What is Fascism?

Like many words I have spent years defining and subsequently refining in my own mind, such as classical, technique, power, leadership, and love, the term "Fascism" has been simplistically coopted as derisive without analysis for merit.

Hardest to do is to cleanse one's mind of the assorted bar bores or the few full-blooded bigots who compose the stereotypical proponents of the Far Right. This include the half-drunk, testosterone-guided skinheads in tight jeans or combat fatigues, bawling out slogans richly spiced with obscenity. While the anti-fascists and FOXnews knuckle-dragging mouthbreathers continue to define the term as "authoritative mean person", I thought I'd give some basic definitions.

Huey Long once said "when we get it we won't call it fascism -- we'll call it antifascism" and there's a lot of truth to this. There's a real and legitimate lack of free speech in America, and especially on campuses and in the media, because both of them are controlled by a group. Out-groups (in these cases conservatives) are denied free speech even more strongly then they themselves denied liberals previously. Like The Who said, "meet the new boss/same as the old boss."

Generally, Fascism is the psychological and spiritual tendencies of the man, embodied in the modern nation-state. While the quirks of the modern and relatively new State apparatus is being refined by Man, the essence of Man and his psychological underpinnings change little. It is this characteristic that conflates Fascism and conservativism. But Fascism cannot be understood only from its ideologues; instead, it needs to be looked at in practice and in my opinion the practice of Fascism, as indeed the rise to power of Fascism, requires collaboration and support from the much older, stronger, and more respectable conservative and establishmentarian foundations of any society.

In practice, Fascism is a progressive if not revolutionary movement that firstly seeks the reconciliation of class conflict by protecting wages and the integrity of domestic labor markets from exploitation via free-market profiteers. Secondly, Fascism marshalls the resources of the national organism to cultivate cultural, military, and scientific excellence and create harmony within said national organism.

Often (and highly paradoxically) Fascism is seen as militarily aggressive and Imperialist. It is in fact Communism that requires war to enhance its burgeoning Class Society. In fact, the USSR was not Nationalist (chauvinst and exclusive) but Imperial (messianic and inclusive). Socialism can't happen without World War. Luckily, Stalin was stopped or encountered resistance on both sides of the Iron Curtain, to the cost of 10,000,000s of lives.

Fascism it more Traditional than Conservative. Tradition embodies all the organic and tribal actions, thoughts, and even peculiar climactic and geography details of a group. Fascism done with a organic Tradition as the core is considered the true Fascism, which only as a secondary benefit removes the need for socialism because it addresses the root problem that caused the symptom to arise. Class cooperation not class warfare.

As you might know the word Fascism (initially created by Mussolini) comes from the Fasces, which is a bundle of birch rods wrapped together to form a cylinder. The Fasces symbolizes the fact that any one birch rod is weak but as a whole they are strong. While the Fasces dates back to pre-Roman (and even pre-historic) Italy, it is truly all over the American government, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Seal of Brooklyn.

A more (little r) romantic definition of Fascism from Coogan:
"We seek in vain the book of Fascism, although no such bible exists because Fascism is not a doctrine but an obscure and remote longing written in our blood and in our souls. Fascists are men who feel more deeply and more desperately than other men, that the ideal of Fascism is a means of salvation, the secret of life and well-being which every zoological species preserves like an instinct in the depths of its conscience. But how were those who feel more deeply and desperately to survive in the wintertime of the West?"

A good quote from Mussolini: "Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society."

Don't mess with the Renaissance Man

The concept of the Renaissance Man, otherwise known as a Polymath, Universal Man, Uomo Universale, is a refreshingly direct and powerful one for people who wish to become more well-rounded, or expert in a variety of areas. Simply put, a Renaissance Man is someone who excels in various, usually unrelated, areas. Think Aristotle, Da Vinci, Franklin, Goethe.

The need for Renaissance Men is pulled by two opposing forces. Increased specialization makes it much more difficult to excel (or be proficient) in one field, much less two or more. However, there is a need for interdisciplinary folks who can take the wisdom and knowledge of one field and apply them to other disparate fields of study.

Typically, the Renaissance Man excels in arts, sciences, and physical activities. In Western history, the first person to be attributed such a title is Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), who was an author, poet, architect, and artist. However, there were many Renaissance Men before him, including Aristotle.

I see the Renaissance Man as someone who:

Physical: is proficient at athletic activities; can defend oneself, family and country; is in excellent health.

Artistic: creates poetry, music, and literature; unique life’s path; speak at least one other language; excellent vocabulary.

Scientific: understands and contributes to the sciences.

Knowledge: is studied in and can discuss philosophy, wisdom, and other cultures; has
experienced the great works (books, works of art, music) of all time; intense curiosity; often understand the causes of things.

I will further outline my views on what a Renaissance Man should be able to do in another article.

Probably the first book written on the concept of becoming a Renaissance Man is by Baldassare Castiglione. His book, The Book of the Courtier, was written in 1561, but it very relevant today. It’s certainly not politically correct, and adapting it to modern life might require some work, but it’s nearly spot-on, and is well-worth reading for those interested in achieving Renaissance Man status. It is available on Google Books.

A Perfect Day, Part II

Do you have days in your past that you look to more fondly than others? Have you had super-productive days where you are constantly, yet effortlessly, productive? Where your To Do list, seemingly impossible in the morning, turns into merely a starting point by the afternoon? Where you collapse into bed, having difficulty remembering all the tasks accomplished, project moved forward, call made, and people served?

Those types of days are forever etched in my psyche. I recall these “Perfect Days” with such strong nostalgia and longing. (Although such days are not technically Perfect, after having lived 14,000 days I can say they are close enough jazz. For our purposes, Perfect means “among the best of your life.”)

The most poignant memory of such Perfect Days, for me, is the sheer quantity of things done. It was like every little task hanging over my head vanished. Things were clean, read, paid, used, organized, and simply done. The List got smaller, and those items that didn’t get crossed off, got closer to it.

One of the hardest things for me to do has been to divorce the magic of youth, gone forever, and the Perfect Day Feeling. What if my memory confuses the two? What if I’m confusing the two, and in fact one can never feel the PDF again? I truly don’t have an answer to that. Anyway…

If you could construct a Perfect Day, what would it look like? What time would you wake up? Would you make a To Do list in the morning, or at all? What would you do first? What would be done by breakfast? By lunch? Would your work finish at any specific time, or would you work ‘til you drop? Would it be a weekend, or weekday? Would you assume that you’d work that day?

Most people have a lot of trouble planning a Perfect Day. My suggestion is to start with the Perfect Hour. It's much harder than you think.

But it's worth it.

Doing Doing Done!

If there’s one tool every self-improver leans on, it’s the rugged To Do list. Like the fork, screwdriver, and fork, the To Do list is timeless in its simplicity and its importance. So much has been written about the To Do list, most famously in David Allen’s Getting Things Done, but I’ll limit my comment to: all the entries on To Do lists are extremely important, including those crossed-out.

Most people adopt a ‘roll over’ approach to To Do lists: they take the unaccomplished entries from the previous day’s To Do list, write them again, and add some more for the new day. The accomplished goals are lost. I think one misses a lot by only focusing on the goals To Do, and not the goals you Have Done.

There’s a negative bias to only having To Do lists. The list itself can create all kinds of procrastination anxieties. There’s no balance. One can’t see the accomplishments of one’s past.

It’s a supreme waste to simply abandon those tasks you have accomplished, when in fact your accomplished tasks live on far more palpably that your unaccomplished goals, which sit idly on paper. Therefore, I highly recommend you create a “Have Done” list. You can obviously think back and list all the goals that you’ve completed over your life, or over the past day; the level of detail is up to you.

There are a number of sites where you can create and update To Do lists, and also Have Done lists. I highly recommend them. The most popular is probably 43things.com but there are others.

So, sit back, and review all that you do!