Pursuing precision and consensus on defintions actually seems a lot more tribalistic...and mythic to boot. I forget the philosopher or somesuch who argued that certain terms are essentially contested. Defining fascism, like most other terms in political theory (and practice) is futile because the term is necessarily political. The problem is that giving up this or any other term because of its contested status pretty much robs our vocabulary of most key words. Terms like power, class, value, state, revolution, society, etc. are all subject to the same complaints: vague, contradictory, useless. And there's always a good case made that the phenon. the term refers to doesn't exist.
Another theorist whose name escapes me suggested years ago that some of the contest over discourse is mitigated the closer one got to immediate, concrete reality, but as one moves into the more ethereal and abstract, then cross theory talk is just that, a lot static cross-talk.
>
> There are a whole bunch of words I refuse to use, like
> "paradigm" (unless in reference to a grammatical model) and
> fascist, except when spitting mad.
Well no one likes the word paradigm, certainly not Kuhn who I understand regretted ever uttering it. But the linguistic refusal seems a bit much. Terms like gender could easily be attacked on similar grounds. And other terms like function could be sent packing back to biology.
And remember, spit is a term specifying an alternative location for one's saliva.
Dennis Breslin