Calling everything fascism is an attempt to import mid-20th century Orwellian gravitas to (we think) give our…
Calling everything fascism is an attempt to import mid-20th century Orwellian gravitas to (we think) give our mostly hot air words more impact.
Our narrative is ‘things were going OK, then suddenly fascist tech overlords somehow took over’. Please.
/1
https://t.co/muxaM44Kg0
We have a ridiculous idea that democracy is millions of people somehow spontaneously running countries. When that turns out not to be the case and sociopathic idiots keep winning elections, what do we do?
Say ‘the fascists are taking over’.
/2
Leaving out how ridiculously popular these supposed fascists are. They romp home in elections. It’s not a coup, millions are cheering them on.
The real problem here isn’t a fascist takeover. It’s our ideas about democracy.
/3
If you’re going to vest ultimate power in a person who can win a popularity contest (election), then why be surprised when sociopaths keep winning elections?
Bullies and sociopaths learn how to win popularity contests in primary school.
/4
In the corporate world, it’s just marketing. There’s not one way popularity has any connection with the empirical problems in our lives.
We don’t hire staff or CEOs using popularity, because that would be ridiculous. But we turn over total control of our societies to it.
/5
Trumpism isn’t fascism. It’s populism, in its endgame. Which is just feudalism. He’s a King, not a fascist dictator. People love kings.
His tech cronies are the King’s baron’s, not fascists. Trying to carve up the spoils, in collaboration and confrontation with the King.
/6
These ‘fascist’ narratives reflect the complete impotence the people who write them know is their actual lot.
We feel that if we use the darkest words and concepts, it somehow makes that impotence less.
/7
But as above, this isn’t a fascist coup. Millions are cheering it on. The enemy isn’t fascist tech billionaires and their useful idiot Trump, it’s us.
Thinking if we could just have one more election, we could elect away the problems the last elections caused.
/8
It was Dave Graeber and Marshall Sahlins who first made me realise, this, in their book on kings. You can read it for free online.
You don’t even need to get past the preface to see the argument.
/9 https://t.co/jnbIMM9f48
Here it is. This idiot idea we have of ‘the people’ running democracies, what Graeber and Sahlins politely call a ‘curious and contradictory principle’.
As they say, people want their kings. They’re impossible to get rid of.
/10 https://t.co/2vJk7i8u1m
Until we stop seeing every idiot who wins an election acting in an ‘authoritarian’ way as the return of fascism, we’ll keep bellowing impotent hot air words that do nothing to address the real issue.
We need to understand how people think, feel and act.
/end