The brotherhood that forms among the oppressed and persecuted never lasts, British historian and art theorist Simon Elmer says in his new book, The Road to Fascism – For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State (London 2022). He goes on to quote philosopher Hannah Arendt:
The humanity of the insulted and injured has never yet survived the hour of liberation by so much as a minute. This does not mean that it is insignificant, for in fact it makes insult and injury endurable; but it does mean that in political terms it is absolutely irrelevant (231).
What must replace brotherhood now, according to Elmer, as the worst oppression measures of the Covid era have subsided, at least temporarily, is friendship; but not in the modern sense though.
In The Road to Fascism, Elmer argues Western societies are now rapidly heading towards fascist totalitarianism, powered by the fourth industrial revolution and pushed on by oligarchs and bureaucratic power. After the fall of the Soviet Union we have become oblivious to the dangers of a totalitarianism that doesn‘t originate on the Left; the naïve liberalism of the past decades has blinded us to this danger. Elmer agrees with Hayek‘s warning in The Road to Serfdom, that the most dangerous kind of fascism is the one driven by international technocracies which could
easily exercise the most tyrannical and irresponsible power imaginable… And as there is scarcely anything which could not be justified by “technical necessities“ which no outsider could effectively question – or even by humanitarian arguments about the needs of some specially ill-favoured group which could not be helped in any other way – there is little possibility of controlling that power (143).
And let‘s be aware that here Hayek doesn’t even consider the possibility of the close collaboration between the international technocracies and monopolistic oligarchs we see in our times.
Elmer claims the support of the Left for the mandates and regulations of the biosecurity state are not based on its inherent authoritarianism as many on the Right believe, but rather on its “infiltration by the neoliberal ideologies of multiculturalism, political correctness, identity politics and, most recently, the orthodoxies of woke“ (147). Elmer rightly points out how “no-platforming, cancel culture, misogyny… policing of speech and opinion“ are not rooted in “politics of emancipation, class struggle or wealth distribution“; there is really nothing socialist, in the traditional sense, about those symptoms of totalitarian ideology.
This seems to stand in direct opposition to the generally accepted view, at least among those on the Right-wing, that woke is Left-wing in its essence, resulting from socialist infiltration of society in accordance with Dusche‘s (and Gramsci‘s) “long march through the institutions“. So, what is Elmer‘s reasoning here?
Quoting the Nazi motto of “Kraft durch Freude“ (strength through joy), in Elmer’s view it is the “dream of a unified people, the commemoration of fallen heroes“ that lies behind the fascist salute, behind the willing submission to the leader; it is on kitsch that the aesthetics of totalitarianism are based.
Elmer is not alone here. According to art theorist Monica Kjellman-Chapin, kitsch, the mechanical, easily consumed art, arousing fake sensations, can “easily be deployed by totalitarian regimes as a mechanism of control and manipulation… infused with propaganda“. In the words of Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch. The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch.
Woke, Elmer says, is the modern equivalent of kitsch. Taking the knee, clapping for carers, masking up, and in general obeying nonsensical orders, for ‘the greater good’, or as is probably more common, only for the sake of appearances, is in its essence the same as being moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass. And this solidarity, which in the end is a fake solidarity, is also the driving force when the mob turns against those who do not comply, against the unvaccinated, against those who refuse to ‘take the knee’, against those who have the courage to upset and confuse the accepted narrative, for example a black man putting on a T-shirt with the slogan ‘White lives matter‘. For in its essence, woke, just like kitsch, is about exclusion; the most cruel are often the most sentimental of all.
Elmer points to how, during the lockdowns, protests that were in accordance with woke ideology were not only tolerated but applauded, while those who protested against the lockdowns and mandates to protect their livelihood were hunted down, fined or imprisoned. The reason for this, he says, is that woke presents no threat to the authorities; it is about a puritanical adherence to orthodoxies and rituals, it is anti-revolutionary, but “sees the market as the only framework for change” (120), and most importantly it provides an opportunity to enforce and further develop restrictions on free speech and personal freedom, a fundamental step on the road to fascism. “In short, by its facilitation of capitalism‘s construction of the totalitarianism of the Global Biosecurity State – woke is not liberal, and it certainly isn’t socialist: woke is fascist.“ (121)
One of the key characteristics of woke ideology is its utter disregard for reason; for rational thinking, and we see this perhaps most explicitly in the absurdities in the narrative around COVID-19. To the woke, all that matters is their own personal perception, subjective experience. But in a world where all meaning is private, there can be no meaning. A private language is impossible, Wittgenstein says, for its originator cannot understand it himself. In a more general sense, we may consider Hannah Arendt‘s definition of common sense as our common perception of the world and how this common perception is dependent on a common language, on common stories and on a common way of thinking; without those society really exists no more.
As Elmer points out, and as others, including Arendt, have done before him, atomisation is one of the key prerequisites for the sustenance of a totalitarian society. This is what Stalin understood when he proceeded to dissolve all free societies and clubs, even chess clubs weren’t spared; to truly exert totalitarian power you must isolate people from each other, remove their ability to form social bonds. This way woke is an immensely important cornerstone of the new fascist society Elmer fears is around the corner, not only its visible signs, such as mass compliance with mask mandates and lockdowns, but no less in the atomisation based on the denial of our common rationality, a direct consequence of the radical relativism that accepts nothing as valid except individual subjective experience. And, as societal change driven by the people, revolutionary or not, is based on the ability to come together, to discuss ideas and to plan actions, we see how destructive it is to any such endeavours, whether Left-wing or Right-wing; it is an antithesis to true political activity. And it goes without saying, that in a society governed by the radical relativity of woke ideology – if we can even call such a thing a society – there can be no law, and thus no human rights.
Elmer‘s discussion of woke ideology is only a part, though a central one, of his wide-ranging analysis of fascism and its foundations, and the signs of its imminent resurgence. He draws on Umberto Eco‘s characteristics of “eternal” fascism, provides a critical analysis of Hayek‘s definition of fascism, explains and clarifies Agamben‘s complex conceptual framework underpinning his view of the state of modern man as homo sacer – excluded, yet subject to absolute power – within the biosecurity state, dives into the technological development allowing constant surveillance by the authorities and concludes that, if nothing is done, we are headed towards a new type of fascist totalitarianism, from which there may be no escape. The fact that his analysis is based on a socialist, rather than a Right-wing perspective should truly enhance the importance of this book; it may provide a much-needed foundation for critical discussion of recent events among Left-wing intellectuals, at least those who still have an open mind.
Towards the end of his book, Elmer discusses the ancient Greek concept of friendship as a possible way out. To the ancient Greeks, he says, friendship among the citizens (philia) was fundamental to the well-being of the city-state (polis), and it is precisely on this that the idea of Western democracy is based. This concept of friendship is different from what we usually mean when we talk about friendship today. We see friendship as the intimacy we seek to avoid the alienation caused by the constant revelation of our private lives, Elmer says. Friendship is thus only present in private life and not in our public life as members of society and participants in political debate.
But with the ancient Greeks, the citizens were only united within the city state through constant conversation and debate. The essence of friendship lay in coming together and discussing the issues of society, not in personal communication and conversation about ourselves with those closest to us, but in a dialogue based on our common interests as citizens and participants in society. According to Elmer, it is this kind of friendship, the bond that forms between responsible active citizens, that can and should replace the brotherhood of those attacked by silencing, censorship, confinement and other methods of oppression. In short, Elmer urges us to take seriously our responsibility as citizens, instead of being consumers only, caring nothing for politics and society; that we come together again in the public square, in the agora, to debate ideas, to develop our views through rational dialogue, but always on the basis of friendship, in the ancient Greek sense.
Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an economist, consultant and writer based in Iceland. This post first appeared on his Substack page, which you can subscribe to here.
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In theory, this sounds interesting. In practice, I refuse to read anything from (or about) someone who uses the term fascism in this usual way. It actually means something. And that something is not A convenient bogey-man term I can use to label something I REALLY disagree with as REALLY DISAGREEABLE. The author is either clueless and sloppy with his terminology or disingenious and intentionally manipulative. I may be pretty opposed to all things woke (actually, I am) but this doesn’t mean I feel like being recruited as foot soldier for the opposing party by employing the exact same underhand tactics.
Eh, mmmm, eh, I eh .———– Have a nice day now
Can you suggest a better term than ‘fascism’?
Fascism (from Latin fasces referring to bundles of sticks Roman liktors carried around with them to signify that they were responsible for public order) refers to the political system Mussolini erected in Italy. That was national, nationalistic and corporate, ie, based on incorporated bodies representing different parts of society supposed to solve political problems by cooperating instead of infighting. Hence, I suggest New York Style Pizza as alternate term for the woke system. That’s not really related to it, either, but it at least gets scope (current shape of US domination over the so-called West), origin (American) and extent (American) right.
Mussolini was a member of the socialist party and editor of their newspaper Avanti from 1912-1914 … he called himself a socialist until his mid 30’s …. I very much consider Fascism as just another mutation of the destructive collectivism driven from the left … right wing socialism if you like
Woke is the straight line through Marx, Gramsci, Marcuse, etc …. Critical race theory and queer theory are both critical theories of the Frankfurt school origin and both use the architecture of Marx.
In Marx the oppressor /oppressed is based on material means and is bourgeois / Proletariat …. The proles are denied access to capital and the ideology used to justify this arrangement is capitalism.
In CRT the oppressor / oppressed is based on racial (cultural property) terms …. White / POC … The POC’s are denied access to the cultural property of whiteness and the ideology to justify the arrangement is white supremacy.
In Queer theory is gets weirder still and is based on Oppressor / oppressed through normality (the cultural property of being categorised as normal) …. normal people / (abnormal / queer) people … the queer people are denied access to normatively and the ideology to justify this arrangement is cis heteronormativity.
So the development of ideas is clearly marxian but having given up on the working class as the agents of revolutionary energy as Marcuse made clear in the 60’s essay (I can’t remember which one – my apologies)
It looks more like we’ve got the demonic hydra of totalitarianism coming at us from several angles but its always people utterly convinced they have the plan for how the rest of us should live.
Humans are such tiresome creatures …..
I think you’re missing an important bit here: Lenin’s (as far as I know) contribution to this, namely, the idea that the members of the oppressed group are intellectually and culturally immature and because of this, professional revolutionaries must act on their behalf.
It’s even possibe to link national socialism to it based on the dichotomy oppressor/ oppressed. In this case, the opressed group would be the Germans and the oppressors the anglo-saxon dominated world power. OTOH, there’s still the fundamental difference that national socialism was counter-revolutionary: Before November 1918, Hitler was just a content infrantryman in the Bavarian army who never advanced beyond the rank of a private (one above ordinary soldiers). Considering that the armies of the German empire had enormous troubles replacing commissioned and non-commissioned officers, this speaks for a singularly unambitious nature.
For correctness: Minus the bit of about the private, this (the 2nd paragraph) was a brainfart of mine which doesn’t really make sense: When leaving the part about the Jewish world conspiracy aside, Hitler’s main enemy were the November Gangsters, ie, the people and parties who had forced the German empire to surrender unconditionally after WWI because the revolution in Germany/ (U)SPD coup against the legitimate government meant the army in the field couldn’t continue fighting for want of supplies. While he believed Germany to be oppressed by the treaty of Versailles, he didn’t hold the Entente powers responsible for that as they had just won a war – albeit with trickery and treachery – and exploited their victory accordingly. The real cause of the German oppression was the German republic and the powers behind it who had cowardly and selfishly surrendered to the demands of the enemy. This was to be rectified by un-surrendering, ie, simply declaring the Versailles treaty null and void and acting accordingly once the NSDAP had gained power. Until the war with Poland started in 1939, this policy was a resounding success.
Very interesting analysis. I have been thinking about the rise of the new Fascism as a system of control, where, unlike historical Fascism, which saw government and a governing class co-opting industry into the ideals of a National Effort, in the new arising Fascism the system is working the other way round. Global industry, outside the control of any one government, is co-opting government and government actors into a Global Industrialist effort. However this has provided interesting insight into the second and essential part for fascists to actually take power. And that is recruitment and mobilisation of the masses into the fascist effort. The references to the concept of Kitsch has really struck a cord. It is what is behind the gaze – unified in the same direction – in those Hitler youth posters from the Nazi Germany. I haven’t before thought of how Kitsch can play just the right emotionally unifying yet ultimately vacuous role in uniting credulous masses. This very much converges with Mass Formation as discussed by Mathias Desmet. I’m realising the woke movement and Mass Formation play the same role but have different causes. Mass formation occurring because of a perceived crisis in the context of unattached anxiety and Kitsch emotional unity as a result of feeling at one with the cult like community of Woke. Scary stuff indeed.
I agree with your take on this.
I think there are many prisms through which to view our current situation, though the term “fascism” does fit the big business/ government/ bureaucracy/ media alliance, whatever the driving force.
I suspect the psychopaths of past fascist regimes have been replaced by Gates, Schwab and their acolytes.
What is different this time is the near total lack of world governments fighting against the milieu.
What gives me hope is the unbridled hubris shown by today’s Machiavellian autoctrats (pride goes before a fall) and the upsurge in resistance in the US, Canada, as well as a number of EU states and sites such as this one.
I think you have it about right. Very interesting article. I kept thinking ‘cognitive dissonance’ as I was reading it because it requires that this state of mind has to be in conflict with reason.
My view, for what it is worth, is that a denigration of Christian beliefs has produced a degradation of moral values coupled with a lack of discipline in educational learning. This has produced an apathetic population that cannot be bothered to think for themselves and are ‘led’ to behave and think in a way that enables them to have others think for them.
The goal is that of a totalitarian regime where feelings dominate over reality.
‘Fascism’ has nothing to do with ‘right wing politics’. It is a bastard child of Socialism.
Fascism: Corporate and Government interests united under the complete control of government or a cult/clique inside government. Private production and property are allowed, but only to support the state. Nothing lies outside the state. Economics is autarchic meaning a reduction in any form of fair trade and what trade exists only does so to benefit the regime.
Communism: Elimination of private property and production, with all economic social and non state actors controlled by government, or a cult/clique inside that government. Economics is autarchic meaning a reduction in any form of fair trade and what trade exists only does so to benefit the regime.
In reality Fascism and Communism are the twin bastards of socialism, and though there are differences in methods and objectives, especially around private property and commerce, the end result is largely the same.
And yes, in my mind, Rona was an implementation of Fascism – the complete merger of state and corporate interests, under the guise of unlimited government power, the use of violence and vitriol, forced injections and diapering (against Nuremberg codes) and unfettered police and state power. Yes fascistic 100 %.
“Fascism, Nazism, Communism and Socialism are only superficial variations of the same monstrous theme—collectivism.” – Ayn Rand
Looks like I will add this to my Kindle wish list when I get all my Amazon gift cards from Santa
Looks like its currently self-published via Lulu. Sensible.
https://www.lulu.com/shop/simon-elmer/the-road-to-fascism/paperback/product-kr7rrm.html?q=Simon+Elmer&page=1&pageSize=4
One of the key characteristics of woke ideology is its utter disregard for reason; for rational thinking…. To the woke, all that matters is their own personal perception, subjective experience.
Fascinating article, which I read immediately after a chum’s email describing yet another high ranking professional (in education) who has been forced to resign as the result of forwarding a widely circulated meme through a private chat group (I saw the meme. It was funny). Another person of skill, knowledge and experience lost to the system on the basis of – what, exactly? Someone else’s lack of humour? Its a perfect example of the dilution of intellectual rigour, loss of contextual awareness and any sense of meaningful social cohesion in favour of irrational, self-absorbed/referential social media-driven sound-bite anti-intellectualism laid on the altar of woke. To paraphrase Clement Greenberg (‘Avantgarde und Kitsch’,1939):
The encouragement of [woke] is merely another of the inexpensive ways in which totalitarian regimes seek to ingratiate themselves with their subjects.
Love her or loathe her, Ayn Rand warned us about exactly this scenario 60 years ago.And like Cassandra, she was alternately mocked, misrepresented or ignored.
He’s a bit late to take to the road, Hayek got there first.
Fascism is the Left, it emerged from Socialism (Socialism, Fascism, National Socialism share same roots – empowerment of the State over the individual, central economic planning and control – Hayek) –
Mussolini was its author with deep and steadfast Socialist roots.
Although ideologically Fascism supposedly died in WWII, its technocratic, corporatist, economic model survived in the post-War 1951 European Coal and Steel Community, which morphed into the EEC in 1957, then the EU in 1993 at which point it started to reintroduce the ideological element of Fascism – surreptitiously at first, then quite blatantly as we have just seen.
Its not of the Right, it’s Left, it’s not new, it’s been around but under the RADAR.
Trying to wrap Fascism around woke is merely confused. Woke is more aptly compared with the Puritans.
Empowerment of the state over the individual, ie, the idea that the state is sort-of a composite super-individual is a traditional European concept at least dating back to the 4th century BC (but certainly a lot older) and France had a centrally planned economy under Louis XIV (as had all other absolutist European state — as system, this was called mercantilism).
Anything else you wrote is as completely wrong.
Woke = sleepwalking into tyranny
The whole Left-Right political divide is something a scam as far as I can tell. Facism and Communism, and all the other variant ‘-isms’, seem little more than subtly different paths to the same totalitarian hell on Earth with the same tiny clique (the 1% of 1% of 1%) of monopoly corporate and deep state interests pushing them through a divide a rule strategy.