[I'll reply to specific fragments of your post, so some editing]
>actually no, eugenics isn't integral to fascism.
I didn't say it was. I was referring to your mention of the violence perpetrated by the German nazis against people with disabilities as preceding that of violence against Jews.
>eugenics was what ultimately emerged but I would argue that it had more to
>do with the particular historical circumstances
not at all. eugenics was a feature of both the nazis in Germany and progressive liberalism in places like australia and Britain in the 1930s. it arose out of the mix between an emergent genetics and social policies (of deviance, dysfunction, etc) relating to solving the 'problems' of the 'dangerous classes'. eugenics is the place where race and class met, and the historical separation of and (I think) reconnection b/n the two is something that might answer some of your queries about racism and its relation to class.
>now here you start to stretch the definition of racism to the point of
>having absolutely no meaning.
I don't think so, because it was about the definition of 'the German race'. we were talking about nazism in Germany were we not? I think you miss my point a little. (I'll elaborate below)
>I find this rather chaotic use of the term highly problematic
>*particularly* as it takes on a life of it's own and becomes dissociated
>from class analysis. now, I know that's not what you, ange, are up to.
>but, in the political context of academia today, far too many people are
>more than happy to dissociate analyses of oppression from class analyses,
>from an interrogation of capitalism.
well that may be the case, but that is not what I'm doing. in fact the fantasy of harmony is specifically related to the relation of racism to capitalism as by-definition s highly antagonistic social form (Zizek) as is the ethnicisation of nations specifically a product of the formation of a national bourgeoisie through the French revolution, where for the first time, the nation is attached to a people defined as 'the French people' (Balibar). I would even say that the nation-state in not possible without the formation of finace capital at a certain level, as a distinct force from industrial capital, but specifying this would require a concrete case.
>and, just based on the evidence alone it's not clear that all fascisms have
>been or are racist in the sense you mean. and, in the sense you mean, all
>forms of the modern nation-state are racist in any event so it is *still*
>far too wishy washy for my tastes.
wishy-washy because it is not a neat typology? and yes, all forms of the modern nation-state are racist. they have a racist presupposition that may or may not be the emphatic way of defining citizenship at certain times, but it invariably returns to such definitions, esp in times of crisis (hence the importance of the harmony-antagonism thesis). I'm not particularly interested in typologies, since they'll always be blurry at the margins of each definition, and can lead to debating the definition of each category over and above generating a critique and analysis.
>are all fascist regimes today involved in waging war in an effort to expand
>their borders?
I'm not sure which fascist regimes *today* we would be talking about. but I would say that the expansion of borders is only a specific moment, as are the claims to regaining the integrity of a nation's borders (where integrity is described in ethnicist or racial terms), as is the claim that the nation's borders are under threat (internally and externally). of course it is about territory, but about the territorialisation of identify, in all of the above ways. would that make a regime fascist? no. but it would make it racist.
>why is it besides the point. if racialization is based on false claims
>about phys/bio/gen traits then why reify it? why apply it to every form
>of othering that, at root, is really about capitalist exploitation, then,
>and about the globalization of capitalist exploitation, now?
I haven't reified it. I have pointed out that what was at issue in nazism in Germany was 'the German race', that other people were defined as a threat to that 'race' in various ways, and hence, this is racism. it is also other things. explaining the significance of racism in the treatment of gays in nazi Germany is not a reductive explanation unless you begin by wanting to draft typologies which separate out each identity (gay, lesbian, worker, Jew, gypsy, etc) in a pluralist grid. I think this is neither possible nor desirable, esp since I would not make the identities of those who were oppressed and killed the point of departure for an analysis. surely you would not see racism as that which emanates out of the characteristics of those who are the objects of racist discourse and violence? this is simply my point.
>I guess too that i'd say that perhaps i'm thinking that what i see going on
>here is evidence of the aporia in the theoretical explanation for why
>racism exists. how do we get outta this place, ya know ange? entrapped in
>the present. suspended in time and yet imprisoned by the langugage of
time.
I'm unclear on where you're going or trying to go. or what you mean by aporia here. in any case, aporias are something to be treasured and explored, not papered over, at times. the aporia itself, like the exception from the definition, might well be the place of explanation. but then, I'm an Adorno fan...
>the problem, ange, is that we need more refined concepts. balibar offers
>one which i'm still contemplating but really not quite comfortable with.
refining concepts can be part of the problem surely. concepts should be messy, not confused, but messy. otherwise we cleave whole questions out before we even begin. I think Balibar's approach is highly persuasive and highly complex. what are you uncomfortable with about his arguments?
>ange, have you read iris marion young's work on the five faces of
>oppression? it's thought provoking. i think you said that you hadn't.
>but if you have, i'd be interested in what you think about this. she
>invokes cultural violence as one face of oppression and i think that
fruitful.
>it is precisely this sort of more nuanced analysis that i want to see more
>of. if you've not read it, i'll summarize it and post it.
I still haven't read it. I leafed through it some weeks back, but.... a summary would be great if you have time.
but on 'othering': isn't this too formalistic? don't you empty this of its substantive elements and run the risk of treating it almost as an anthropological (in the sense that the euros understand this) idea, as something from 'human nature'?
and, to repeat, I'm not at all sure why you think it's at all important to define fascism as not-always racism, which I think is quite a different matter to defining it as only-racism. to repeat: I think you are setting yourself up for collapsing the difference between the two claims by thinking it's necessary to have a typology in the first place.
and, I happen to think the article you fwd/d is wrong about the history of nationalism, racism and capitalism, but I'll send something else on this later.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au