What is fascism?

I'm serious, how would you define it? I have always had a curiously tough time giving a specific definition for this. I thought it was just me, but then I stumbled upon something. In a book I'm currently reading the author poses this question and then cites several leading historians from one prestigious university after another, each with a separate and even different definition. He notes that in most scholarly works on the issue their is a pre forma announcement, "Such is the welter of divergent opinion surrounding the term" typed just before the given definition. Dr. Roger Griffin in his book The Nature of Fascism defines it as " a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism." Ya, and the googlehyme is framed up by the ramestein...? But that's just it, we all recognize "aspects" associated with the term given our understanding of the Third Reich. Militarism, hostile expansionism, ultra-patriotism and it goes on. But again I return to Soviet Russia, don't those phrases describe their particular brand of communism as much as it describes Nazi fascism? Dr. Roger Eatwell defines it as a "form of thought that preaches the need for social rebirth in order to forge a holistic-national radical Third Way." German social scientist Ernst Nole has a six-point definition called the "Fascist Minimum" that attempts to define the phrase by what it opposes. In fact, what most of these historians and scientists have agreed upon is that there is no one single agreed upon definition. The layman's response typically (and I've heard this from anecdotal encounters as well as in this book) is that it is the polar ideological opposite of communism. I always found that odd given how each (using the most obvious examples, Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany) employed their maintenance of power looked identical to me. Another typical definitional recitation is that while communism is the control of business by the state, that fascism is the control of the state by business. This, while widely permeated as the correct definition, seems to be the least accurate, according to these historians. Some serious scholars have even argued that "fascism" doesn't even exist (not that the Nazi's weren't guilty of their heinous crimes mind you, just that we've misidentified it as fascism) or that it is primarily a secular religion. Professor Gilbert Allardyce notes that, "we have agreed to use the word without agreeing on how to define it."

So, we're back at square one, how would you define fascism?

To bring the argument into modern day politics the left often accuses the right of being "fascistic", although it's usually a loon or an actor, in other words, lacking in credibility. The irony is that be it smoking bans, trans fat bans, and other forms of political correctness they champion, they cite in language almost identical to Goebbels, that it's for "the good of the country." Although he might use "Fatherland." The Nazi's had bans based on health and laws based on race too. I'm not arguing modern western leftists have anything close to the intentions of the final solution, I just find it ironic that they throw that term at people like me, when individual self determination and liberty - cornerstones of conservatism - are antithetical to fascism as the left has defined it, while their legislative pursuits seem to center on the "collective good", which is a clearly identifiable aspect of "fascism." In terms of what we would recognize as old European forms of fascism, conservatism, with an ideology based on the individual's freedom and self determination and whose worth is not determined at birth, seems radically liberal. In reality, within the US, fascism has simply come to mean anything the left dislikes politically.

Moving on to aspects such as militarism and super, state promoted patriotism, there is no bigger champion of the Americanized version of these "fascistic" characteristics then FDR, yet he is the left's pristine model of proper executive governance. And it should be noted that whether it be Chavez's Venezuela, Castro's Cuba, or Stalin's Russia, militarism and state sponsored or "mandated" patriotism are hallmarks of leftist regimes the world over. Mussolini and Hitler are hardly the only purveyor that history has as an example. And what of Near Eastern theocracies? Doesn't Iran qualify? And to a great extent Saudi Arabia by all accounts and definitions? They are theocracies, but certainly fit the description, "a radical third way" of governing, and then some.

Add to this confusion my personal encounter with the chair of USM's department of political science. She explained to me that I must stop looking at the political ideological landscape as a straight line with each side ending in the extremism of either communism on the left or fascism on the right. Instead, she insisted, "it is a circle." At the bottom of that circle you have, with virtually no distinguishable space between them, Republicans on the right, and Democrats on the left. Then if you follow each around this circular line you end up at the top with communism and fascism sitting beside each other with virtually no distinguishable space between them. This is why their tactics are so closely aligned. Their ideologies may center among different themes but in practice they are virtually identical.

I will now offer what I believe to be the most accurate definition, but before I do the name of the book is Liberal Fascism, The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. As you might of gathered it is a historical argument which seeks to point out that all of the aspects most commonly associated with the term "fascism" are readily found amongst American liberals (while going to great lengths to point out that their intentions are pure i.e. "I'm not calling them Nazis.")


Ryan's Dictionary, First Edition, Circa 2008.

Fascism - (adj) a despotic form of governance that centers around a particularly expressed ideology or theme.

Accepting this definition would mean that Stalin's Russia was not the ideological opposite, but rather a form of fascism. Think about it like an FBI peg board that has a mafia family arranged according to rank with the Don atop and all others branching out beneath him. That "Don" is fascism in my view with every form of dictatorship, oppressive ideology and undemocratic forms of government held within his tentacles beneath. This covers Nazism, into communism, through to Wahhabism. And, if I do say so myself, it is a much more accurate description then what each of those leading historians recited, combined.