UNACKNOWLEDGED FASCISM

We call it Capitalism but is this phase of capitalism we are in now in fact 'Unrecognized' or 'Unacknowledged Fascism'?

Think about the life your grandparents led & think about the life most of us live today.

Your grandparents most likely did not live a particularly capitalist lifestyle, or better said, they did not live in the kind of ultra-capitalist environment we do now. If you are very young then I am talking of your great-grandparents.

Those persons and families were highly social in the main, they talked to people, many more people than we do now (that is, face to face). I'm talking about adults now. I know teenagers and those in their early twenties do socialize a lot (both online and off). But think about the way many working adults live now, in micro-enclaves with very few people within them. Even close relatives are unlikely to be included (but are granted a visit from those within the family enclave every now and then).

We hardly know our neighbors at all. Perhaps a nod and a semi-begrudged "Good Morning" in the hall as we exit our exclusive domain.

Affluence has brought a self-willed isolation for the majority, locked away with our gene-pool partners and offspring. Us against the world. Perhaps a friend or two, but that's about it. I say self-willed but this may not be quite true. Most simply fall into this because it seems everyone else (more or less) is doing the same.

The system around us has enabled us to choose from a wide array of goods and services. We venture out from our enclaves and bring back some of the treasures our new lifestyles and occupations have privileged us to afford. On these journeys to the 'outer world' we rarely find the need to make any more than a shallow connection to others we must interact with. They are there to serve us, right?

So, where does fascism enter the picture?

Most candidates for the term would resent me calling them 'Unknowing Fascists'. "What harm am I doing?" they might ask. "Why do you infer I am doing anything wrong?"

They would have a point, but this is why I call them 'Unknowing Fascists'. They are completely oblivious to their status.

What is an 'Unknowing Fascist and what is what I would term the 'Unacknowledged Fascist' system?

First let us look at the term 'Fascist'.

The term 'Fascism' as you will know, originated in Italy. Its meaning and location on the political spectrum is disputed by academics. 

'Roderick Stackelberg places fascism—including Nazism, which he says is "a radical variant of fascism", on the right, explaining that "the more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be." (Wikipedia)

Why do I term the milieu we now live under in the Western world 'Unacknowledged Fascism'?

It rests on a comparison of the way our grandparents (or great-grandparents) and all those who came before them, lived, and the way the majority of us live now..

Our ancestors relied on each other, or at least in the extended family, tribe or community. Our fates were intertwined and we knew it. This was not only about duty, we also relied on many others for more than a safeguard when times were hard or a reliable source of food when we all worked together. We also gained most of our pleasure, entertainment and creativity through our social relations across our wide array of human-centered connections.

Not so now. In the last two to three generations everything has changed in the field of human relations across the western world.

We need not rely so extensively, if at all, upon a wide, or even a small number of others. Some of us are almost worlds unto ourselves, mini-empires of aloof affluence commanding others like erstwhile slaves, cleaners, nannies, etc. Most of us though fall somewhere below this elite. But we have little necessity these days to regard others outside our micro-enclaves as anything other than rather distant figures, peripherally useful when we need them. Others may be seen as rivals, threats or potential rivals or threats.

This is a radical change in how we see our fellow men and women from all the generations which went before. That's not to say there were not rivals or threats before, there were. But never before was there such blanket coverage reaching right up to our front doors. At least before we found support, comfort and more than a little happiness through our wider relationships far outwith our direct families. We were part of a much larger grouping of equals or near-equals.

Now things come much easier for most of us. We have incomes which don't rely on us having close relationships other than the semi-close ones of our work colleagues. We don't have to work together in the fields or workshop to ensure our survival. In short we often feel we need no one except ourselves and, just maybe our husbands, wives or children.

So, what has this to do with fascism?

One of the traits of fascism was to laud superiority, to see self-reliance, strength and a certain elite superiority of the individual as some of the highest traits to aspire to. Discipline and enforcement of strict rules for the 'lesser mortals' were keynote.

Think about those headlines about the rise of the right across Europe. Think of the way the United States has changed in the years since Neoconservatism first appeared. How does it seem to you? Are people becoming more tolerant, more averse to war and more inclined to be understanding? Or the opposite? I know there are large pockets of people, generally young, who are full of an idealistic communal spirit who have correctly identified elites and elitism as one of the world's most intractable problems. Though I am no longer young I agree with their analysis.

But I am talking here of the adult middle-class, the settled, employed and largely conservative middle-class who consume the goodies placed in such a luxurious and inviting array placed before them. What of THEIR attitudes? I detect a shift to intolerance, a shift to a kind of 'me-first' selfishness, a desire to maintain whatever foothold on elitism they have gained and an insatiable desire for ever more.

This for me partly defines what I call 'Unknowing Fascism' within a system of being that creates an ever-greater 'Us and Them' culture. And those 'Unknowing Fascists' are, to a man and woman, quite sure they are simply happily and gloriously taking advantage of the wonderful gifts and pleasures capitalism has so "kindly" provided for them.

For these latter, lucky beings there is no problem to perceive. They are living 'the good life'. And they see no reason why they should not keep rising to ever higher elite levels.

My problem with this lies in their changing attitude to 'others'. The rise of intolerance. The rise of demands to be protected from these 'others'. To stop them "coming here". To send them home or lock them up and throw away the key. To stop them having inconvenient children.

"Make them go away and leave me to enjoy my wonderful fascist life as I have a right to, now that I am rich."

I see the rise of 'Unacknowledged Fascism' as a parallel development to the rise of conveyor-belt production, consumerism and the decay of workers rights.

Especially from the days of Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK we have seen the already privileged demanding ever-greater privilege, wealth and ever-stronger rights to keep the 'lower orders' policed, in their place and out of sight somewhere where they can cause the new elite no problems.

We have seen the relatively recent rise of militarism in the U.S. police. We have seen, especially since the time of George W. Bush, the widely-supported use of violence against 'others' outside the US. This has been continued up to the present day through drone strikes by President Barack Obama continued by Donald Trump. And we have seen the relish with which those such as Senator John McCain, Victoria Nuland and Geoff Pyatt encouraged the neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist violence on Ukraine's Maidan.

Violence against others as an early, quickly-used option as a "solution", as in Ukraine is more evidence I would claim for a rising tide of a new eruption of fascism resulting from what I call the 'Unacknowledged Fascism' that I see within present western societies.

As the affluence of the few increases I see no parallel rise in tolerance or willingness to share the bounty of the Earth. I see an increasing exclusivity, a rise in shallow so-called celebrity, a worship of the facade built only upon what you can afford having nothing at all to do with true worth.

All these various aspects of modern life and more I am more and more minded to call 'Unacknowledged Fascism'.

And I dread the world to come where the US and western elites make this greed-driven fascism permeate every far-flung corner of our globe. For that is the aim of the serried ranks of PR consultants, marketers, agents, developers and their complicit business-oriented media outlets such as CNN and BBC World.

It is a world where a thin veneer of civilization struggles to exist above an ugly mass of greedy exclusivity and mindless decadent consumerism.

And, to support the economies providing the goodies to the burgeoning elites there will be the ever-present need to protect national interests through the mechanisms of geopolitics and war. The US has already led us to WarWorld in this cause. To spread the new fascism to every last one of us in every far-flung outpost where a natural life of sorts is still lived.

The replacement of the natural with the mechanically produced and gaudily sold is one of the primary aims of those who (unknowingly?) promote this new ugliness, this modern sickness, this 'Unacknowledged Fascism'.