Recently I have started wondering if fascism in younger people might not stem from two concepts:
- Contrarianism - disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing to try and seem intelligent.
- Supporting great man theory, the belief that if the right man were just given the power, they could bring about real, solid change for the better.
I have personal experience with 1, I am a Swede, and one of my cousins have fallen into the MAGA swamp, when wondering why, I thought back many years, when he had me listen to a song he liked, at first I said I liked it, but later changed my mind, and when he heard that, he was relieved, because as he said “I wouldn’t need to find new music, as I don’t like music that is popular”.
As if someone else liking a thing, suddenly made it tainted…
Anyway, he is fully supporting MAGA, which has caused a rift in the family.
I suspect that his contrarianism pushed him toward MAGA, and he either has deluded himself to thinking it is good, or that his ego can’t take him being wrong for so long.
I’ve definitely met people who’ve gone rightward for ‘contrarian’ purposes, though I always question whether it’s the chicken or the egg, considering the siege mentality of right-wing movements. EVERYONE ELSE is an ENEMY and you don’t want to be with THEM, do you!?
That is an interesting point, though I mostly sort that under great man theory, as in many cases you can equate great man, with great ideology.
Personally, I have always been weary of great men, especially those with a lot of charisma.
I am on the spectrum, and am generally suspicious of most leaders, or even most politically involved people.
even if you are not on the spectrum, politicals are shady asf , with thier doubletalk anyways.
As a Southern US prisoner, the only leftists I know basically went lefty for contrarian purposes.
It’s a shock to drive to Boston.
“Holy shit, everyone isn’t fucking insane, as much.”
Rural areas are indeed often prisons/deserts of thought. Where it’s often easy for just a few people who largely control the thoughts and opinions of people in the area. Not really a north south thing. Go up to Idaho and you will find types of people you are very familiar with. Possibly some extremely worse than the ones are familiar with.
The two best teachers of tolerance and understanding. Are traveling to regions with other cultures. Or living in a city where people of other cultures come. When you know them, and can point to them directly. It makes it a lot harder to other them.
I’ve heard a hypothesis before that seems plausible, that right wing thinking is the natural convergent thought pattern of those who are under duress.
Consider a neolithic band that is consistently short of food and being attacked by other bands. They will want:
- Strict adherence to the rules and beliefs of the band for safety and survival reasons.
- Well defined roles for each person to play, so others can know what to expect from them.
- A clear heirarchy of command, so the group can work effectively as a unit in times of crisis.
- A strong preference for members of the band, large amounts of distrust towards outsiders, and extreme vindictiveness towards defectors.
- High status for the warrior class.
I’m a bit drunk rn and dont feel like continuing to enumerate, but I feel like you can fill in the blanks.
Hence, humans under duress naturally seek this state. And the modern world has any number of stressors to trigger this part of the human brain, even if that particular human is, in actuality, well fed, safe, and cared for.
I never realized until just now that this was my head cannon for what causes conservativism.
Income inequality is very real and the richer folks take their money from the pockets of the poor through inflation and wage stagnation. Just those two factors alone mean that many folks are making only less than half what they used to be able to make for the same jobs 20-30 years ago.
This means there’s a whole lot of folks who started jobs 20-30 years ago who just can’t make ends meet anymore doing those same jobs. Farmers, waiters, factory workers, truckers, officer workers, the list goes on and on of folks who every year have to tighten the belt a little more. And it’s hard but to get really deeply scared after a lifetime of watching your budget get tighter and tighter.
The frogs are being slowly boiled, but a lot of frogs are getting angry and looking for an answer as to who is making their lives harder, and there’s a whole lot of propaganda companies who will happily tell them it’s anyone but those who set our inflationary monetary policy and who own all the resources. Concentrated resources cause asset inflation, monetary policy pushes it higher, and weak labor laws and unions keep the wages low.
Modern propaganda makes it easy to point to folks with different color skin or religion and blame them as the cause of all this, when they couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not a few percent of undocumented workers who are printing dollars by the billion making housing, medical care, and education so expensive. It’s not the folks without social security cards who build a society that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few ultra rich by taking it from the poor.
That may be wrong though. Our societies are so propagandized into hierarchical thinking that many often believe that hierarchy and orders of command are the only ways to react to crises. This might be some sort of naturalistic fallacy, where whoever said/wrote what you wrote there probably has looked into how militaries and disaster response work today and concluded that’s the only way it could work successfully.
However, I remember there being a master’s thesis by an anarchist political science student who showed that a principled anarchist military could, in fact, work very well.
I even found it after a short search. If anyone’s interested in reading it: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/chris-beaumont-defending-an-anarchist-society
Edit to clarify, because that leap might have been a bit too far: my head went to this topic because the argument that a tendency toward authoritarianism under duress is somehow human nature depends on that assumption. If the assumption isn’t true, that explanation loses most of its base. It might not be the natural response to duress, just the socialized one.
I think you’ve outlined a distinct archetype that I’ve definitely seen plenty, but I’d disagree that “humans under duress naturally seek this state”. In my experience (as a human under duress for much of her life), a large proportion of the people who most throw themselves into helping others are those who have experienced significant duress. Hell, a big part of why I’m still kicking around is because if I were no longer here, I would never be able to honour the countless acts of kindness and solidarity I have experienced by paying it forward.
I’m reminded of a phrase that says something like "There’s two kinds of people in the world: those who experience injustice and go “I had to go through that so you should too”, and those who go “I had to go through that, so I don’t want anyone else to”
Tell him that right populism and Maga style authoritarianism are really popular right now, on the way to mainstream. We’ll see if he is really contrarian.
Contrarianism is part of it but it’s also just a matter of personality. You’re not an asshole because you’re a fascist, you’re a fascist because you’re an asshole.
Wait are you a swede in America? Or in Sweden? Don’t tell me MAGA ideology is something people overseas identify as
I am indeed a Swede in Sweden, as is my cousin, and his wife, both of which support Trump…
Jeez… You can thank Fox News for being that damn good at propaganda I guess.
Yep it’s not uncommon even over in europe. Just as Hitler was popular with many in the United States. Victor Orban who recently lost his re-election was a solid Trump Ally as well in Hungary
Bad news, friend…
maga does double down, so its likely that. they cant afford to look foolish for being wrong. appearance everything to the far right.
Tankies are in a cult. Exhibit 1:
They are worried about being called fascist when they do fascist things and give fascist opinions.
