A Cancer on Liberalism

Last updated: Wed Nov 06 2024

Fascism is eternal.

In surveys of the twentieth century, fascism and communism are often presented as twin ideologies — two alternatives to liberalism that start from very different premises but end up in the same, totalitarian place.

That has always struck me as an odd pairing. Communism, in many ways, is best studied as a religion — a faith in dialectical materialism and the twin prophets of Marx and Lenin — that emerged from the broad set of leftist beliefs that we call socialism. Despite a universalistic outlook, it has a specific history; regardless, it has been adopted to cultures far afield from that context. It has a particular doctrine, expressed in holy books, and a particular set of practices; it even has its own holiday in May Day! Communism qua communism arguably has more in common with the revolutionary theocracy of Iran than anything else.

Fascism is different. Fascism is difficult to even define — Umberto Eco’s iconic essay “Ur-Fascism” uses five-and-a-half pages and a reference to Wittgenstein’s notion of games-as-family-resemblance before even starting to list traits of fascist regimes.

Fascism is not an ideology. Fascism is a tendency, a way of thinking. Fascism is eternal, because fascism is the modern, industrialized version of a very old belief: that our tribe, the Right People, will prosper, if only we had a Big Man to apply violence to the Wrong People.

Fascism is a cancer on liberalism — a latent tendency ready to metastasize at any time and consume the entire system. In a political system fundamentally structured on tolerance, some will always seek to benefit by the violent application of intolerance. The stability of a liberal polity can never be taken for granted; the wolves are always happy to be invited in by the sheep.