Peter Franklin: That's enough fascists, thank you

Once upon a time the insult-of-choice for the acne-ridden juvenile lefty was “fascist!” – which could be applied without thought to just about anyone in authority. As a tendency it was brilliantly caricatured by the Rik Mayall character in the Young Ones, who’d spit out the f-word at all and sundry.

In the real world the young ones are getting on a bit, and the teenage Marxists of yesteryear now find that it is they who fill the positions of authority – the truth having long dawned upon them that a sensible degree of order and discipline does not in fact amount to the horrors of fascism. However, while the zits of the new establishment may have disappeared, the language of leftwing abuse lives on – by virtue of a remarkable migration across the political spectrum:

If someone calls you a fascist these days, and you’re not in fact of the goose-stepping persuasion, then the likelihood is that your accuser is a rightwing polemicist. For instance, should you have the temerity to deplore the rise in, say, obesity or excessive alcohol consumption, then it’s not because you’re concerned about the well-being of your fellow citizens, it’s because you’re a ‘health fascist’. Now, as I recall, the real fascists weren’t that bothered about the health of their victims; so perhaps equating Dr Gillian McKeith with Dr Josef Mengele is just a tad inappropriate.

But it’s not just the health fascists we have to worry about, it seems. Marching in lockstep with the broccoli enthusiasts, we have the “eco-fascists” – or, if you prefer, the “enviro-nazis”, to quote various obscure bloggers. Again, I have to say this strikes me as being a bit on the harsh side. One might disagree with the sentiments expressed in An Inconvenient Truth, but it hardly counts as a sequel to Triumph of the Will.

Unfortunately, there are those who really would convince us of a direct link between fascism and environmentalism. Just such an attempt was made earlier this month by Melanie Phillips in a blog post entitled The black and the green, which drew upon other articles by Philip Stott and James Delingpole. According to the latter, the real divide in politics today is “between libertarianism and statism; between the hard-headed empiricism of the enlightenment and the touchy-feely romanticism of the New Age.” Not bothering to engage with the extensively documented empirical evidence upon which the world’s climate scientists have based their claims about climate change, Delingpole places environmentalism within the touchy-feely category. That might seem to distance them from the Nazis – who few would regard as the touchy-feely type; but according to Stott there is indeed a missing link between the two ideologies, best embodied by Hitler’s minister of agriculture – Richard-Walter Darre.

In what way was Darre green as well as black? Well, he used his position to promote various cranky notions based on German folklore, he was obsessed with the agrarian way of life and he didn’t much like the modern technology. He didn’t much like Jews either, but then that’s because he was a Nazi, not because he was into traditional farming practices. One also notes that the rest of the Nazi Party was somewhat less concerned with organic vegetables than with unleashing the might of Germany’s military-industrial complex on an unsuspecting world.

It only takes a moment’s thought to pull apart the idea of a black-green parallel. For instance, had the Third Reich survived into the 1990s, can you imagine the Nazis signing up to the Kyoto Protocol? If he’d won the war, would Hitler have said ‘nein danke’ to atomkraft? And what the Gestapo have made of the internationalist, pacifist politics of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth?

But as well as being stupid, casual references to eco-fascism are downright offensive. All political movements have their extremists, but environmentalism has spawned rather less in the way of political violence than most other ‘isms’ – let alone fascism. One would, therefore, have thought that Melanie Phillips, of all people, would realise the sheer bad taste of this whole reductio ad hitleram.

This lack of awareness is all the more puzzling given the sensitivity that Phillips and Stott have to the phrase ‘climate change denial’ – on the grounds that it might allude to holocaust denial. I’d have said that the word that links holocaust denial to the holocaust is ‘holocaust’, but if anyone has been playing on ‘denial’ in the sly way suggested then they ought to be ashamed. Indeed, anyone who compares people on either side of the climate change debate to the perpetrators of the holocaust should be ashamed. As one person said in reply to The black and the green: “surely we can argue about the weather without calling one another Nazis.”

Comments

[Tony Makara]

George Orwell taught us through the concept of Newspeak that the power of words should not be underestimated. We have forces in the media that have conditioned our young into thinking that 'Wicked' actually means 'Good' etc. The term 'Fascist' is equally misused and inverted from its original meaning. Fascism in its proper form is an economic system built on a corporate state. So if we are to be pedantic about this 'Fascism' is not the same as 'Nazism' etc.

These days terminology has become so confused as to become ridiculous. I have seen 'Jewish Nazis out of Palestine' sprayed on a wall. I even heard Michael Howard described as a Nazi because he opposed immigration. Mr Howard has a Jewish geneology. Even David Cameron got the fascist label after his comments on the same subject.

One of the worst culprits for this is the completely talentless Billy Bragg, is there a worse singer in the country?, you can't put Billy Bragg in front of a microphone without the words 'Fascist' 'Racist' 'Nazi' etc spewing out. I have to wonder what Dr Sigmund Freud would have made of such a preoccupation.

[Andrew Lilico]

I agree with the general sentiment that it is childish to refer to one another as "Nazis". I think that "Fascist" means something rather more general than "Nazi", and terms like "health fascist" might be more defensible were it not for the fact that most people use "Nazi" and "Fascist" as if they were interchangeable terms.

As to "eco-fascist" or "enviro-Nazi", then again it is clearly an attempt at abuse. And the "Bad Company" objection that just because the Nazis were environmentalists then were should be suspicious that modern environmentalists might be Nazis involves a pretty straightforward error of logic.

Notwithstanding all of the above, however, I think that Franklin is a little quick to dismiss the "green and black" argument altogether. For it does seem to me that both greens and Nazis draw on a common Romanticist tradition (and that this is precisely *why* the Nazis were greens). Now just because the Nazis were Romanticists it does not automatically follow that Romanticism must be bad. But I do think that Russell's argument in "The History of Western Philosophy" (one of the main aims of which is to argue just that: that Nazism is the logical destination of the Romanticist) bear thinking about. The exalting of the Rural over the Urban and hence of the Pagan ("pagan" being a word meaning someone that lives in the countryside) over the Christian, of the non-Human over the Human, of Instinct and Passion over Reason, of Epic Myth over Science - all of these elements of Romanticism feature heavily in the modern Green mindset.

Now of course not all environmentalists are Greens (many Conservative environmentalists, for example, are not). And, equally, there is a Romantic tradition that has always existed within the Conservative Party (e.g. the Young England movement in the 19th century). But neither of these things should prevent us from identifying the perils of Romanticism and arguing/urging against it.

[Mrs Campbell]

It's not what you believe to be right and good and, therefore, what you perceive to be the "problem" it's the kind of "solution" that you come up with and, more especially, how you go about putting that "solution" into effect. We can all agree that obesity, binge drinking, overuse of agro-chemicals, over-reliance on petro-carbons etc. are "problems" but it is surely not entirely unjustified to call an authoritarian (if you don't do what I say I will force you) and corporatist/state solution "fascist"?

[englandism]

'surely we can argue about the weather without calling one another Nazis.'

Hello Peter

Been to the Grauniad's Comment is Free lately? As you know, Godwin's Law states that every discussion thread will inevitably reduce to a reference to Hitler and as you rightly say, climate change 'denial', almost always elicits the default Nazi response.

Another favourite, term for all seasons, is NeoCon. This seems to have been adopted by the ideologically smug because the phrase Military Industrial Complex involved too much typing and it also provides an alternative to Nazi when one wants to be specifically disingenuous to Americans. NeoCon appears to be a global capitalist conspiracy run by militaristic fascists or lizards depending upon how barking bonkers the particular 'progressive' is.

Which leads us to the shibboleth of the self-styled progressive. The word that shall not be spoken. A word that we should resurrect for all of the connotations of failure and societal collapse. A word that once condemned Labour to the eternal wilderness of unelectable irrelevance: Socialism.

But, of course, we cannot call Gordon Brown a socialist because Polly Toynbee et al inform us that Brown is in fact a NeoCon.

But WE can. With his celebration of the nationalist British identity he cannot possibly be a globalising progressive.

Which makes him a Nationalist Socialist.

Gordon Brown, therefore, is a Nazi.

[Alex Swanson]

There are a three points about this.

First, the Left has for decades routinely used language which is uncompromisingly abusive, to the point where now if you do not respond in kind it is taken for granted that you are not committed to your argument, and are hence conceding before you start. I regret that the Right is increasingly adopting this tactic in return, but it is entirely understandable, and the time to object was when the Left were doing it, not now.

Second, the criticism is not that specific individuals like Hitler or Mussoline might or might not have approved of specific policies; it is of the general attitude to life, the arrogance and intolerance, the enforcement of ideology by law regardless of those affected. In this sense there indeed often parallels.

Finally, it is indeed possible that MMCC proponents might cause deaths by the million, if by their policies they cause needless economic damage which hurts the poor in developing countries, so comparisons in this regard are not necessarily as absurd as they might seem.

[ralph]

I don't think anybody concerned about alcohol or obesity would be labelled a health fascist.

I think the ones labelled "health fascists" are the ones calling for ill thought out and simplistic advertising bans to deal with such complex problems.

They clearly are ideologically opposed to capitalism and commerce but in the post communist era no longer dare to do so openly.

Fashionable issues like obesity and alcohol abuse give them the opportunity to pursue the same ideology in the name of health!

A prime example being camapigners like Which? and Sustain - look at the biographies and politics of the people who work for them.

[Man in a Shed]

Fascism is a left wing vice. The Nazi's would often make common cause with the communists before they came to power.

National Socialism anyone ? British jobs for British workers ?

[Moral minority]

Hitler was an environmentalist, non-smoker and teetaller who would have imposed his ideology and lifestyle on the masses.

Al Gore is the modern Goebbels. His "Inconvenient Truth" film has been exposed by a British judge as a pack of lies and exaggerations. As the government wanted to use the film as a propaganda and doctrination tool in schools, it is very dangerous.

Delingpole is correct, the real battle is between the statists and libertarians and Franklin is a statist. Like Hitler, Franklin wants to impose his his political and lifestyle views through compulsory taxation, bans, fines or imprisonment. To me, that is fascism.

[James Burdett]

Whilst I totally accept what the author is trying to get at in this post. Of course labelling a person a health-fascist or an eco-nazi is wide of the literal mark it is in the best traditions of argument to seek out a means of conjuring up an image using a couple of words that would otherwise take a lot more words.

Some of the health and environment lobby seem to wish everyone to live joyless existances abstaining from the pleasures of life for fear of getting too fat or having too big a carbon footprint. Maybe fascist and nazi are wrong to attach to these people, puritan may be more appropriate.

[Serf]

This article misses the point that Nazis and Fascists are not exactly the same, a point that lefties love to ignore. After all it gives them the opportunity to compare any communist country's record with that of Nazi Germany, when confronted with the left's body count. (A more reasonable comparison is the unpleasant but less deadly Fascists of Italy, Spain or Latin America).

You are also ignoring the tendency of the left to attempt to stop all debate. It is this aspect of the environmental movement or the health and safety industry that can be said (with some poetic licence) to resemble Fascism.

Take the global warming debate. Most scientists seem to agree that man made carbon dioxide is causing a heating up of the environment. That in itself however does not give those of a green persuasion the right to tell dissenters to shut up. Being wrong is everyone's right, as is challenging widely held opinions.

The rate and size of the changes, are still hotly debated (by those who know what they are talking about). For the greens however, they have decided that we are heading toward a disaster, that only their imposed solutions can save us from. Questioning those solutions is not allowed.

As their solutions require us to give up our rights to make important decisions in a large number of areas of our lives, I think we have the right to call them nasty names, that make allusion to thought control, even if we are technically wrong. Because most environmentalists are anti capitalist, anti freedom first, and green second.

[Jonathan Powell]

Peter,

You seem to be falling into the Leftist's trap of thinking of fascists as bogeymen who's sole purpose was to terrorize the Jews. The reality is that fascist thought they were doing what was was right for their fellow countrymen--they believed they new better than the individual how one should live for the good of "society".

It is in this sense that that environmentalists and Jamie Oliver are fascistic, along with religious authoritarian types. They all want to use the coercive power of the state to force people to make choices "for their own good." This is why people who label Thatcher a "fascist" are misguided: she thought there was no such thing a society, fascists think their is no such thing as the individual, that is they don't distinguish between the individual and the State.

Obviously "fascist" is a strong term for such people, but their agenda is so insidious it is well deserved. One could equally call them "socialist" (fascism being a type of socialism) but the analogy with fascism works better because most people despise that form of socialism even though they may be sympathetic to others, such as communism.

[William Norton]

OK, so we can't call them "fascists". How about "bastards"?

[Bexie]

Actually Serf "Most" scientists do not unequivically support the CO2/ Global warming position pushed by the media environmentalist lobby. There are a rather large number of scientists who have and are still publishing erudite arguments both against the CO2 causes Global Warming argument and also whether it matters anyway.

They do so at considerable career risk since the state supports most acedemics around the world and if acedemics argue against a state position that supports thousands of "jobs" in the public sector, then they stand to lose their tenure.

BTW this state of affairs is a classical facist position; "Publically support what we say otherwise we will destroy you".

[Tony Hannon]

There's good argument here. I think it stems from the propagation of views rather than news.

It amazes me how many people I meet or whose blogs I read who can't properly define socialism (much like many people in the US can't correctly define liberalism).

It's because they've both been hijacked (if that is an acceptable use of hyperbole) to mean something which people deem to be negative. Ignorant people now directly equate socialism to racial equality when it is purely a doctorine about wealth (much like Americans now think liberalism means soft on crime).

People throw the word "facist" at non-facists and "Nazi" at non-Nazis because they are too stupid or lazy to either understand or demonstrate meaning and context - and with the advent of blogs and popular opinion in the press - we now all have to listen to it.

[Matt Wright]

OK I'm going to be a bit simplistic but it seems to me that whenever a group in power try to force a utopia on the population you get a condition which has been described in different ways but amounts to both socialism and fascism and the various other words used to describe this. I've always thought of this as a circle in which those that go too far left or right (horrible terms, but we do use them) arrive at the same point. Part of the reason I am a Conservative is that I see things in balance - you have to except the grain of human nature and go with it and humans are complex. They want to be both individualistically free some of the time and equally they also cherish families, their immediate communities and recognise order. To me its been obvious why socialism fails and ends up with Govts trying to force people to do what they say to meet their theory.

[Matt Wright]

OK I'm going to be a bit simplistic but it seems to me that whenever a group in power try to force a utopia on the population you get a condition which has been described in different ways but amounts to both socialism and fascism and the various other words used to describe this. I've always thought of this as a circle in which those that go too far left or right (horrible terms, but we do use them) arrive at the same point. Part of the reason I am a Conservative is that I see things in balance - you have to except the grain of human nature and go with it and humans are complex. They want to be both individualistically free some of the time and equally they also cherish families, their immediate communities and recognise order. To me its been obvious why socialism fails and ends up with Govts trying to force people to do what they say to meet their theory.

[Yet Another Anon]

You seem to be falling into the Leftist's trap of thinking of fascists as bogeymen who's sole purpose was to terrorize the Jews. The reality is that fascist thought they were doing what was was right for their fellow countrymen--they believed they new better than the individual how one should live for the good of "society".
Of course Fascism is not neccessarily anti-semitic or racist at all, fascism is a methodology and different groups of those with a Fascist approach can have radically different objectives - the Nazis were just one group of Fascists of many who just happen to have been most prominent in the public mind.

In Spain Fascism was a Catholic Conservative Nationalist force and the same was true in Chile and Argentina, in Italy Fascism was actually much more socially progressive than what it replaced - there was a Jewish Woman in Franco's cabinet and others from minority groups. General Franco had a Jewish mother and was opposed to Judaism on religious not any kind of race theory grounds.

There were a variety of Fascist organisations prominent across Europe in the 1930s, most of whom were persecuted by the Nazis, most had racist views, but then again racism was very prevalent at the time across a number of parties, many merely were strong believers in maintaining strong discipline in society as Mussolini did.

[John Leonard]

Peter Franklin:

Once again you seem to miss the point. By using vague and somewhat irrelevant examples from the past you assist socialists in what they have always done in denying their fascist tendencies (which I believe is an inherent part of their ethos).

In particular, you ignore the definition of fascism.

To rectify your omission here are but three definitions.

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.

Oppressive, dictatorial control.

Whilst, we certainly do not live in a fascist state at present there are increasing, worrying indications that the Government and groups within the Public Health and Environmental movements are adopting an approach that tends toward the above definitions.

Now if you wish to debate whether using the word fascist is appropriate on those terms then we may have a useful thread.

[John Leonard]

Matt Wright:

OK I'm going to be a bit simplistic but it seems to me that whenever a group in power try to force a utopia on the population you get a condition which has been described in different ways but amounts to both socialism and fascism and the various other words used to describe this. I've always thought of this as a circle in which those that go too far left or right (horrible terms, but we do use them) arrive at the same point

I too used to think exactly the same but over the last few years I've come to reject this model. I now think of the position of political ideologies in terms of a single straight line or horizontal column. In that model, at the left end is extreme centralism and to the right extreme freedom (effectively the diameter of the circle you refer to).

So at one end you have totalitarian regimes that oppress the people through the most effective methods available by using a centralist doctrine at the other you have anarchy where it is the individuals or small groups of people who live by their own values (think Britain in the dark ages or the American Wild West Frontier).

This seems to overcome some of the ‘political’ contradictions in positioning regimes such as Soviet Communism and traditional fascist regimes at different ends of the left – right spectrum. Basically, they are all on the far left. Similarly, if you go to far too the right, democracy and the rule of law disappear.