What is Fascism? (Political Philosophy)

A description of the philosophy behind Italian Fascism from the writings of Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini. An explanation of the philosophy of state corporations and the rejoicing in violence.

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Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Macmillan), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and more!

[ux]

Finally someone giving an actual definition of fascism and not the plain old 'fascism is when racism' thank you very much for this well detailed video my friend.

[samhenson]

Fantastic job. It’s refreshing to hear someone speak about fascism objectively rather than cutting bits out and presenting a boogeyman.

[seekerx]

Are u reading my mind? because this is exactly what i was questioning!! thank you for the video

[hjge]

Since "the will of the people" is an important concept here, you should make a video on that next. Because that in and of itself is a very debatable (and interesting) concept.

[JohnnyCrack]

You should have defined what "state" means in the views of Mussolini, Gentile, Mosley, etc.
The term "state, " in the doctrine of fascism, is not synonymous with "government." Rather, the fascist definition of state is an organic and changing body. I believe it was Gentile who gives the example, in his writing, of the American colonists. He describes how the colonists in 1775 had their own culture, dialect, attitudes, and traditions that were unique from the British. In this sense, the "state" of America, embodied in the people, was present before America had a government or even before it had declared itself independent from the British.
Later you mentioned how there are no checks and balances on the leader of a fascist nation. This isn't true either. In Italy, there was a King and a council of fascists who acted as two separate checks on Mousilini; in Britain Oswald Mosely proposed that every few years each British citizen could vote on recalling their leader.

It's also important to keep in mind that fascism, being inherently nationalist, will vary on how it is practiced in each country. This is why in Italy, a more collectivist cultured nation, Mussolini wrote about the rejection of individualism; whereas in Great Britain, a much more materialistic and individualistic cultured nation, Oswald Mosley rejected many of the socialistic views of Mussolini and embarrassed individualism.

Overall this was the best video I've seen depicted fascism, even better than most professors' lectures on the topic. Well done, lad!

[brandonkris]

“Next time someone calls you a fascist...”

Can’t say I’ve been accused of that, but incredible video nonetheless. Thank you for putting this together.

[yangwen-li]

Oh, this fully descriptive style is perfect. You're my favourite philosophy channel.

It will be interesting to see something about modern political philosophy theories like republicanism, luck egalitarianism and bleeding heart libertarianism.

P. S. (Tarski book on logic is great, thanks for advice)

[anguskeenan]

I sincerely appreciate the unbiased, academic approach to this topic. It's key to remember this things as they were not just how they were. That said I find it difficult to understand why Fascism was wides spread in the 20's and 30's, even in Gentile's description it sounds fundamentally autocratic

[CosmoShidan]

Also, Gentile I consider to be the Martin Heidegger of Italy, in how he was once a world famous philosopher who wrote on the Philosophy of Art (which is also the title of his book on the matter), Metaphysics, Logic, Epistemology and Ethics in his Theory of Mind as Pure Act and was an outspoken critic of Pseudo-philosophy and the scientism of the Positivists. Then he joined the Italian fascists like Heidegger joining the German Nazis. Although, his last work Genesis and Structure of Society was one of his last Neo-Hegelian works before he was assassinated after saving intellectuals from Nazi execution in Florence.

[karta]

Thankyou!
You are the first of many video's i found that treats the subject objectively.

[bltz]

Fascism is when racism
Communism is when government
Capitalism is when money

[americansyndicalist]

An important note, fascism believes might makes right, not might is right. Therefore fascism is not about forms of domination for the sake of domination in and of itself. Additionally fascism believes in righteous violence, not just violence for the sake of it.

[authoritarianismaengussong]

This video provides a much-better-than-average introduction to the essential principles of fascism. The fact that it doesn't exhaustively investigate all of the implications of these principles is understandable in a presentation likely intended as a succinct preamble to the ideology's fundamentals. It might have been helpful, though, to have offered brief mention of the technical philosophical concepts that underpin fascism—since the video is billed as concerning itself with fascism's "political philosophy."

As described in that "bible of fascism, " Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini's The Doctrine of Fascism, the ideology is established upon a mongrel mix of metaphysically idealist, metaphysically materialist, and metaphysically Heraclitean premises, with an emphasis on metaphysical idealism and its socially organismic implications. The organicist theses undercut the individual's rights and freedoms, while the materialist and Heraclitean postulates provide rationales for political violence. Although such abstractions can seem like so much academic esoterica, understanding political ideologies in terms of their basic philosophical concepts (metaphysical idealism, metaphysical materialism, etc.) can help us recognize these ideologies when they represent themselves, as they invariably will, under new names and labels.

[bigbadrock]

I wish you would have talked about their syndicalism and actualism aspect

[xenoblad]

I don't think might makes right, but as Mao said “might makes victory”.
Consider the various wars for independence that required violence.
Rhetoric has been shown many times to not always be reliable, especially if the dominant benefit materially from a situation. All you can ask for is their pity, and states rarely change as a result of sympathy.
Violence is a tool that can be used as an expression of the will of the people are at least some of the people.
Franz Fanon gives a really good defense of political violence in his book “wretched of the earth".
State repression is pretty normal, we just don't call it that, we call them laws.

[Parent]

Great video, this really opened my eyes to the true meaning of fascism. It was always hard to understand since people basically would say Nazism = Fascism

[aZM]

Fascism and Divine right seem to have common points

[blindliberty]

Thank you I've been trying to understand these 1900s political philosophies and you sir are a gold mine

[justinward]

Geez, do you know how hard it is to find an explanation this clear?

[donparkison]

You missed an important part of describing the ideology that is central to fascist philosophy. That the central ideology was crating a mythological origin story of the state and to tie that origin story with some type of religious ideology, therefore creating the myth that the project of fascism is ordained. We see this in different forms with the shinto aspects of the Japanese Empire of WW2, as well as the Catholic influence of Italy's and Spain's Fascist states. Even Hitler's Nazis utilized Norse myths to give Germany some of its mythical origin story. So, when fascists create the ideology that is to be the central theme of the state, it always has a racial and religious superiority attached to it.