Both Gramsci and Trotsky relate fascism directly and primarily, not to a shoppers' list of symptoms, but to [Gramsci] "the activity which the bourgeois class carries out to halt the proletarian class on its path."
> [Original Message] > From: Doyle Saylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[email protected]> > Date: 11/20/2005 10:05:12 AM > Subject: Re: [PEN-L] fascism > > Greetings Economists, > I think of fascism as mainly an outcome of the war machines of the late > nineteenth and early 20th century. The creation of a mass mentality > amongst young men related to war like camaraderie and the ability to > mobilize a similar milieu in public organization of male action. > > Michael quotes; > political behaviour marked by obsessive > preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by > compensatory cults > of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed > nationalism > militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with > traditional elites, abandons > democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without > ethical or legal > restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. > > Doyle, > The key error in this comment is the medicalized term, obsessive. I'm > not going to go off on a disability tangent as some might expect. I am > going to reference the current resurgence in emotion theory to analyze > the problem with this reference. > > William Reddy of Duke University from a progressive perspective > analyzed French historical emotions up to and after the French > Revolution. Reddy has prepared a list of analytical terms to > understand emotion structure in a given society. Referring to "The > Navigation of Feeling, A Framework for the History of Emotions" > Cambridge Press, William M. Reddy, 2001, pages 128 through 129, Reddy > defines these terms; > > Emotional Management, > Emotional Navigation, > Emotional Liberty, > Emotional suffering, > Emotional effort, > Emotional Regime, > Emotional Refuge, > > Doyle, > While obsessive has descriptive power to the general public, it is to > my mind a dualist concept of 'consciousness'. Reddy directly addresses > dualism in his text and here is the key defining thought; Emotion is > larger than attention (the new convention for the word, consciousness, > in various scientific circles), that terms like love, obsessive, do not > adequately meet a scientific description of emotion structure. > > That for the left this marks a major step forward. Without going to > the tedious task of transcribing Reddy's definitions for the above > list, Fascist base their Emotional Regime upon the military model (i.e. > the intense life of murder and close feelings of your buddies in life > and death of combat due to the closeness of death all around), which is > used to squash Emotional Liberty (the left champions the oppressed who > have not Emotional Liberty, because of Emotional Suffering). > > While some people obsess in combat others have different goals and > values. Without a realistic view of emotion structure the left can't > make heads or tails of what a Fascist means. > thanks, > Doyle
