So. More musings about fascism, I’m afraid. One thing that occurred to me during those musings was that I hadn’t remembered to link to Umberto Eco’s Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. As long as I’m linking to it, I should mention that the essay is a version of a speech Mr. Eco gave to an American audience in, I believe, 1991 or 1992. At any rate, don’t think of it as an authoritative or rigorous examination of historical fascism, but as a warning or philippic tailored to the American political scene, although of course given by somebody with extensive knowledge not to say experience of historical fascism.
But the thing I wanted to write about was that I can easily identify fascist art, that is, there are certain works of art, mostly public sculpture but not all, that I immediately respond to as fascist. And it occurred to me that one element of fascism—let me stop for a moment and go back to a point I’ve related a few times about Conservatism. Charles Rossiter described Conservatism as a mindset, or a bias, rather than a collection of either policy principles or ideals. When he laid out his list of 21 Tenets of Conservatism, he did so (he said) reluctantly, because he didn’t want to give the impression that all Conservatives believed all this stuff, just that it seemed like most people with the Conservative mood believed most of it. Of course, at any particular point in any particular State, there are also a set of policies that are associated with Conservatives and Conservatism; it stands to reason that most Conservatives would support most of those policies. The surface argument is about which policies are sensible ones, likely to have good outcomes, but the deeper argument is about that mindset and mood, and arguments about particular policies are unlikely to shift that.
Anyway, it seems to me that one of the things about the fascist mindset—and I am speaking here about the appeal of fascism to the masses, not about the policy matters that may well properly define whether a government is fascist or not—is that it contains an image of an Ideal Citizen. This Ideal Citizen is sound in mind and body, or I should say strong in mind and body, in accordance with Mr. Eco’s observation. He (possibly she, but probably not) is good-looking, young, idealistic, loyal (of course) to the State that he embodies, and ‘of good stock’, if you know what I mean. Now, as a little spindly Jewish guy, I find those images threatening rather than inspiring, but it’s also true that lots of people who look nothing like those images find them inspiring. And, of course, it’s true that a country and its culture may well find those images cropping up often without that country and culture descending into fascism proper. But I think, at least initially, that the fascist mindset does necessarily include an Ideal Citizen, and that people within the state are then judged by the extent to which they conform to that ideal.
Myself, I have no such image of an Ideal Citizen. I do (and this is probably itself unfortunate and lays me open to exploitation of other kinds) have a sort of an image of an Ideal Citizenry, not unlike a painting I vaguely remember but can’t locate at the moment, possibly a Rockwell, possibly from my own imagination, of a naturalization ceremony with all the different faces, all from different backgrounds, all loving their new country and all with different (but overlapping) ideas of what it is and can be. But, you know, I see how that isn’t as powerful an image. Anyway, my question for you, Gentle Reader, is essentially this: do you have an image of an Ideal Citizenry? Of an Ideal Citizen? Are you seeing either of those images in our culture right now?
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
I don’t have an image of an Ideal Citizen, nor much of one of an Ideal Citizenry, other than perhaps that the Ideal Citizenry should be polite, tolerant, and willing to leave their fellow citizens alone when they disagree (or argue if both citizens want to argue, but not feel compelled to argue if one or the other doesn’t).
Interestingly, it would never have occurred to me to tie the idea of the Ideal Citizen to fascism. It sounds a lot like a Master Race thing to me, which certainly went with the Nazi version of fascism; has it also gone with other historical fascist States? What other historical States would you describe as fascist, anyway?
Tough question. I mean, obviously, the real fascisti were not the National Socialists but the Italians, although the two clearly were operating under the same general philosophy and cultural touchstones. I think Peron’s government in Argentina is generally regarded as fascist, as was Franco’s in Spain. I’m inclined to think that Imperial Rome was, in essence, fascist, although of course there are going to be substantial differences once you get that far apart in history, and then Mussolini co-opted the Roman myth to such an extent that I don’t know what I am still seeing colored by his lens.
Thanks,
-V.
I was thinking about Italy. Did they in fact have the Ideal Citizen thing going on? What about the Argentines?
Interesting! I have never had that reaction to a piece of art. I’ve certainly seen works of art that I thought were about fascism (e.g. depiction of WWII-era unrest or government control) but not anything I thought was fascist. Do you have any specific examples? I’m wondering whether I haven’t run into any members of this genre or I have but I just never thought about them that way. The one thing that comes to mind are iconic sorts of sculptures or posters that I think of as Soviet that show The Youth boldly striding into The Future. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?
It’s easy to conflate non-Allied propaganda art of the mid-20th century with fascist art, because there was so much of it created in the service of fascism. There’s tremendous similarity in style with Allied propaganda art from the same time period. But I would have pegged the same sort of art as fascist that Laura identifies.
I’m surprised that art of the Ideal Citizen is something you describe as fascist. Were ancient Greece and Rome fascist? They both created that type of art with great abundance.
But then, I’ve never understood your conception of fascism.
Is there authorship in a database? Can a database be art?
USA Today announced that the NSA has been collecting domestic phone records. Art is about communication (in one paradigm), and surely our actual phone conversations are communication. What about the records of same? Boggs considers the record of the transactions made using his art to be part of the art, and he seems to have a point.
As the NSA sifts the records, creating subsets and intersections and graphs and charts, surely they are creating further art of a type. And that art is, by its nature, Orwellian if not fascist.
Side note: Verizon told me in 2004 that the federal government had been collecting and was continuing to collect all domestic phone records for permanent storage and access by federal agencies and law enforcement. For me, the entire treatment of this as “news” today feels like bad performance art. But not fascist.