
My story is nuanced. I have tried to distinguish between proximate cause, and ultimate cause. The ultimate cause of fascism is the right — but the proximate cause is the left. More simply, the origins of fascism are in the right’s extremism — but it is the left’s self-imposed irrelevance that allowed it to rise, and perhaps propelled it. You may disagree with my story, and you are welcome. It is just one synthesis among many. And yet, I caution you against the oppositional extremism that so defines our age. To fully account for fascism’s rise, because it is the most poisonous alloy of both, we must speak openly and honestly about the failures of both the left and right.For in the story of the rise of New Fascism, we see precisely the same elements at work as in Eternal Fascism. The pie shrinks. Leaders and institutions squabble — while the pie keeps shrinking. And then, the critical moment. The center breaks. The demagogue is free to sing his song of darkness. Night falls. And the golden age of the volk, the long march to the promised land, through the valleys of blood and despair, begins.I have written too much. I am tired now, as are you. So let us stop here to pause and reflect. Fascism, the poisonous admixture of the worst of both left and right, is a cancer that may infect the body politic at anytime that body is dulled and slowed, rendered infirm and frail, by stagnation. And the obligation of all reasonable people is to fight it. Not just because it destroys, and calls destruction glorious destiny, nor because it kills, and calls murder noble justice. But because in its glorification of destruction is the end of all that civilization can be said to stand for. Not just the fabric of our societies, but the possibility of our humanity.
Source: Why Fascism is Rising Again (And What You Can Learn From It) — Bad Words — Medium
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