Opinion of fascism

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

No, because it is the natural result of unchecked social conservatism. 

That depends on the form of fascism. Clerical fascism such as Franco in Spain undoubtedly. Some of the more extreme variants of National Socialism with things such as the Lebensborn creches and advocacy of neopaganism not so much...

The Nazi neopaganism had very much to do with this very weird type of supernatural racism.  Fantastical, unfounded junk science and racist bullcrap are very much in line with extreme social conservatism. 

[Oak Hills]

No, because it is the natural result of unchecked social conservatism. 

Once again, Hockeydude proves that atheists do to history what Baptists do to biology.

Fr Wikipedia

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Sounds like your kind of guy Hockeydude.

Wow. Mussolini actually criticised someone for that? I'm assuming he said that before he developed fascism, because as I understand it, it is the only major modern ideology that actually openly supported those things. I'm not disagreeing with your point about Mussolini being anti-clerical, just noting the irony of that statement.

[tpfkaw]

I get to be the moderate hero and inform you that you are both wrong!

DC:  The reason why Wikipedia is highlighting those positions of Mussolini, while he was still a member of the Socialist Party, is because they are ironic in light of his movement's close ties with the Roman Catholic Church later on.  The Nazis were indeed much more sympathetic to atheism or neopaganism and hostile to preexisting religion.

Hockeydude:  You are shifting the goalposts and creating a tautology in a ridiculous manner, essentially saying "if we define social conservatism as fascism then fascism is socially conservative."  Fascism and Naziism were anti-traditionalist often to the point of absurdity; witness the enthusiasm for eugenics, the plans to demolish and rebuild Berlin or to pave over the canals of Venice, Hitler's plans to purge the former nobility, the Nazi effort to make everyone use Futura instead of Fraktur, etc. etc. etc.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I get to be the moderate hero and inform you that you are both wrong!

DC:  The reason why Wikipedia is highlighting those positions of Mussolini, while he was still a member of the Socialist Party, is because they are ironic in light of his movement's close ties with the Roman Catholic Church later on.  The Nazis were indeed much more sympathetic to atheism or neopaganism and hostile to preexisting religion.

Hockeydude:  You are shifting the goalposts and creating a tautology in a ridiculous manner, essentially saying "if we define social conservatism as fascism then fascism is socially conservative."  Fascism and Naziism were anti-traditionalist often to the point of absurdity; witness the enthusiasm for eugenics, the plans to demolish and rebuild Berlin or to pave over the canals of Venice, Hitler's plans to purge the former nobility, the Nazi effort to make everyone use Futura instead of Fraktur, etc. etc. etc.

I think you're using social conservatism as defined as being traditionalist, while I'm using it in a more contemporary sense.  Frankly, I'm not too concerned with cosmetic crap like remodeling Berlin/Vienna and using a different writing style.  The Nazis/fascists used all kinds of contradictory policy to appeal to their public ("Gott mit uns" on the Nazi uniform and their treaties with the Vatican, for example).  These things did not define the fascist legacy.  The things I mentioned; racism (which is the real reason the Nazis loved Eugenics, a junk science for the most part, so much), aggression, and strident nationalism... THESE define the legacy of the fascist states and they are also synonymous with parties today that sit to the far right on the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum.  

The question of the thread was my opinion of fascism.  I said the primary reason I don't like fascism is BECAUSE it incorporates these particular elements (racism, nationalism, aggression) which happen to be linked with far-right social conservatives.  Furthermore, I don't think social conservatism is strictly defined as a "return to the past" per se. It can also mean the purposeful destruction of past progression that was deemed undesirable. 

[Lief 🗽]

Horrible ideology, obviously, but I can understand why it was appealing to many non-horrible people in the 1920s and early 1930s.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sure, HockeyDude has it all wrong, but come on, DC, you must know that citing things about Socialist!Mussolini to make a point about fascism is just plain silly.

[afleitch]

The Nazis were indeed much more sympathetic to atheism or neopaganism and hostile to preexisting religion.

“I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator…by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” – Mein Kampf

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.” – 12 April 1922.

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” – 24 October 1933

“In this world him who does not abandon himself the Almighty will not desert. Him who helps himself will the Almighty always also help; He will show him the way by which he can gain his rights, his freedom, and therefore his future.” - 20 March 1936

Even to the end…

“God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work...Only He can relieve me of this duty Who called me to it. It was in the hand of Providence to snuff me out by the bomb that exploded only one and a half meters from me on July 20, and thus to terminate my life's work. That the Almighty protected me on that day I consider a renewed affirmation of the task entrusted to me....” 30 January 1945

You can get what you want out of Hitler; he was more nuanced than people care to admit.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

The Nazis were indeed much more sympathetic to atheism or neopaganism and hostile to preexisting religion.

“I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator…by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” – Mein Kampf

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.” – 12 April 1922.

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” – 24 October 1933

“In this world him who does not abandon himself the Almighty will not desert. Him who helps himself will the Almighty always also help; He will show him the way by which he can gain his rights, his freedom, and therefore his future.” - 20 March 1936

Even to the end…

“God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work...Only He can relieve me of this duty Who called me to it. It was in the hand of Providence to snuff me out by the bomb that exploded only one and a half meters from me on July 20, and thus to terminate my life's work. That the Almighty protected me on that day I consider a renewed affirmation of the task entrusted to me....” 30 January 1945

You can get what you want out of Hitler; he was more nuanced than people care to admit.

I read wormyguy as saying that the Nazis were 'much more sympathetic to atheism or neopaganism and hostile to preexisting religion' relative to Mussolini's Fascists, rather than in an absolute sense.

[DC Al Fine]

Sure, HockeyDude has it all wrong, but come on, DC, you must know that citing things about Socialist!Mussolini to make a point about fascism is just plain silly.

I will recant the atheist Mussolini claims, but I still maintain that Mussolini was not religious (or at least no orthodox) into his later later years. He has been described as non-religious as he got older and I'm told he was quite fond of Nietzche, who is hardly the paradigm of tradtionalist thought.

Although I suppose the whole argument is moot given that Hockeydude has redefined the term "social conservatism" beyond any conventional meaning.

[Redalgo]

how is anyone voting anything other than horrible ideology

In my case, I agree with fascists that there is great power to be harnessed in symbols, that there should be inter-class collaboration, a solidaristic order in place, and it is useful to conceptualize society as a single organism comprised of individual cells - each with a contributing purpose  -  and in need of adaptation and responsiveness to its environs to become stronger, flourish, and survive. Though I do not like their particular Third Position, their rejection of both socialism in an orthodox sense and laissez-faire capitalism is commendable from my point of view.  

In practice it has invariably been horrible, yet at least in theory I can conceive of ways fascism could be made more humane and a - though nonetheless disagreeable from my perspective - respectable alternative to relatively mainstream currents of political thought.