Essays by Language:
An Alternative Definition of Fascism Based on an Ethical Framework
Summary
Defining fascism is a notoriously difficult scholarly task. Most definitions up till now have been empirical, based on common characteristics of fascist movements in practice. These definitions do not really get to the core of what is the essence of fascism and what makes it inherently dangerous. In this essay, I will posit that it is possible to define fascism by positioning it within ethical categories, and that the resulting definition is approximately equivalent to existing definitions, to which I compare it. The definition I propose is the following:
"Fascism is collaboration between moral supremacism and nihilism, aimed at the violent implementation of a morally superior society."
In this essay I will explain the essence of what I mean with this definition, and how past and current movements measure up to this definition. At the end I will discuss some applications of my alternative definition in combating fascism.
A Categorization of Ethics
The supposition for this essay is that the position of political movements on the concept of good and evil can be used as a categorization which gives more insight into their nature. The basis for this supposition is that ethical questions are inherently political questions, and that political leadership ought to be primarily moral leadership. Therefore I start by categorizing political movements within an ethical framework.
The first question in this framework is whether the concepts of good and evil are real and meaningful. If not, we get into the realm "beyond good and evil", also known as nihilism.
Under (moral) nihilism, there is no meaningful morality, and everything becomes a question of power. People who adopt this position are able to use their power for personal gain without moral ramifications. Within nihilism, several branches may be distinguished, based on which aspect determines strength and power. Kleptocracy appears when power is determined by wealth. Despotism appears when power is determined by force. Attentionalism, a term coined by Alexander Bard and Jan Sφderqvist in their book Netocracy, appears when power is determined by fame. Under nihilism, such determinants of power become values themselves, replacing good and evil as leading principles.
If good and evil are considered meaningful concepts, the next question is whether good and evil are absolute or relative.
If good and evil are considered relative concepts, that means that not all humans are subjected to the same norms. That means that the norms of good and evil are in essence determined by other circumstances, such as culture or ethnicity. In philosophy, this approach is called relativism.
The Wikipedia-lemma for relativism suggests that norms for good and evil may be dependent on culture. This essentially means that good and evil are concepts which humans have invented themselves. Such a view can be useful when describing moral traditions in practice, but in a normative sense this interpretation means there cannot be any higher value to these concepts, and therefore it opens the door towards nihilism. On the other hand, relativism shows that the ethical practices of one culture cannot be assumed to apply to other cultures, which can act as a defense against claims of superiority.
If good and evil are absolute concepts, that means that there can be some idea of an ultimate good or ultimate evil. This is usually called universalism. Personally I think that is what is essentially meant by God: the idea of ultimate good. The next question in this branch is whether good and evil can objectively be known by human beings.
Those that don't think good and evil can objectively be known by humans, but that it can be experienced as a real but vague phenomenon via their conscience, are individualists. In essence, individualism emphasizes the moral worth of the individual, which means that each individual is capable of making his own moral judgments. In religious terms, their conscience can be considered their connection to God. In political terms, adopting individualism leads to emphasizing the freedom of individuals to make their own moral decisions, and therefore to political movements such as liberalism, anarchism, cosmopolitanism and existentialism. Also, the power structure of democracy is based on individualism: power is derived from the collective of individuals. I would like to stress here that the fact that morals may be subjective (as experienced by individual humans) does not mean they can't be absolute. The category I describe here does view these morals as absolute, but their absolute character is transcendent and therefore unknowable, with conscience being a far from perfect receptor for this absolute moral code. This also means that the absolute ethical norm differs from ethical practices by humans, which allows for relativism to be used alongside individualism to describe ethical practices but not absolute ethical norms.
Those that do think that good and evil can be objectively known by humans usually do not think that it is objectively known by all humans, and therefore they create a subdivision between those who do know absolute good and evil and those who don't. This subdivision can then be used as a basis for a power structure, which is very common in religious movements. Those who are in-the-know are in a position to lead, teach or inspire those who are ignorant. In more malicious movements, this may lead to oppression, gaslighting, indoctrination or abuse. Within this branch a further subdivision can be made according to the attitude towards those that are less informed, or believed to be wrongly informed. Are they to be tolerated, ignored, seduced and converted, or combated and exterminated? This distinction determines the level of fanaticism of the movement. What all these movements have in common, is some sense of moral supremacy of those movements that know the correct interpretation of the ultimate good. Often this amounts to regarding one's own movement as superior to others. This type of philosophical stance is called supremacism. Within this category, another subdivision is possible according to the basis for supremacy: it can e.g. be religious (fundamentalism), cultural (nationalism a.o.) or ethnic (racism), or a combination of these. Others may strive for maximum welfare (utilitarianism), maximum longevity (public health) or some other supreme goal.
Positioning Fascism within Ethical Categories
My claim, which was essentially the reason for me writing this, is that fascism, as a political movement, does not fit any of these moral categories perfectly. As I was thinking about this, I noticed that fascism boasts characteristics of both moral supremacy and nihilism. I will look into this a bit deeper as we go along, but up front I believe that fascism amounts to a collaboration of nihilists with moral supremacists. I will evaluate the known fascist movements and definitions of fascism in order to determine whether this claim, this theory, is sustainable.
Up front, I think it is. The best example is the Trump administration (or should I say regime): here you have an obviously nihilist president Trump surrounding himself with or being used by radical Evangelical Christians who obviously believe in their own moral superiority. The morally superior but fanatical Evangelicals lack the propensity for violence that comes naturally for the nihilists. This violence is needed for the Evangelicals to achieve their goals, and the nihilist who also happens to be racist will happily provide this in exchange for more wealth and power. I think this is the essence of fascism. Trump does not need to be a fascist personally, for his regime to be fascist. It is a matter of collaboration between two totally different moral categories. This characteristic would make fascism inherently unstable.
My theory might even lead to an alternative way to define fascism: the collaboration of supremacist groups with violent nihilists, establishing authoritarianism and applying violence in society to achieve common goals, especially combating a common enemy and working towards world domination. In order for this to work, the resulting list of fascist regimes should not change by applying this definition, or if there is a change that should be an improvement in terms of our understanding of how these regimes work.
In the remainder of this essay, I will put my theory to the test in the form of the following definition: "Fascism is collaboration between moral supremacism and nihilism, aimed at the violent implementation of a morally superior society."
Validation of Definition of Fascism
In order to check the definition, I first need to establish there are no false positives for some cases which are sometimes (incorrectly) claimed to be fascist, such as Stalin's regime in the Soviet-Union. For that specific case, I first need to establish what communism is. In essence, communism is a morally driven aim to achieve total equality in society by eradicating personal property and replacing it by collective property under a supposedly just communist government (or ultimately no government at all). Problems arise because there are always humans, in any society, who are either nihilist or choose to prioritize personal gain over morality. When such humans take control of the communist government, the project fails because kleptocracy is the result. This is not the result of a collaboration, but of a hostile takeover against which the moral supremacist communists (because that's what they are) do not sufficiently defend their initiative. Communism also doesn't accommodate individualism, which leads to authoritarian repression of opinions deemed dangerous for the government. This is an inherent trait of most supremacist regimes, but it is not fascism because no collaboration with nihilists is necessary for this. By the time the kleptocrats have taken over, there is no longer any basis for the moral supremacy of communism, as the goals are clearly getting out of reach.
Fascism is characterized by its propensity for violence, which can only be achieved by combining the immorality of nihilists with the moral zeal of supremacists. There really needs to be synergy between these two forces. This was not the case in the Soviet-Union, thus under this definition the Stalin regime doesn't qualify as fascist.
The most obvious cases of fascism, Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain, should qualify under this definition. The Nazi regime was a primarily racist endeavor, promoting the supremacy of the Aryan race over the Jewish race. This supposed moral supremacy was then used to justify aiming for world domination by the Aryan race. The nihilist element shows itself by the elevation of the power structure to a value higher than the value of people themselves. Power over People, I would call this. This is a general property of fascism. In Nazi Germany, it was the nation state that provided this power structure. And it was the combination of the supremacist zeal and the total disregard for the value of human life within the power structure that led to the atrocities that we've seen during World War II.
A primary property of fascist movements of the past has been ultranationalism. Collaboration between moral supremacists and nihilists requires a common denominator to unite behind. Nationalism has, at least in the 20th century, been the way to combine moral and cultural traits and power structure in one identity. In my view, ultranationalism as a property of fascism was a trademark 20th century trait, but that doesn't mean that in the 21st century globalized world, this property is still necessary as part of what defines fascism. The essence is a combination of moral or religious superiority with force of strength and kleptocracy. With the Internet in place, such unholy alliances can be welded globally. The White Supremacists and Evangelical and Russian Orthodox Christians, combined with media and oil oligarchs, are now basically forming a "transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government" (Sarah Kendzior), which can also be considered a global fascist movement. This phenomenon is new, and it has enough similarities with previous fascist movements to call it out as such. The essence is that there is a power structure that is assigned a higher value than that of human life in general; during the 20th century, this power structure was the nation state, during the 21st century it is a global network of power-hungry media moguls, moral supremacists and billionaire oligarchs.
Mussolini's Italy is an interesting case. At first glance, it is mostly focused on power for power's sake: imperialism, national pride and authoritarianism. So there was plenty of nihilism there. Mussolini also used claims of moral and cultural supremacy to lay claim to foreign territories such as Dalmatia (e.g. the cultural influence of the Republic of Venice there during the Renaissance). It also laid claim to the heritage of the ancient Roman Empire. This claim of supremacy, that is then used to justify striving towards world domination (starting with expansion) is enough to provide evidence that a morally justified supremacy is being fused with a nihilist hunger for power. This collaboration or fusion may not be a characteristic that the Fascists themselves have used to define their movement (e.g. the Doctrine of Fascism (1932) by Mussolini and Gentile), but it does seem to be a prerequisite for successfully achieving the goals set out at the beginning, especially because of the required popular support. It is too difficult to achieve a successful populist regime if there is no element of moral supremacy present in the movement. Mussolini's regime also collaborated with the Roman Catholic Church, especially around the formation of Vatican City as a separate state in 1929. This collaboration started several years after Mussolini was in power and is therefore not really characteristic of his regime as a whole, but it is illustrative of its mixed nature and its willingness to form alliances with moral supremacist institutions.
Franco's Spain was called semi-fascist, apparently because it didn't boast all the relevant properties as they were defined before. If I look at the description of Francoist Spain, what I see is a primarily nihilist leader, who ultimately wants authoritarian power but has no core morals. What he did do was establish Roman Catholicism as the state religion, in order to promote a heavily conservative religious structure to subdue the population. The Catholic Church actively collaborated with the Franco regime in this role. Franco never used the supposed superiority of the Spanish people as a driver for expansion, his focus was more internal, aimed at achieving purity of Spanish culture as he himself defined it. Its active collaboration with the Roman Catholic church hints at fascism, but from Franco's point of view, this collaboration appeared to be opportunistic, purely aimed at solidifying his own power. It did allow the Catholic church, however, to impose its conservative values throughout society, leading to a society well on its way towards theocracy. Women were very much confined to being house wives. I would regard the collaboration between Franco's regime and the Catholic Church intense enough to call the resulting regime fascist. Its lack of expansionism can readily be explained by the lack of power of the Spanish state as a whole. Spain lost its colonies during Franco's reign, but it was not for lack of Franco trying to keep them. It appears that Franco did have a realistic view of his own relative power, and acted accordingly. Unlike Hitler, whose zeal resulted in a total loss of realistic perspective. This merely illustrates that within fascism, variations are possible due to personal characteristics of the leaders.
For now, it appears that the definition holds, and that I have added a few interpretations which help when applying it.
So when I state that fascism is collaboration of nihilism and moral supremacy, the following statements help in evaluating this:
The relative scarcity of examples of fascism is due to the improbability of the type of collaboration I describe here.
Application to Contemporary Movements
The most obvious case of contemporary fascism is Putin's Russia. Putin has rehabilitated the 20th century fascist philosopher Ivan Ilyin and is actively implementing his philosophy Timothy Snyder has written extensively about this in his book The Road to Unfreedom. Putin himself is a power-hungry ex-KGB-agent who would easily qualify as nihilist. Putin's propensity for violence has shown itself early, e.g. in the bombing of Grozny. But he has also set up a strong collaboration with conservative forces in Russia, mostly the Russian Orthodox Church, in order to consolidate his power and control the people. The supremacist side of Putin's regime appears as anti-gay and anti-Western propaganda, leading to hate crimes. This collaboration is actually striving towards world domination, and it does so by expanding its network across the globe, partly through radical fundamentalist Christianity and also through kleptocratic oligarchs. Russia's regime weakens its Western enemies by whatever means seem to work best. Its most prominent successes have been the Brexit referendum in the UK and the US Presidential elections, both in 2016, but we have seen other successes since then, such as the Austrian and Italian elections. Putin has not been dealt any serious blows since 2016, even as the reactions to its invasion of Ukraine in 2014 have been lackluster. So yes, Putin's regime is fascist, and more importantly, it is winning.
Another tricky case to examine would be the Islamic State. The question there would be: has the religious fanaticism of the Islamists behind IS been great enough to drive the level of violence they have shown over the past decade, or have they felt the need to ally themselves with nihilists who were driven by other goals than Islamic purity to achieve the level of violence needed? As far as I can see, with IS the level of fanaticism of the religious movement was large enough in and of itself to get people to use violence, even legitimized by the Islamic writings themselves. The problem with IS is that they apply violence in an indiscriminate way, which is aimed at attracting attention and driving fear, which is a nihilist way of applying violence. This is exactly what is meant by the term "terrorism". Using terrorism as a means to achieve world dominance for a superior religion would fall under my definition of fascist, because of the nihilist nature of the violence. IS also uses videos of these terrorist acts as a means to recruit nihilist followers who can then be indoctrinated to a more supremacist identity. The use of suicide bombings as a means to terrorize the Western world shows a total disregard for the value of human life, even of IS's followers, and this cultivation of suicidal terrorism in name of some higher authority I would call fascist, using my definition. So IS would qualify as a fascist movement.
A more recent question has arisen as to whether Thierry Baudet's Forum for Democracy in the Netherlands would qualify as fascist. Baudet himself would definitely qualify as racist, in the sense of the moral supremacy of the northern European ("Boreal") people. He has also been advocating closer ties with Russia, a clearly fascist state, and he has actively been disseminating Russian propaganda in the run-up to the Ukraine referendum in 2016. But so far I have not been able to spot any collaboration with real nihilists, or any endorsement of support from this type of people. As fascism is a form of collaboration, it is relevant to examine Baudet's ties in order to evaluate his party. I have not yet found any truly nihilist connections, but there have been meetings with prominent racists from the US and France. And collaborating with other fascists is contagious. For now, I cannot definitely say that Baudet's party is fascist, but I do not trust it not to be fascist either. In the best case, Baudet is just a useful idiot for Putin's Russia. But that still makes him dangerous. So for Forum for Democracy, it is still too early to accurately determine whether it is fascist or not. When I look at Baudet himself, he does let himself be led by attentionalist principles: he looks for topics which attract attention and which can enlarge his support. It appears he might be looking for power for power's sake. He wants to break down the current establishment ("partijkartel"), which is reminiscent of Stephen Bannon who is definitely a nihilist. Populism is essentially nihilist: it is an empty vessel which can be filled with whatever the populace seems to want at the time. And Baudet would easily qualify as populist, with his statements on taxes and climate policy, which are partly rational but seem more opportunistic than fitting into a coherent world view. Baudet could show he's not fascist by moral decision making and consistency. Also, Baudet shows tendencies towards narcissism, which is a good predictor for nihilism (see Donald Trump). All-in-all, these indicators are suggestive, but not yet conclusive. Therefore, for now I would classify Forum for Democracy as suspected fascist. The recent information that Baudet was paid by a Russian operative with ties to the Kremlin to spread Russian propaganda in the run-up to the Ukraine referendum, does make me suspect this a bit more, but essentially this was just a confirmation of what I expected to be true.
A more controversial question is whether the Public Health movement could be considered fascist under this definition. The Public Health-movement was originally focused on combating contagious diseases, mostly by vaccine programs, but has over the past few decades transformed itself into a political movement aimed at prevention of non-communicable diseases, such as cancer and diabetes, by lifestyle regulation. Public Health has been called "health fascists" by some commentators, and I have myself tried to evaluate this assessment privately before, but this sharper definition of fascism calls for a new assessment. First of all, Public Health is to be characterized as a moral crusade, aimed at maximizing longevity of human bodies. Carl V. Phillips has convincingly argued this position in a long essay. So the moral supremacy-angle is definitely there, and it is intolerant as well. However, to qualify as fascist, there needs to be collaboration with nihilists: people who see this moral crusade as an opportunity to gain power and who are actively allowed to participate in order to advance the moral goals of the movement.
I have tended to go back and forth on the evaluation of this question, so I decided to work out this evaluation in a specific essay. The summary of this evaluation is that I have concluded that the moral zeal and fanaticism of the Public Health movement are large enough in and of themselves to explain their authoritarian behavior. I have not been able to discern any conclusive signs that the movement has an active synergy with nihilist elements. There are some worrying signs, for example the tendency of the World Health Organization to praise dictators for the sober lifestyle of their (often poor) populations, but not enough to speak of real collaboration. So my current assessment is that Public Health is not a fascist movement.
Analysis of Definition
The definition I have proposed and tested and which so far seems to hold nicely points out that fascism is an inherently unstable fusion of two philosophical standpoints which would normally be incompatible: moral supremacy and nihilism. These incompatibilities need to be ironed out in order for the collaboration to continue, and not fall apart. This is especially necessary for justifying the nihilist activity in the eyes of the moral supremacist part of the movement. This requires massive gaslighting of the moral part of the movement, which in turn asks for really sophisticated propaganda. The more amoral the nihilist applications of power become, the more sophisticated the propaganda needs to be. Nazi Germany and Putin's Russia are the most prominent case studies for this, but Trump's USA and the Islamic State are also very adept at this. Dehumanization of enemies is one such propaganda tactic, which justifies the battle against enemies as extermination of "vermin". Such propaganda has the effect that the killing of people, e.g. asylum seekers, becomes acceptable to the moral supremacist base of the regime. These moral supremacists will have the killing done mostly by the sadistic nihilists. The other way around, the moral supremacists will instill hatred in the nihilists, which will in turn provide more incentive for the nihilists to turn this hatred into violence. But make no mistake: the hatred originates with the moral supremacists.
Comparison with Other Definitions
According to Roger Griffin, fascism is a "palingenetic form of ultranationalism". Palingenetic means rebirth. This means that fascism must call for an overthrow of the existing order in the nation. Under this definition, Thierry Baudet is a fascist, because this is exactly what he said in his victory speech in March 2019. But in the article "I asked 5 fascism experts whether Donald Trump is a fascist. Here's what they said." by Dylan Matthews in Vox, December 10, 2015, this definition was used to argue Trump is not a fascist, because he didn't call for overthrowing the existing order. This article didn't age well, by the way, because Trump has been overthrowing the existing order. I have to say, I find Griffin's definition weaker than mine. It is not entirely equivalent with mine, but I think mine is sharper.
Another core tenet of fascism, according to scholars such as Stanley Payne, is that it sees violence as a philosophical commitment. This corresponds well with my assessment that you have to have nihilists on board who see violence as a way to power, and moral supremacists who accept violence as an acceptable way to achieve a perfect society. A high valuation of violence is necessary to get moral supremacists on board with inherently violent nihilists.
Fascism is also anti-individualist. In his article, Dylan Matthews argues that Donald Trump is himself an individualist and that he can therefore not be a fascist. This is bullshit. Donald Trump is a narcissist, who does not believe in the inherent moral worth of the individual, only of himself. Individualism is a moral category in itself, as I have posited at the beginning of this essay, in which each individual is rendered capable of forming his own moral judgments, and Donald Trump is not an individualist in that sense. He's too authoritarian to allow people that freedom.
Fascism's preoccupation with the collective is relevant. It makes the group, the movement usually the mythical "nation" but other forms are possible of a higher value than the individual. This type of stance is difficult to attribute to moral supremacy only, as any true moral system would value human life and individual welfare highly, but in combination with nihilism's power structure it becomes possible to make the power structure more valuable than the people in it. If you start from nihilism only, it becomes difficult to identify the superior group that is supposed to unite under the power structure. Collaboration between these two views is necessary to achieve this outcome. I would argue that it's practically certain that this collaboration will lead to preoccupation with the collective.
Matthews also argued that right-wing populism is not necessarily fascism, mostly because most right-wing populists (including Trump, he argued) still endorse democracy, albeit not for the entire population. In my framework, this would classify right-wing populism as a form of supremacist movement, but not necessarily of an authoritarian character a prerequisite for fascism. This type of movement can be quite fanatical without classifying it as fascist. The question is whether nihilist elements are incorporated. The trouble is that these populist movements can easily become fascist if they decide to outsource their dirty work to more violent people, who then become part of the movement. Because fascism is a collaboration between two different philosophical branches, it is difficult to pin it down as an ideology. And an ideology that is primarily supremacist at first can become fascist by the way policies are executed. My definition incorporates the difficulty of this evaluation.
Now, I'll look at Umberto Eco's 14 characteristics of Ur-Fascism. Do they align with my definition?
| 1. The Cult of Tradition | In my framework, this would count as a branch of moral supremacy, determined from an absolute, universal moral code. |
| 2. The Rejection of Modernism | This also is a moral supremacist characteristic. |
| 3. The Cult of Action for Action's Sake | This characteristic is definitely nihilist. As it is definitely not traditional, the inherent inconsistency of fascism becomes clear here already. |
| 4. Disagreement is Treason | This is moral supremacy at its worst. |
| 5. Fear of Difference | This is also moral supremacy, but also an instrument to instill fear in others, including nihilists. |
| 6. Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class | This is not really a philosophical characteristic, more of a strategy. It says more about the vulnerabilities of the object society than about fascism itself. I wouldn't include it in a definition. |
| 7. Obsession with a Plot and the hyping up of an enemy threat | This is a type of propaganda used to instill hatred, mostly into the nihilists who are thus energized into becoming violent |
| 8. Enemies are cast as too strong and too weak at the same time | This is also a type of propaganda used to unite the supremacists and the nihilists. Nihilists see weakness as inferior and worthy of violent suppression, the supremacists see enemy strength as a justification for violence. |
| 9. Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy | This is the justification of violence to the moral supremacists by the nihilists. Again, propaganda necessary for the unification of supremacists and nihilists. |
| 10. Contempt for the Weak | This is a characteristic trait of nihilism, which values power for its own sake. |
| 11. Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero | This is primarily a moral supremacist message, especially of the most fanatical sort. It also appeals to the nihilists. |
| 12. Machismo, which amounts to male supremacy and domination of women | Mostly, this is a moral supremacy issue, but also appealing to male nihilists, who are thus endorsed to use violence against women. The promotion of machismo is a way to keep the violent male nihilists on board. |
| 13. Selective Populism: the Leader represents the Common Will | This is primarily a moral supremacist characteristic, and forms a justification for authoritarianism. |
| 14. Newspeak | This is the type of gaslighting that is necessary for the nihilists to convince the moral supremacists that their contribution to the collaboration is acceptable. |
Conclusion: there is a mix of moral supremacist characteristics, two nihilist characteristics and several illustrations of the type of propaganda used for ironing out the differences and forging unity between the two groups. One characteristic (number 6) describes the target audience, but I don't find this characteristic specific enough for describing fascism. It may be true that all fascist movements until now have had this strategy, but I don't see it as an identifying characteristic.
What I like is that my definition explains why the above traits are characteristic of fascism. The scope of both definitions is probably equal, but mine is more theoretical, while Eco's is based on common characteristics of practical examples. After comparing, I would say my definition holds up under this kind of scrutiny.
A Last Check
Finally, I should re-evaluate the assessments I made of contemporary movements against the classical definitions.
For Putin's Russia, there's not much to argue, because it is a classical fascist regime. It fits all classical definitions.
For the Islamic State, the main caveat is that it is not formally a state and therefore doesn't really qualify as an example of ultranationalism. Its ambitions are global, but they do want to establish an ever growing caliphate. Its appeal is mostly aimed at Muslims in the lower classes in Western society. It is not really a classic example of fascism, but boasts many of its properties. The fact that I have classified it as fascist using my definition, means that my definition is somewhat broader than the currently used definitions.
For Forum of Democracy, when I evaluate the 14 characteristics of UR-fascism, I can apply 8 of those to Forum for Democracy, and as to the other 6 (#'s 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 and 11) I cannot tell what Baudet and his movement really stand for. So with Umberto Eco's guideline, my verdict of Baudet and his party remains the same: suspected fascist.
For Public Health, the lack of statehood is also a relevant aspect. Public Health is more of a religious-type movement to control people's behavior worldwide. I've explicitly checked all of Umberto Eco's characteristics for this one, and Public Health fits 9 out of 14 elements. It is mostly the nihilist elements and some of the propaganda points that are not satisfied. There are too many elements missing to classify Public Health as a fascist movement under Eco's definition.
Islamic State is more of a fundamentalist religious movement infiltrating or overarching nation states, that would not qualify as fascist under the nationalist paradigm, but does qualify under my altered definition which detaches fascism from nationalism. Whether this is useful is debatable. I think it is, because these types of global movements are similarly evil to the classic fascist regimes and boast many of the same characteristics. Not in the least the collaboration between moral supremacists and nihilists.
I would be open to discussing a new term for the phenomenon I describe, of which the classic nationalist fascism would then be a subset. But for now, I would prefer to apply this term with the broader scope I have defined in this essay.
Lessons Learned
Defining fascism as "a collaboration between moral supremacism and nihilism, aimed at the violent implementation of a morally superior society" leads to new insights. It gets to the core of what makes fascism inherently dangerous, and it explains its rarity. It also detaches the concept from the context of 20th century nationalism, so that it becomes applicable to other movements with a global scope.
Maybe a more interesting lesson is that this alternative definition gives insight into how to combat fascism. It exposes its core vulnerability: the collaboration of two inherently incompatible philosophies. This incompatibility is compensated by propaganda. An effective way of combating fascism is therefore to expose this propaganda and thereby undermine the collaboration between these incompatible forces. Generally, the combat strategy should be to undermine the collaboration by attacking the incompatibilities between moral supremacy and nihilism.
I would also suggest to keep promoting the merits of individualism. These merits have not magically disappeared with the rise of new information technologies, although these new technologies do seem to favor the construction of a new global power hierarchy. Currently, the people in control over this new power structure are mostly nihilists. Which leads me to the assessment that individualism has a huge uphill battle to fight in order to prevail in the end. But this battle must be fought, as the only alternative is preemptive capitulation to a rising global fascist regime.
The current struggle between the rising autocracies around the world, which are mostly fascist, and the free world has to be fought over individual freedom and the benefits of individualism. A good concept of the main characteristics of fascism is necessary for winning this struggle. Know your enemy.
Michiel van de Sande, April 19, 2020
This essay is an updated version of earlier drafts from May 4, 2019 and December 27, 2019.