During the years following World War II, the very harmless and extraordinarily humorous author, P. G. Wodehouse, was subjected to a campaign vilifying him as a fascist sympathizer. The ‘evidence’ for this claim came primarily in the form of a few imprudent radio broadcasts that accurately described conditions in the German camps used to imprison British civilians found in German-occupied territories. There was also the characterization, in his books, of the fictitious and obviously parodic “Black Shorts” led by the bombastic and buffoonish Roderick Spode. Nevertheless, humorless individuals—too obtuse to realize that Wodehouse was using an easily satirized political movement for comedic purposes—claimed that his books were somehow persuading people that fascism was not a threat.
Roughly the same period saw John Lukacs—a self-professed reactionary and Catholic convert—establish himself as a leading conservative thinker. He argued that fascism would be an enduring threat despite its recent obliteration, and that communism was just a passing danger—a house of cards sure to fall sooner rather than later, despite the power of the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Cold War.
Irony is added to irony by the fact that Lukacs did not just gain respectability as a serious social critic by thoroughly underestimating one evil political movement while just as thoroughly overestimating another (one which a novelist was condemned for mocking)—he also unwittingly hit on the reasons why communism had the potential to be both more enduring and more destructive than he understood.
Lukacs built his argument on two foundational claims. Fascist movements had been able to gain total control of government through democratic elections. Communists had never gained power except through the violence of a committed minority. From there, he argued that entire populations could become fascist, but that communist regimes are paradoxically reliant upon a self-appointed elite and consequently are sure to implode under the weight of their absurdity.
It is perplexing that Lukacs managed to overlook the fact that coalitions of ideologically similar communists, socialists, and anarchists did not just gain widespread popularity but even won elections; as is his failure to notice the growing influences of Cultural Marxism since the 1960s. There is also the matter of his obvious overemphasis on the unpopularity of only the most orthodox Marxist theories. Moreover, he underappreciated how much fascism’s popularity was dependent upon crises, without which it could never have risen above a joke worthy of being satirized in just the way that Wodehouse did.
Odder still is Lukacs’ failure to explain why fascism was able more rapidly to gain a following than radical leftism, even though the reason is straightforward: fascism simply pervert normal human instincts, while leftism tries to negate them. Because it is normal for people to love and to prefer their own country, culture, people (and so on), fascism twists that natural inclination into doctrines of racial superiority, while leftism tries to stamp out this normal preference.
It is because fascism does not require the same depth of corruption, that people can be more susceptible to embracing it; but are also more likely to abandon it. The passage of just twenty years saw most Germans go from laughing at the Nazis in 1925, to cheering wildly for Hitler in 1935, to obliterating all reminders of the Third Reich in 1945. Radical leftist doctrines required slow and often subtle inculcation over generations before becoming widely accepted. By now, they have destroyed the normal instincts of so many people that the societies pervaded by cultural Marxism are close to the same kind of implosion that Lukacs predicted for the Soviet Union.
Seen in this light, it becomes obvious that the reason why leftists habitually mischaracterize nationalist movements as racist or fascist is because they believe that normal instincts are perverse, and that racism and fascism are no more than extreme forms of those instincts.
If there is any danger of a fascist resurgence, then it is not due to the rise of conservative and nationalist movements—it is due to leftism. Leftist policies attack normality and allow the gradual destruction of national cultures and ethnic groups through globalism, mass migration, and ‘European integration.’ It is leftists who create the sort of crisis which will result in some people making what they consider to be a regrettable but necessary alliance with or shift towards fascists. It is leftists who give fascism undeserved credibility by equating it with normality. And it is leftists who are most opposed to the healthy policies—border control, strict immigration limit, cultural assimilation, and so on—that would be the best antidote to the fascist temptation.
The Left Enables Fascism
Leonardo Munoz/ AFP
During the years following World War II, the very harmless and extraordinarily humorous author, P. G. Wodehouse, was subjected to a campaign vilifying him as a fascist sympathizer. The ‘evidence’ for this claim came primarily in the form of a few imprudent radio broadcasts that accurately described conditions in the German camps used to imprison British civilians found in German-occupied territories. There was also the characterization, in his books, of the fictitious and obviously parodic “Black Shorts” led by the bombastic and buffoonish Roderick Spode. Nevertheless, humorless individuals—too obtuse to realize that Wodehouse was using an easily satirized political movement for comedic purposes—claimed that his books were somehow persuading people that fascism was not a threat.
Roughly the same period saw John Lukacs—a self-professed reactionary and Catholic convert—establish himself as a leading conservative thinker. He argued that fascism would be an enduring threat despite its recent obliteration, and that communism was just a passing danger—a house of cards sure to fall sooner rather than later, despite the power of the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Cold War.
Irony is added to irony by the fact that Lukacs did not just gain respectability as a serious social critic by thoroughly underestimating one evil political movement while just as thoroughly overestimating another (one which a novelist was condemned for mocking)—he also unwittingly hit on the reasons why communism had the potential to be both more enduring and more destructive than he understood.
Lukacs built his argument on two foundational claims. Fascist movements had been able to gain total control of government through democratic elections. Communists had never gained power except through the violence of a committed minority. From there, he argued that entire populations could become fascist, but that communist regimes are paradoxically reliant upon a self-appointed elite and consequently are sure to implode under the weight of their absurdity.
It is perplexing that Lukacs managed to overlook the fact that coalitions of ideologically similar communists, socialists, and anarchists did not just gain widespread popularity but even won elections; as is his failure to notice the growing influences of Cultural Marxism since the 1960s. There is also the matter of his obvious overemphasis on the unpopularity of only the most orthodox Marxist theories. Moreover, he underappreciated how much fascism’s popularity was dependent upon crises, without which it could never have risen above a joke worthy of being satirized in just the way that Wodehouse did.
Odder still is Lukacs’ failure to explain why fascism was able more rapidly to gain a following than radical leftism, even though the reason is straightforward: fascism simply pervert normal human instincts, while leftism tries to negate them. Because it is normal for people to love and to prefer their own country, culture, people (and so on), fascism twists that natural inclination into doctrines of racial superiority, while leftism tries to stamp out this normal preference.
It is because fascism does not require the same depth of corruption, that people can be more susceptible to embracing it; but are also more likely to abandon it. The passage of just twenty years saw most Germans go from laughing at the Nazis in 1925, to cheering wildly for Hitler in 1935, to obliterating all reminders of the Third Reich in 1945. Radical leftist doctrines required slow and often subtle inculcation over generations before becoming widely accepted. By now, they have destroyed the normal instincts of so many people that the societies pervaded by cultural Marxism are close to the same kind of implosion that Lukacs predicted for the Soviet Union.
Seen in this light, it becomes obvious that the reason why leftists habitually mischaracterize nationalist movements as racist or fascist is because they believe that normal instincts are perverse, and that racism and fascism are no more than extreme forms of those instincts.
If there is any danger of a fascist resurgence, then it is not due to the rise of conservative and nationalist movements—it is due to leftism. Leftist policies attack normality and allow the gradual destruction of national cultures and ethnic groups through globalism, mass migration, and ‘European integration.’ It is leftists who create the sort of crisis which will result in some people making what they consider to be a regrettable but necessary alliance with or shift towards fascists. It is leftists who give fascism undeserved credibility by equating it with normality. And it is leftists who are most opposed to the healthy policies—border control, strict immigration limit, cultural assimilation, and so on—that would be the best antidote to the fascist temptation.
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