What exactly is Fascism?

Fascism is a specific political philosophy that's often mistakenly used to describe any authoritarian, supressive movement or regime. Josh and Chuck discuss the origins, history and markers of Fascism in this episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark fascist. Josh Clark fascist. That's

(00:20):
exactly what I was gonna say, too. I was gonna say,
Chuck Er always called me a fascist pig. I'm not
true business anyway. That's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hello, we're
doing a podcast on fascism today. Yes, and as I
was saying, Chuck's always calling me a fascist pig, but
I don't know that that's necessarily accurate. After I read

(00:41):
this article how fascism works, Well, you should stop giving
speeches from your balcony above at Land in my hand,
partying my hair to my side a little bit, take
down all the posters of you all over the place.
Never so, Chuck, Yes, you want to talk about fascism,
let's do it. Okay, So did you know I was
surprised to find this out. Bnino Mussolini was the guy

(01:04):
who actually created pretty much created fascism. He definitely coined
the term and uh, this concept of fascism was drawn
upon from ancient Roman techniques, military techniques. Sure, Machiavelli, of course. Um.
And I was surprised to find this out because, you know,

(01:28):
he ended up strung up by his ankles with his
throat slit, people kicking him in the head. He'd fall
down after he was dead and they'd string him back up.
It didn't work, he no, it didn't. And really he
was kind of Hitler's lackey. Really. Sure, I was surprised
to find that he was the guy who started fascism,
but by god he did. Apparently he was a socialist

(01:48):
until he got ahold of Nitzsche and then he was like,
WHOA has screwed a lot of stuff up in this
world show. I like him personally, but you got to
take the guy with the grain of salt, you know.
So as far back as n uh Mussolini was starting
to ruminate on fascism, right, yeah, And what is it, chuck?
What people throw this word around like it's it's awesome

(02:11):
or um sweet or l O L? Have you noticed
people use l O L to a ridiculous degree these days?
But I do know that fascism is I think I
can't remember who it was, But someone said it's the
most misused word of our times. Yeah, and I believe
it or um incredible, right, but you hear me know,
Bush is a fascist, Obamba is a fascist. Nancy Pelosi

(02:34):
is a fascist. Dick Cheney's a fascist. None of them
are fascist. All right, We're not going to debate that here.
I thought that was a nice sprinkling of liberals and
conservatives in there that I should throw in a Tea
Party member to cover all my basis. Um Josha comes
from the word fast skule, Italian meaning bundle. You're not

(02:54):
gonna say it was an accent and fast skill nice.
Then Previously the Latin fascus or fascists, I take it
as fasis and that is a bundle of sticks tied
to a single axe. And that kind of says it
all it is. It's pretty much a again, Mussolini has
a master stroke. This is uh, this is a perfect

(03:16):
um descriptor of what fascism is. The state is the
axe which can yeah, and the people are the bundle
of sticks that support the head or break depending. Fascism
has a tendency to push people at the breaking point,
doesn't it. Although fascism also kind of brings out the

(03:36):
absolute worst and conformist in human beings as well. Yeah. Um,
so fascism is is basically the opposite of democracy. The
whole point is the state. There is no individualism, there
is no ump no, no. But that that doesn't necessarily
mean it's communist. And actually communism and fascism are opposite

(04:00):
sides of the coins, uh to a lot of at
least economically, right, because with communism it's um one social class, right,
and with fascism they're very distinct social classes that you
cannot get out of. Yeah, if you're in a social
classes under fascism, then be prepared to stay there. Right.
And another uh defining characteristic of fascism is that the

(04:22):
whole point of the state is um war. Yeah, it's
it's based on natural selection Darwinian evolutions, where the the
the state's entire existence is to wage and win war,
and it's survival of the fittest. So everybody's out there
waging war. And if you lose, well then you're you

(04:45):
are naturally selected, you're absorbed by another state, you're tronker,
you're subjugated. And the state that did the subjugating was
selected as the fittest that was the strongest. So the
entire point of the state is to wage war imperialism. Baby, Yeah,
it's pretty pretty rotten stuff really, um. And Mussolini put it, Um,
that war alone brings up to its highest tension all

(05:08):
human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the
people's who have the courage to meet it. What a jerk,
But you know it was a rallying point. People got
into it for a while. Yeah. And and how I mean,
like you wonder, how can some guy come along and
say you have no individualism. Everything your mommy told you
about how great and unique you are in your little

(05:30):
snowflake is wrong. Um. And your entire purpose in life
is to support the glory of the state, which is
going to go wage war indiscriminately. Um. How do people
get duped into this? How do they follow along? I'll
tell you how, buddy. One thing that uh, the fascist
prayed on And we say prayed because it's not strictly

(05:53):
define Fascism isn't really around anymore, although there are tendencies
and smaller groups, but as far as the big time governments,
it's it's gone. But one thing to do is they
take a nation in crisis. For instance, let's say Europe
after World War One. Yeah, and they say, you know,
we can return our country to its former glory. All
you have to do is buy into it. So people

(06:14):
got to buy into it at first. It can't be
done with the iron fist initially, right. And the way
they buy into it is that the people are already suffering. Right.
So a lot of people blame the Treaty of Versailles
that ended World War One for eventually leading to World
War Two. There was a lot of um restriction placed
on the losing nations. Um. They they their their normal

(06:37):
working class people in countries like Germany suffered tremendously um
and they they had to repay to rebuild nations that
they went to war with, and there was no trust whatsoever.
So it's kind of a bad treaty actually, but it
did set set the stage for fascism, right. So you've
got the people who are suffering and they're saying, you've

(06:58):
got to buy into it. What are they buying into
while they're buying into the state and only the state,
and everything you do is for the good of the state. Right.
That pretty much sums it up. And a lot of
times it's based on um, some sort of idealized past, right,
which again after World War One, that made it easy
because this nation, like Germany, was suffering tremendously UM, and

(07:21):
so they they were saying, well, we used to be great.
We need to reclaim our superiority. Even if the great
it doesn't matter because mythical as long as they buy
into it, right, Yeah, like the fifties. And also there
there tends to be um, one ethnic group that is
singled out as the important one, and everything else is
being every every other group is dragging this one group down,

(07:44):
and they need to be dealt with the master race
in the case of Germany for sure. Yeah. And that's
where we come to the difference between the capital f
and the lower case f right. As far as fascism,
apparently Mussolini's is capitalized and Hitler's is not. And he
was probably pretty angry about Uh. I don't think so
too wanted to capital left, Yeah, he was, He get
angry a lot. Um. Mussolini's fascism was largely based on

(08:10):
going and waging war just for the hell of it, right, yes,
just to show the glory of the state. Hitler's conquests
um actually had a method to the madness, right right.
His was basically basically um based on uh, furthering the
Aryan race through conquest. Yeah, I got a cool quote
for you, alright. This Italian fascist philosopher who knew Giovanni

(08:32):
habably enough, his name is Giovanni Genteel. He says mankind
only progresses through division and progress and progress is achieved
through the clash and victory of one side over another.
So basically you can't progress unless you're dividing people and conquering.
So there you have it. So my dad always said,
and his name is Genteel or Genteel. Nice, Thanks, Chuck.

(08:55):
I was looking forward to this one because I knew
that you bust the Italian accident out of you know,
in my blood. There's another characteristic that we didn't mention,
and it's an authoritarian leadership, right right. I mean you've
got Mussolini, you've got Hitler. They have these cults of
personality surrounding them. Yeah, that's really important, and they come
to embody the state. Right, So like it's you, you

(09:16):
can pretty much interchangeably say everything you're doing is for
the glory of Germany, or everything you're doing is for
the glory of Hitler. They're pretty much interchangeable. That's why
we had their flags and their posters all over the place,
which they love their posters or did. Um. There's also
a tremendous amount of violence in these societies as well. Um,
you can't have war without violence, you can't have well,

(09:38):
not only that this it's not domestically you also have violence.
So in addition to say, um Hitler's process of the
Final Solution, where he's furthering the Aryan race by murdering
anybody who's not a member of it, um, there's also, uh,
there's domestic violence. For anyone who speaks out any resistance

(10:01):
movements anything like that, they're gonna be crushed. Yes, you're
not supposed to you're not supposed to wage warrant discriminately
for the glory of the state. You're really not supposed
to turn on your own people right round upon most decidedly. So,
what's life like if you are one of those people
who um would would have passed the Milgram experiment with

(10:22):
flying colors and are just waving flags and happy as
can be to see Mussolini's Il duce a car driving
past well, it's not a very happy place because Mussolini
flat out rejected them what he called the myth of happiness. Yeah,
and uh, it's not a good place if you're a woman,
because the only thing you are and under a Thatchero's

(10:45):
seme as a woman is a little fascist maker. Yeah,
I don't want to They don't want you to work
in anything. I want you to make a little fascist.
And the the youth are um accentuated in the society's
right sur it is survival of fist but also the
youth make the best soldiers. And they're also the leaders
of tomorrow. So if you indoctrinate them throughout their lifetimes,

(11:07):
beginning at an early age, they're going to have the
same ideals. Right. It's it's also not very good if
you're gay. It's because aside from Hitler and the gang
thinking it's like, you know, mass perversion, it's also you
can't make a little fascist, So that that was no good.
Is I didn't know that? Is that why homosexuals were

(11:27):
targeted so much Hitler well, for those reasons that they
thought it was perverse, and then they you know, you
can't make baby fascists, so what good are you right,
but Hitler thought it could be cured. Mussolini just outlawed
it altogether. There's also what lots of rallies, parades, like
you said, posters everywhere. It's it's um ubiquitous. The the

(11:47):
the sentiment of fascism, everything for the state and the leader.
They're everywhere you go. So if you're you know, sixteen
seventeen in your courting, you're going to go to a
state parade, state holiday. They tend to take on a
religious quality, right, because there's no religion but nationalism. Well, yeah,

(12:09):
that's a little tricky because they they reject religion in
a lot of ways. But in uh, the article that
pointed out Mussolini in Italy clearly cannot reject Catholicism because
that's where it's rooted. So he would kind of use
the church to his advantage when it worked for him,
and Hitler did a lot the same as well. Right, Yeah,
he was a protector of the church. Right, so they say, God,

(12:29):
these guys are crazy. Luckily that this, uh, this, this
whole this, this fascism didn't take off all that well.
They tracically had a pretty short run. Nineteen eighteen and
nine was the height of it, right, Yeah, that's not
very long. This is where you find the fascist states
in Germany, Italy, Romania had one pretty much sort of

(12:51):
did Spain did. Yeah. When Franco led the revolution, he
was colluding with the fascists, but they apparently weren't organized
enough for I'd spread enough to really, um come on
as the functioning government, so he just took on. He
adopted some of their fascist values in Spain. Uh. You
know what, I think one of the coolest things is

(13:13):
why it didn't work out. Was the reason it shouldn't
work out is people started to say, wait a minute,
genocide probably isn't a very cool thing to do, and
violence and mass murder is Uh, we're kind of bad
guys now, And I don't know if I like that. Right.
We're sick of the shock troops cracking our skulls for
smiling because happiness is a myth, an absurd myth, right,

(13:36):
And so after World War Two the chaos is gone,
which you know, they depend on that kind of chaos
to to rally the people, right, and the fascism was seen,
um even before World War two. Were during World War
two is leading the world to war. These guys were
just conquering nations, like going out and invading other nations
that were nearby for whatever reason, and they had to

(14:00):
be stopped. Which is why World War Two, I think,
is viewed as such a positive war. There were such clear,
mind bogglingly distinct bad guys. Right, the rest of the
world was like, we're going to take you down. Sure,
and they did and fought well together, and you know
it was it was, as far as wars go, a

(14:21):
pretty great war. Yeah, we're not war guys, obviously, the
kind of worst we waged today. But back then, I
think I would have grab my my musket. Wait, probably
not a musket. I would have grab would have been
really in trouble I did go into the front world,
I would grab my bolt action rifle and I would
have Yeah, I would have tried to Yeah, I would
have been loving glorious Beast. So I was just about

(14:43):
to say that I just saw it again this weekend. Yeah,
that's awesome movie. Um. Unfortunately, fascism didn't completely go away,
Like you said, there are small pockets of movements around
the world. Right, we're gonna talk about skinheads, these puts is,
they're just stupid. I don't think we should give them
any times, because you know what, there's such small pockets

(15:05):
of morons out there that embrace this kind of thing
these days. It's just silly. H There there's some neo
fascist sentiment that I found surprising. It's called love of difference,
which is basically just racial separation, but with a different
spin on it. Right. Yeah, they say being different is
really great. That's why you shouldn't mix races, not because

(15:25):
one is better, which is we justlike being different, right,
and being white. So those are kinder, gentler fascists, I guess,
And there are. There's some markers that you can find
in some governments. See if you can guess which ones
we're talking about. Um, governments that have anti immigration laws. Right,
that's a check small progressive limitations on civil rights in
the name of giving a democratic country, uh, greater security

(15:48):
check um. Isolationist foreign policy no comment. And government intervention
in the means of production to secure the state from
shortages and economic downturns. Definitely, no comments. Many Yeah, So
that's fascism, yes, right, And it's still around here there.

(16:09):
I don't think that there is any pure form of government,
is there. No? But like we said, there are these
pockets of morons that embrace uh, you know, neo Nazis,
that kind of thing. But I shouldn't completely dismiss them
because they do act out in violent ways at times.
Oklahoma City obviously, so I don't want to make light
of that. They do bad things. No, London had some

(16:29):
bombings in I was thinking about that. London is one
of the largest metropolitan areas in the world's very progressive
city and it had bombings. It has bombing sometimes. That's
pretty nuts, it is, Okay, So that's fascism. You want
to learn more. See some creepy pictures of people smiling
and waving flags as Mussolini passes by. And if you

(16:51):
love to look at Hitler and hate him, you can
find pictures of him on this fascist article by typing
fascism and the andy search bar at how staff works
dot com. So I guess it's listener meal time, right, Yes, indeed, Josh,
I feel dirty, Yes, Josh, I'm gonna call this one. Um,

(17:14):
how could we not mention Boba Fett? That's we're gonna
call it. We heard from quite a few people on
this and the Bounty Hunter episode because we failed to
mention Boba Fett, who was arguably the coolest bounty hunter.
He drove a vet. Oh did he? Haven't you ever
heard that, Chris, I'll send it to you. So this
is from our pal, Aaron A C who he writes

(17:37):
in a lot and he's a regular. Um. I just
got done listening to the latest joint how bounty bounty
Hunters work, and I'm appalled, appalled because you did not
I did not hear a single mention of Boba Fette
and then he types, wah uh yeah, okay, so maybe
he's fictional allegedly, but come on, no excuse. During the
Ninja podcast, I sat through it seemed like ten minutes

(17:58):
of you guys parentheses, Josh geeking out hard on the
dossier credentials of action figures. So I know that's not it.
So come on, how about a shout out for Boba.
I think he deserves it. Dog and his mulleted militia
ain't got nothing on the fat Man, and I would
agree I would too. So we didn't mention Boba Fette.
We wanted to acknowledge that. And he also says, speaking

(18:19):
of Boba Fette in honor of his anticlimactic afterthought, of
a death scene in Jedi. I'd like to offer a
podcast suggestion how the Wilhelm scream works. Have you ever
heard of this? I've never heard of it either, but
it is awesome. It was the scream, uh, that a
sound engineer recorded for a movie, and I think the
nineteen forties Man Dies by Alligator was what it was called,

(18:43):
and that has since been used the exact clip and
over two movies since then. It's like an in joke
with sound engineers. The Vilhelm scream. I can't believe I've
never heard of it. So he asked if we can
play one, and I think Jerry, we can probably rustle
up a Vilhelm screen. It sounds a little something like this.

(19:04):
I can't wait to hear what that sounds like. It's
really funny actually, and after you hear it, you've noticed, Wow,
I've heard that before. I hope I do. So. Thank you.
I'm going crazy here, like it just played and I
still don't know what it sounds like. Uh. We just
want to thank Aaron for for educating me on a
movie thing. I can't believe I didn't know this popular
movie thing. Nice. I think Jerry knew it. Nice. And

(19:24):
now you know I do, and knowing is half the battle.
That's right. If you have any obscure movie Arcania, actually
Arcania of any variety, Yeah, we're always very interested in that.
We're wrapping up in an email, spanking on the bottom
and send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works
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(19:51):
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