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What is a piece of media that has changed your life? (thelemmy.club)

submitted 10 months ago by HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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[–] commiewithoutorgans@hexbear.net 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They Thought They Were Free. Book caused me to reevaluate exactly how politics at individual and social levels happened and how fascism works without any individual being inherently "evil." Class politics and interests followed closely behind to explain how evil can arise among populations that all consider themselves "good people"

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

[–] commiewithoutorgans@hexbear.net 4 points 10 months ago

Honestly, I see this text often quoted form the book but I don't find it super useful as a way to understand fascism. The steps and reforms were all taken for a reason and people agreed with that reason, even the apprehensive agreed enough to stay seated. I think this "separation" isn't the best thesis out of this book, because the Nazi Party didn't shift too much in terms of popularity throughout these shifts, except to grow more popular during wartime. The government promised something and many accepted those conditions or at least lent moral license to the achieving the goal and were unwilling to oppose the conditions.

Fascism is Liberalism when and where Liberalism fails to accomplish it's promises and must consume the people and stuff at the periphery to achieve its goals. A government is just as "far" from its people when it is doing good things that it's people desire as when it does bad things.

I love the book but have major issues with the ideological assumptions, mostly surrounding fascism's relationship to its people and to other ideologies