How to spot a Fascist

Umberto Eco’s “How to Spot a Fascist” is a tiny collection of three essays. In the UK it has been republished by Harvill Secker/Penguin.

The author is somewhat of an authority. In 1943 he was ten years old and won a national Italian essay prize, arguing that one should indeed “Die for Mussolini and the Eternal Glory of Italy”. In Eco’s own words “I was a smart kid”.

As he gradually discovered what freedom was, and other political viewpoints emerged after Mussolini’s death, he came to believe that it was possible to draw up a short list of characteristics of what he called “Ur-Fascism” or “Eternal Fascism”, around which different varieties might congregate.

I have paraphrased his fourteen points below, but it’s very worth exploring Eco’s own characterisation of each.

1. A cult of tradition. A belief that humanity received the original knowledge of how to live in ancient times, and that this is revealed through the practices of ancient civilisations - though sometimes in a jumbled, contradictory way. As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. The truth has already been announced. It cannot be changed, but only translated and interpreted.

2. The rejection of modernism. The Enlightenment and Age of Reason are seen as the start of where everything went wrong. This is consistent with a worship of technology, so long as this new technology is put to work to serve an ancient, traditional ideology (e.g., blood and soil).

3. Action for action’s sake. Action is beautiful in itself, and must take place without any reflection. Therefore culture in general and critical attitudes in particular, are suspect. Goebbels’ “When I hear talk of “culture” I reach for my pistol" goes with the talk of “goddamn intellectuals”, “radical snobs”, and accusations that “universities are dens of communists”. All intellectuals are potential critics, and must be condemned for that in itself, and in particular for rejecting the cult of tradition.

4. Dissent is betrayal. And all criticism is dissent. Science - while being useful to engineers - is particularly suspect as it uses criticism to advance the cult of learning.

5. A fear of difference. The first appeal of fascism is a call against intruders; racism and xenophobia is the natural expression of this, as is intolerance for all inconvenient and visible forms of difference.

6. Appeal to the frustrated middle. Fascism tends to arise as a disquiet of the middle-classes from some political or economic humiliation, and/or frightened by real or imagined pressure from below.

7. Nationalist paranoia. The most obvious common theme to a mass of people is simply being born in the same country. This identity will be threatened by something at first seen as foreign and external. It will then be terrifying when it is revealed that this threat has managed to infiltrate the mother country itself.

8. The enemy is simultaneously too strong and too weak. They will control everything, filter everything, plan everything, while also being contemptible and inherently in decline.

9. Life is war. As such, pacifism is collusion. To struggle is to live, and without fighting and conflict, a life has no meaning.

10. Mass elitism. The fascist movement is better than anything else. and its members - particularly its senior members - are superior. And yet they can come from anywhere in society, and can come in great numbers. The mass are the elite.

11. A cult of death. Heroism is within reach for every recruit to fascism, with a heroic death the ultimate prize.

12. Power and control over sex. An oppressive condemnation of nonconformist sexual habits, a control of women, and a mixing of violence and sex, especially by sexualising weapons.

13. A singular will of the people. The people cannot be admitted to exhibit diversity of thought (that can, for example, be expressed through elections). They must have one thought and one will, which is held to be of prime importance, and can only be correctly interpreted by the fascist leaders.

14. The use of “Newspeak”, where all ideas are expressed in a deliberately impoverished and limited vocabulary, in order to limit the tools of critical thinking.

Eco goes on to talk about censorship and the nature of being European. The volume is well worth picking up if you find it. Try the philosophy section: A slim black paperback, generally listed alongside those “Brief introductions” series, and priced at £3.99.