I'm reading Shane Burley's Fascism Today, and the way he defines fascism is nearly identical to the way Corey Robin defines conservatism, which is damn unsettling let me tell you.
Burley, for his part, defines conservatism the way conservatives define themselves, focusing on Christian-inspired family values and free-market economics.
He doesn't connect fascism to Robin's historical perspective that defines conservatism as about preserving hierarchies.
He doesn't connect fascism to Robin's historical perspective that defines conservatism as about preserving hierarchies.
But, reading both books in tandem, the structures are nearly identical. There's the same romanticism of a past where The Right People were in control before those evil modern progressives took power away from them.
There's the same fundamental belief about the inequality of humans and that the proper shape of society is a stratification where the betters rule over the lessers.
The difference is that Burley's definition of fascism is more extreme than Robin's definition of conservatism.
The idealized past is older: Robin's conservatives are fighting to reclaim a power they feel was just taken from them, a battle only recently lost.
Fascists tend to idealize a mythologized past of centuries prior.
Fascists tend to idealize a mythologized past of centuries prior.
And the conception of the hierarchy is more specific: Conservatives believe in the great ruling over the masses, but don't *officially* make any claims as to what constitutes "greatness."
Fascists do: They believe they are the ones who should rule.
Fascists do: They believe they are the ones who should rule.
Conservatives - again, *officially* - believe in meritocracy, and that the market (or, in a pinch, a heavily-manipulated democracy) should determine who is great.
In practice the people who believe in meritocracy always believe themselves the most meritorious and claim the system needs to be "fixed" if anyone but them are at the top, and they are overwhelmingly white men, but the belief does not *officially* state white men should rule.
Fascists believe in whatever system puts them at the top. They insist that they are the chosen people and will attempt to smash any system that doesn't serve to put them in power.
They'll go with the market, or democracy, if and only if they work for this purpose.
They'll go with the market, or democracy, if and only if they work for this purpose.
Still, it's a slim difference, and you can gather why fascism, while it may pick up leftist dissidents along the way, always finds political purchase in right-wing groups.
Liberal ideas of egalitarianism and the idealization of a better future are largely incompatible.
Liberal ideas of egalitarianism and the idealization of a better future are largely incompatible.
Dealer's choice whether you want to call fascism and conservatism separate but overlapping belief systems or call conservatism fascism-lite, but it seems clear that the best defense against fascism is for society to skew left.
(forgot to mention: there's also the same co-opting of the rhetoric and tactics of the left in order to make old ideas seem modern and counter-cultural in both conservatism and fascism)
