--- Nathan Newman <nathan at newman.org> wrote: > ----- Original Message -----
>I find any social science
> attempt to formulate some "objective" definition of fascism outside of the
> whole complex of rhetorical, economic and social meanings of the term to
be
> a pretty fruitless goal.
-"Marxism" has a whole complex of rhetorical, economic and social meanings, as -do "health", "wealth" and "freedom". And, for that matter, pretty much any -word worth arguing about. But that doesn't alter the fact that some of these -uses are *wrong*.
In many ways, defining what Marxism "really means" is also pretty hopeless - just look at the theological debates among the various Marxist sects. "Wealth" and " freedom" are also endlessly contested with conflicting definitions. Claiming that one definition is "true" and all the others "false" is pretty intellectually useless and, I agree, the same as claiming one definition of fascism is "true" and others "false."
With fascism, you need to understand the self-definition of the millions of supporters, the self-definition given by its leaders, the definition given by its opponents, and so on. Social scientists can try to boil down the common characteristics of all states labelled fascist, but the question arises do they find common characteristics of states self-identifying so or all states identified as others to be fascist. Not Chip and my debate on whether Franco's Spain counts - if not, then the social science definition changes.
The use of jargon and neologism in social science is best justified for aoviding this problem, since new words are less overdetermined by conflicting cultural meanings.
If at the beginning of this discussion, instead of labelling China "fascist", I had said that Nazi Germany, Italy and China all share being "blink states"- meaning dictatorships with state elites allied with strong corporate capitalist elements using eugenics-based planning elements to justify their rule - people would have brought in the debate about social democratic states etc, but no one would have said that I could not use my definition. Even though my definition is also one often used for defining fascism.
Chip wants a definition of fascism useful for his word in analyzing and attacking the far right in the United States - his main bailiwick - so he prefers to emphasize its populist self-definitions. Charles wants a definition tied to its anti-communist foreign policy aspirations so he can equate the US and other anti-Soviet states to be fascist. I am interested in condemning states sharing both the undemocratic and capitalist elements that I found most repulsive about fascism, so I emphasize those in my definition.
None of us can be "wrong" since those elements were all historically important to those who have used the word in its history. No one owns the word. We can contest its use, which is done all the time with words like "freedom" "equality" "liberty" and so on, but that is a social process and no smart book with a "better" definition suddenly makes other definitions wrong- unless everyone reads the book and then agrees to socially agree with that definition.
Hannah Arendt made big inroads taking over the word "totalitarian" and Kirkpartrick did the same with her shift of its meaning in contrasting with "authoritarian." Social developments since, namely the collapse of the Soviet-allied states, has undermined her definition, so it is worth emphasizing that a definition that becomes no longer socially useful in light of changing facts can collapse -- a little objectivity creeps in - but only where it effects the public meaning.
-- Nathan Newman