Like writing a book about the ocean without using the word "water"

[phamos]

This is a placeholder for the eventual post to come about how ridiculous it is to write a book that depends entirely on a convincing definition of "fascism" that ENTIRELY SKIPS OVER THE YEARS 1922-1943 IN ITALY UNDER MUSSOLINI. I mean, that's just STAGGERING. "Let's write a book about fascism but not mention what actually HAPPENED UNDER FASCIST RULE!" That's pretty much the most intellectually dishonest move I've ever seen in a piece of historical writing -- and I've read the whole neocon canon, so that's saying something!

I would like to rant about this further, but I must go to sleep. So I will try to post a longer rant tomorrow that will also discuss Jonah Goldberg's complete lack of irony and possibly a comparison of Sorel's "myth" with Plato's "noble lie" and Leo Strauss and Abram Shulsky and OSP/intelligence gathering/nous blah blah blah. Possibly. But probably not, because I haven't actually read any Sorel and that would make me as intellectually bankrupt and disingenuous as Mr. Goldberg -- probably I'll just post more rants about my cat's effect on my sinuses, or a deconstruction of the recent South Park parody of Heavy Metal, wherein I try to decipher how much of the boob-scenery was actually in the original movie. (I really should have watched more Bakshi while I was at Kim's.)

Also, Weeds is a good show. Romany Malco is hot -- but I think he might be kinda crazy in real life. That's the impression I got from the 40-Year-Old Virgin commentary track -- and obviously I should base all my judgments of human beings on how they come off when being peppered with vulgarisms by Seth Rogan.

Comments

[phamos818.livejournal.com]

I agree -- and oddly, so does Jonah Goldberg. But it seems like a big part of Goldberg's thesis is that the words have become almost meaningless -- so he's going to seize on a totally made-up meaning of his own choosing and write a book about how American liberals fit the definition of fascism that he just made up. It's all very silly. It's sort of like 450 pages of Godwin's Law. "HILLARY CLINTON IS WORSE THAN THE NAZIS!"

[magpiegirl.livejournal.com]

But it seems like a big part of Goldberg's thesis is that the words have become almost meaningless

I agree with him here. "Nazi" and "fascist" get used so often as simply just epithets in situations where their application is completely inappropriate. "You want the Harry Potter books banned from our school library! You're a fascist!!" I think "Nazi" and "fascist" have become almost interchangeable to some people despite the fact that they do have different meanings. (Although dictionary.com says Soviets refer to Nazis as fascists so as not to damage the good name of socialism.) Honestly, how many people who sling out the word "Nazi" as an insult are in any way referring to the Nazi policies of annexing other countries? It bothers me that people are so unfamiliar with the true meaning of these terms. It's like they've just been shrunken down into convenient soundbites like so much in our modern culture. As they saying goes: those who are unfamiliar with the past are doomed to repeat it. Nazism and fascism were evil political movements that people should understand (in much greater detail than they currently do) so as to avoid these movements ever being revived.

"HILLARY CLINTON IS WORSE THAN THE NAZIS!"

Yeah. This is as bad as people calling Bush a fascist. As much as I dislike Bush and his policies, the dude is not a fascist. Fascists have much better organizational skills than Bush and co. (interesting fact: go to fascism.com and be immediately directed to President Bush's wikipedia page.)