtually all scholars agree that Fascism is not or has no ideology. It still strikes me that people were willing to kill and die for -- or fighting -- "fascism." Whether it had an ideology or not, there was something about it and the circumstances that made it very very meaningful to people. I do not think it is good scholarship simply to dismiss this as populist demagoguery (shallow any way -- the point is, they were successful demagogues; why? Some very articulatre passionate demagogues fail to attract a following) -- to do so labels the proponents of Fascism but is not in any way an explanation of why so many people were willing to go to war in its name, or in order to defeat it. I am not offering my own view, only asking a question -- and I am not asking for John or 172 or Anydlehrer's views, but I am asking them if they know of any scholars who have addressed this issue. If so, there should be some section in the article that addresses scholarly discussions on this. Slrubenstein

On WHEELER

WHEELER is an odd sort of fellow, forsure. He's not a troll though. Don't try going toe to toe with him on references or proper reading material, most folks won't stand a chance. He's just *odd*. Suggest we put up with him and treat him with as much respect as we can summon (which might be difficult if he doesn't manage to be polite back to people :-P ). That and he has an interesting point of view on world history. I want to know where he got it from, and why. It might be enlightening. Kim Bruning 20:52, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On preventing duplication of effort (it)

The last link is nice, it even has an image of fasces lictoriae. Once again much better researched and done much closer to home than all this translations of translations stuff we are arguing about here.

Now then, my italian isn't too good. There's no real interlanguage cooperation set up at all, is there? Does anyone have a suggestion on how to proceed? (It would be nice if diff. langauge versions of wikipedia were somehow *remotely* in sync with each other, SHEESH!) Kim Bruning 23:07, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On preventing duplication of effort (de)

So I paged through the german page too, I think we should ask folks from at least thoe 2 pages to drop in and maybe we can work out synchronizing articles.

Archived page (archive 8)

I've archived the page. I've copied one quote from wheeler below, since we might still need it. Kim Bruning 14:59, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Why did you leave Wheeler's comments, but not my responses to him? john 17:20, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I guess I have to eat my words. The reference Librarian at the Hoover Institute has just e-mailed me back that her first contention is wrong. That Hoover or whoever he quoted from is wrong. I can not believe that the London Quarterly did a botched effort on transaltion. The English are big sticklers on accuracy. I would like to get to the bottom of this. I don't want any "reprinted" versions. You notice that in copies that have been presented, <<>> are in the quote. I don't think these were in the original. I want an origional l932 and not l934 or reprints. We need someone in Italy that can be trusted with originals or other Mussolini writings.WHEELER 14:02, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for the Italian article. It says that is Socialism. And it mentions Oswald Spengler who wrote "Decline of the West". Very interesting. The Americans need a look at that site!!!WHEELER 17:01, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Two questions: First, did he mean by "socialism" what members of the socialist party, or people today, mean by socialism? Second, did he claim that fascism is socialism because fascism really is socialism, or for some other purpose (maybe for its political effect)? Slrubenstein