Hitler and Hairbows

“Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.”

—Theodore Adorno

“During the formative years of National Socialism, it is evident that the Party took a very lenient attitude towards masculine homosexuals. The very virile and butch fascist was perfectly OK, really, but the feminine homosexual was another matter. Again, the fascist sensibility is deeply misogynistic. And misogyny is really, perhaps, the primary engine for all fascism.”

—John Steppling, The Inheritance

“The logical result of fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.”

—Walter Benjamin

I made a trip to T. J. Maxx the other day and the whole experience struck me very strangely. First of all, right when I entered the store I noticed that they had installed a large computer screen recording all of the comings and goings. Secondly, the men’s clothing section was mostly brand logo t-shirts (such as Kool Aid) or band t-shirts (which amounts to the same thing). Thirdly, the women’s clothing consisted of garish colours, crocheted dresses, silly prints, and humiliating hairbows. Finally, there was a proliferation of Pop Tart branded makeup, Stitch the Disney character watering cans, and snail mucus face cream (which I have some serious ethical concerns about…. I do love snails). This unpleasant shopping trip is a springboard for multiple discussions on kitsch, expanding markets, surveillance, and infantilisation.

To touch on surveillance and A. I. technology for a moment, there is an interesting narrative around this. What we are dealing with today is “runaway” technology (i. e. technological development has become a snowball effect that human agents have no control over.) But why is the technology of today developing in such a bad direction? Under capitalism, innovation occurs to increase profitability and to discipline and control workers. Thus instead of creating better medicine, real environmental solutions, and other technologies beneficial to all life forms and the Earth, technologies are created to enrich the capitalist class and expand the reach of the market. Medicines that make you need more medicines ad infinitum. Humans are subordinated to the needs of ever expanding technology not because it is impossible to have long lasting and stable technological solutions, but because it is impossible within the context of capitalism. Humans are subordinated to the needs of ever expanding capital. I am aware that all technologies inevitably have their downsides, but the reasons for innovation under capitalism are not ones beneficial to humans. In this way the runaway tech argument shifts the blame from the capitalist structure to the technologies themselves. Another form of commodity fetishism if you will. A. I. and other tech does not have a life of its own. Artificial intelligence is not intelligent, it is only algorithmic, an educated guess. The solution to this when posed as a technology problem not a capitalism problem, is merely regulations on technology use instead of regulations on capital. Under capitalism nothing is stable. Stability is not the goal. The goal is a hamster wheel of endless motion; madness.

Societal madness labelled as a mental health crisis. Who wouldn’t be insane living under late capitalism? What appears as mental illness is merely a healthy response to a sick society. Those who are dubbed the most mentally stable these days are often detatched, mildly psychopathic, narcissistic, and immature. These are the kind of people that function best in capitalism. These are the kind of people we are encouraged to be. Selfish babies…. This brings us to the ubiquity of kitsch. Increasingly it seems as if art is dead, or at least not funded. Kitsch aesthetics fill every sphere. Products that appeal to childhood nostalgia abound. (Nostalgia is a disguised form of marketability.) This lack of anything new, this stagnation, speaks to the pathology of a society in decay. And this is why capitalism finds fascism necessesary: to prevent anything new from being born. This preponderance of nostalgia actually speaks to the anxiety that is felt about the future. We turn to branded products that remind us of childhood for comfort and stability. The stability that capitalism abolishes, perhaps. At once stagnant and constantly moving, madness, a carousel. Instability. We allow ourselves to be infantilised so we don’t have to think. We immerse ourselves in the past so we don’t have to plan for the future.

Infantilised populations who do nothing to create their own culture, only consuming the kitsch spoon fed to them are unable to imagine a different tomorrow. With the way that social media reshapes our brains it is becoming difficult to have in depth studies of complex issues. Social media is one of the few remaining commons, yet it is all mediated. Algorithms and censorship determine what is or isn’t seen. History is falsified and attention spans shrink. All news offers tidbits of information lacking historical and international context. The loss of knowledge of history also contributes to the prevalence of nostalgia. A past falsely remembered with rose coloured glasses. Loss of a sense of historical and spatial locatedness. There is a longing for a past because we inhabit an eternal now, constantly jumping from one thing to the next never ceasing. Endless motion getting nowhere. Madness

In addition to an ever present now, the technologies such as smart phones, air pods, and V. R. headsets create private and customisable worlds for each individual to inhabit. Inside the tiny boxes of our screens we can customise a “perfect universe”, coordinated with a preselected thematic. This removes all sense of otherness. We lose our ability to compromise and make room for others. It is a two pronged effect, however. As our private spheres separate off and become completely closed, atomistic structures designed for our individual amusement we are surveilled more than ever. Real life private and hidden spaces are disappearing at a rapid rate. Yet both of these things serve the same purpose. Complete social atomisation where our individual spheres can no longer collapse into each other prevents face to face connections from being formed. Strong collectivity ceases to be. The same can be said of the loss of private spaces. Every action is watched by the interloper of the camera lens. The manufactured eye. Every secret gathering, every shared moment is monitored by some mechanical eavesdropper. Shared secrets strengthen collective bonds, this constant exposure destroys them.

I mentioned how capitalism hyper-individualises everyone to a friend and they responded  by saying they had read something that stated the direct opposite; it destroys individuality. I retorted that capitalism does both, another two pronged effect. On the one hand the masses are homogenised to be obedient workers, trained what they are supposed to consume, and kept in an infantile state, not allowed to develop critical thinking skills and cultivate unique creativity. The reality of a classed society is that the vast majority of people are prevented from developing their full potential as individual human beings. On the other hand, the dictates of the capitalist mechanism are that we must each pursue our own self interest and personal gain above all else. The individual first, the group second. Encouraged to cultivate distinct tastes and individuated desires so that niche markets can flourish. All community ties are dissolved and the possibility of collective organising becomes very difficult. Individualist myths saturate bourgeois culture, one man “making it” all by himself. I say that these are two sides of the same coin. Without being embedded in a community which puts the group interest over personal gain we cannot fully develop our human characteristics such as empathy and listening skills. Paradoxically, by recognising our complete dependence upon each other do we mature into multi-layered adults.

Kitsch is the aesthetic mask of fascism, and according to Walter Benjamin fascism is the aesthetisation of politics. I don’t usually like to use pop culture references to illustrate deeper points, but I think one is appropriate here. Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series is a perfect example of kitsch, fascism, and aestheticised politics. Umbridge’s outward appearance is girly and harmless, yet her character is sadistic and power hungry. When she gets a high position of authority in the Ministry of Magic in the seventh book she publishes cutesy pamphlets promoting scientific racism of sorts. (Pure blood wizards are flowers, muggles and mud bloods are weeds.) Umbridge wears pink frilly bows, decorates with happy kitten plates, and speaks in saccharine tones. Yet her kitten plates spy on you, she forces students to write with a quill pen that uses their own blood as ink, and she seems to be a sadist. Cutesy kitten tea things on the outside, fascist cruelty on the inside.

Politics are aestheticised these days. As I mentioned before, woke and its opposite are kitsch. On the one hand there are sparkling drag queens swaddled in pride flags and on the other there are buffalo hat wearing hyper-masculinised American flag wavers. These are more similar than different, both with a fascistic connotation. Photos were found of Nazi soldiers in drag… Fascism is at once hyper-masculine and homoerotic. It is misogynistic at bottom. Again where the pride movement and MAGA movement overlap. Women are denigrated on both sides. Either trans women ARE women, vaginas are front holes, and sex work is empowering OR our sole purpose is to be at once a trophy wife and a breeeding machine for a despotic husband, love Jesus, and be perfectly girly. Both sides of the “culture war” are fascistic, merely different flavours. The woke version is more colourful and subltle with a pretence of diversity, while the anti-woke version has a more typical fascist appearance. Fascist core, different trappings.

In the United States many people who saw through the madness of the covid measures were shocked at the way our political system was functioning. In their minds, some sort of outside threat had infiltrated into the holy fortress that is the White House. It was the fault of China, commies, satanic Marxists, Jewish Bolshevik Rothschilds, and the cabal of blood drinking pedophiles. This perceived infiltration is present on the opposite side of the aisle, only the perpetrators are pro-lifers, fascists, Q-Anons, white supremacists, and big bad Russia. I say that neither side is correct; there is no infiltration. From its inception, the U. S. constitution was designed to serve the white, male, propertied class. As with all bourgeois revolutions, there were real democratic gains in it, but its core essence is one which serves the white bourgeoisie. In fact, the 19th century abolitionists viewed slavery as inherent in the U. S. constitution and believed that it must destroyed, not amended. The social progress that has occured in the United States is not because of the greatness of the constitution, the fabulousness of liberal democratic capitalism, or from great leadership. Social progress occured because oppressed groups of people fought for it with all their might. Women, people of color, homosexuals, the working class. Of course, the ruling class will grant moderate social progress if it prevents a revolution from occurring. What we are seeing today is a roll back of hard won democratic gains combined with a labelling of regressive social movements as progressive ones. And beneath the surface there lurks Nazi ideology that never really went away.

This idea of infiltration is part and parcel with the anti-communist sentiment that is so strong today. Fascism is not infiltration. It is not some “totalitarian” turn off of the course of liberal democracy. It is capitalism’s response to a deadly threat, whether revolution or crisis, and a channeling of revolutionary energy in a reactionary direction. It is dying capitalism trying its hardest to maintain itself. Yet this sentiment is often paired with a growing ire towards the ruling class. (Let me add that the anti-woke movement represents some very real frustration towards the liberal laptop class.) This class anger is then misdirected at upper middle class liberals who, while indeed being guards of the class structure, are not the true ruling class. I remember reading about some Amazon workers protesting outside of Jeff Bezos’ giant house with nooses in their hands. This is the kind of class anger that is potentially revolutionary and threatening. Dividing the population amongst themselves is very convenient to the powers that be. The hatred toward social minorities that is brewing in the anti-woke movement strikes me as fascist. It reminds me of the history of Nazi Germany. The saying that anti-semitism is misplaced anti-capitalism could be changed to say anti-wokeism is misplaced anti-capitalism, even though many in the anti-woke movement believe themselves to be fighting for good old fashioned capitalism. Identification with the oppressor… There is something reactionary and sinister about misdirected class anger being placed on social minorities. Especially when theories like white genocide are being promoted. The left has, in general, failed the working classs and the right wing welcomes them with open arms.

The rumour that the lockdowns and wokeism were part of a nefarious Marxist takeover facilitate this thrust rightward. To the average Joe who hasn’t read any Marx or Marxist theory and who has a predominantly western interpretation of history, communism and Marxism engender a reflexive response of fear. Reflexive anti-communism. Obviously, anti-communism is deeply embedded in the American psyche. It is a response trained since childhood onward, hammered home by television, movies, books, and school curriculum. I don’t think that this red scare is an organic response, I think it is an encouraged one. Whether it has been encouraged more since 2020 I do not know, but generally anti-communism has always been encouraged by the ruling class. How coincidental that at a time when capitalism is failing that its reputation has been revitalised. How coincidental that just as the ruling class are trying to secure their rule forever that Marx’s name and legacy are being besmirched afresh. This narrative removes all blame from capitalism, thus leaving it innocent, and places the blame for societal ills on some outside threat.

The same sort of narrative is occurring to revitalise the American empire which is, at present, quite overextended. America has been infiltrated, it is a victimised nation. The greatness of America is crumbling before our eyes. (Due, again, to outside threats rather than imperial greed.) I’ve seen implications in alternative media that America is not a superpower, perhaps it doesn’t even exist at all. Interesting at this time of bald faced imperialism, American military expansion, and hegemony. Nationalism is on the rise, Christian nationalism more specifically (which deserves an entire article of its own.) Those on the left who opposed the covid narrative who wouldn’t have displayed the stars and stripes before are now flag waving patriots. At the time when the U. S. empire appears to be stretched thin it requires this injection of patriotic fervour along with an uptick in military spending. Even the image of feeble minded Joe Biden as president projects the image that the U. S. is a persecuted and incompetent nation. In reality, the U. S. military has its tentacles practically everywhere. Over two dozen military bases installed in Norway and Sweden combined, U. S. use of Finnish military bases, and countless other bases around the world. My prediction for the 2024 election is that whoever the next president is he will work on rallying the nation around the flag. The fact that one can perceive that America is nowhere shows that it is everywhere. It shows how pervasive U. S. hegemony is.

I repeat, the sour path that the U. S. is on is not due to infiltration. Historically, whenever there is social instability or when the ruling class is threatened authoritarian measures are taken. Liberalism is not at all exempt from this. As Domenico Losurdo illustrates in “Liberalism: A Counter History”, liberalism is perhaps one of the most hypocritical political movements, constantly changing definitions to suit class privelege and name calling other political movements that endanger aforementioned privelege as “tyrannical”, “despotic”, and “totalitarian” when it itself is often more so. The fascist tendency is merely a tendency within capitalism to bring itself back into equilibrium, a tendency to prevent capitalism from inducing its own demise. It is increasingly evident that capitalism cannot be a solid and enduring system for the world. The ruling class are aware of this, so they try to keep the structure intact by any means necessary. We are in the middle of many wars right now, but there is another war occurring quietly in the background (and at times not so quietly…); a class war. Not to be overly pessimistic, but the bourgeoisie appear to be winning. The ruling class are turning up the heat on the proletarians of the world and trying to secure their position forever. The environment is being destroyed under the guise of trying to protect it. Homelessness and poverty are spiralling out of control. The west won’t stop poking the Russian bear. The Palestinians are being slaughtered so Israel can build a fancy city on their buried bodies. In the U. S. an absurd clown show is being called an election. The working class is being pushed toward the right because the mainstream left has decided to side with the ruling class. What a challenge the real left faces today in this time of political insanity, genocide, war mongering, and incipient fascism. Where do we begin to build a movement?

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

—Antonio Gramsci

“What is fascism but colonialism at the very heart of traditionally colonialist countries?”

—Frantz Fanon

“Nations, faces, ages pass pass as in a dream, an ever-flowing stream. In Nature’s shifting glimmer-glass. stars are nets, we their haul, gods are shadows on a wall.”

—Velmimir Khlebnikov