A post saying “Please don’t anthropomorphize fascists” just crossed my TL (not linking to avoid dunking), and…as much as I appreciate the snark, I can’t endorse that.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m 100% on board with “Don’t coddle fascists,”“Don’t infantilize fascists,” “Don’t be gentle with fascists.”
Punch fascists, yes please. “Be compassionate” is NOT where I’m going. Where I’m going is “never think it couldn’t be you, or me, or the person next to you.”
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If I take any bite-sized insight from Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” it’s that fascists •are• people: ordinary, boring, could-be-anyone human beings. “The banality of evil” means, among other things, “the human-ness of evil.”
The only things that keeps you or me or any human being from being fascist is vigilance against fascism.
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@inthehands this reminds me of this essay, which is well worth a read: https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
@Loungeiguana
“His code is not his own; it is that of his class—no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.”
@Loungeiguana What a fascinating study — of fascism but also of its time, of its author. Thank you.