Fascismos (II)

Há tempos falei sobre o livro do conservador norte-americano Jonah Goldberg sobre o que ele chama "Liberal Fascism" ("liberal" no sentido americano).

Um artigo sobre esse livro (ou melhor, sobre a discussão à volta do livro), no Crooked Timber (via Brad DeLong):

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What explicit definition of ‘fascism’ is Goldberg operating with, if any? To judge from reviews, the author’s own comments, his ‘results’, he must be applying the term to any sort of ‘statist’ or ‘collectivist’ political rhetoric, policy proposal, or legislative act, especially such of these as entangle the state in coercive action on behalf of ‘communitarian’ values or ‘identity’ politics: values that subordinate the individual to the whole. The trouble is: pretty much the only sort of conservative who is not going to come out fascist, under this umbrella, is (maybe) the likes of F. Hayek, when penning essays with titles like “Why I Am Not A Conservative”. Otherwise, the whole tradition of conservative thought, from Burke to Kirk and beyond, is ‘fascist’. Hillary says it takes a village, but Burke would never have settled for small-time socialism. He thundered about “the great primeval contract of eternal society.” No doubt ‘it takes a village’ is pretty weak, qua anti-fascist vaccine. But switching to the belief that you would do best to unquestioningly submit yourself to some sort of primordial, vaguely mystical, hierarchical social order is not going to inoculate you either.

In Oshinsky’s review we read: “To [Goldberg’s] mind, it is liberalism, not conservatism, that embraces what he claims is the fascist ideal of perfecting society through a powerful state run by omniscient leaders.” But the obvious examples of believers in the possibility of guidance by omniscient beings are theocrats (admixers of church into state in substantial proportion.) Goldberg is trying to target liberal technocrats and hubristic social engineers. But he can hardly get religion out of the target zone. In general, belief in hierarchy, hence the need to establish and maintain a socially superior class of natural leaders is eminently conservative – from Burke to Kirk and beyond, once again. Furthermore, ‘omniscient’, badly as it serves Goldberg’s purpose, is only there because the word you really want would be even more embarrassing to his case. Fascists believe in Great Leaders. Heroic leaders. It is quite obvious, from Carlyle to Gerson and beyond, that hero-worship is not inimical to conservatism. Of course, conservatives have their rugged individualist sides. They aren’t pure statists or collectivists or slavish self-subordinators. But, then again, neither are liberals. This is all pretty obvious.

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You want to restrict ‘potential fascist’ to cases where there are not only shared values, in a weak ‘we are all fascists now’ sense, but some evidence that – due to those shared values – the person might turn into a sort of fascist, in a more full-blooded (blood and soil) sense. At the very least, you want to be on the lookout for people looking at actually existing fascism and thinking it’s sort of fascinating or attractive. Maybe they express sympathy with, or peddle apologetics on behalf of, actually existing fascism. Jeet Heer (whose anthology, Arguing Comics, is really good!) has been doing some digging through the archives:

Since its founding in 1955, National Review has been a haven for writers who are, if not fascists tout court, certainly fascist fellow travellers.

Let’s put it this way: if Woodrow Wilson and Hillary Clinton are fascists then what word do we have for those who admired Francisco Franco? When the Spanish tyrant died in 1975, National Review published two effusive obituaries. F.R. Buckley (brother to National Review founder William F. Buckley) hailed Franco as “a Spaniard out of the heroic annals of the nation, a giant. He will be truly mourned by Spain because with all his heart and might and soul, he loved his country, and in the vast context of Spanish history, did well by it.” James Burnham simply argued that “Francisco Franco was our century’s most successful ruler.” (Both quotes are from the November 21, 1975 issue). Aside from F.R. Buckley and Burnham, many of the early National Reviewers were ardent admirers of Franco’s Spain, which they saw as an authentically Catholic nation free from the vices supposedly gripping the United States and the northern European countries. National Review stalwarts like Frederick Wilhelmsen, Arnold Lunn, and L. Brent Bozell, Jr. made pilgrimages to Spain, finding spiritual nourishment in the dictatorship’s seemingly steadfast Catholicism.

The really twisted side National Review’s philo-fascism came through in 1961 when Israel captured Adolph Eichmann, a leading Nazi, and tried him for crimes against humanity. National Review did everything they could editorially to offer extenuating arguments against the prosecution of Eichmann, arguing that he was being subjected to a “show trial”, that this was post facto justice, that pursuing Nazi crimes would weaken the Western alliance and further the cause of communism. As the magazine editorialized on April 22, 1961, the trial of Eichmann was a “lurid extravaganza” leading to “bitterness, distrust, the refusal to forgive, the advancement of Communist aims, [and] the cultivation of pacifism.” (The editors didn’t consider that a mere 16 years after the death camps were liberated, a “refusal to forgive” the architects of genocide might be understandable).