[D66] ‘How Fascism Works’

[A.O.]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/15/author-discusses-his-new-book-anti-intellectualism-and-fascism

Anti-Intellectualism and ‘How Fascism Works’

Author discusses his new book on trends in politics in the U.S. and
elsewhere.
By
Scott Jaschik
August 15, 2018
78 Comments


A country that is not fascist may still experience fascist politics. And
those politics are based on efforts to divide society and demonize
groups. That is a major theme of How Fascism Works (Penguin Random
House), by Jason Stanley, the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at
Yale University. Stanley identifies 10 "pillars" of fascist politics,
among them "the mythic past," propaganda and appeals to the heartland.
One of the pillars is anti-intellectualism. Stanley discussed that
pillar in the following email interview, which has been edited.

Q: Anti-intellectualism has been present throughout much of American
history. How is the kind of anti-intellectualism linked to fascist ideas
different? Or is it the same?

A: Our suspicion of elites and what could be seen as
anti-intellectualism can be healthy at times; we can see the American
philosophical traditions of pragmatism and empiricism in this light,
which can in fact serve as counterweights to the grandiose myths of
fascist politics. But even this version has proven to be a weakness, one
that makes us more susceptible to being manipulated politically. We have
seen this play out in the case of climate change, where essentially
apolitical scientists were successfully demonized as ideologues. We also
have a history of what I think of as more classically fascist
anti-intellectualism.

Fascist anti-intellectualism sets the traditions of the chosen nation,
its dominant group, above all other traditions. It represents more
complex narratives as corrupting and dangerous. It prizes mythologizing
about the nation’s past, and erasing any of its problematic features (as
we see all too often in histories of the Confederacy and the
Reconstruction period, or of the treatment in history books of our
indigenous communities). It seeks to replace truth with myth,
transforming education systems into methods of glorifying the ideologies
and heritage of the members of the traditional ruling class. In fascist
politics, universities, which present a more complex and accurate
version of history and current reality, are attacked for being places
where dominant traditions or practices are critiqued. Fascist ideology
centers loyalty to power rather than truth. In fascist thinking, the
university is simply another tool to legitimate various illiberal
hierarchies connected to historically dominant traditions.

Q: You mention David Horowitz and his various books and websites that
offer names of professors for criticism as liberal, something also
supported by Turning Point USA. Why are such lists a sign of a dangerous
kind of anti-intellectualism?

A: Above all, the mission of the university is truth. Fascist ideology,
by contrast, traffics in myth; for example, the myth of the cultural or
ethnic superiority of certain groups, the myth of patriarchy, various
historical myths about the nation’s past, and the erasure of any sins
done in the name of the dominant national ideologies. Fascist politics
requires the demonization of certain groups that are the enemies, which
of course requires spreading simplifications and falsehoods about them
(for example, in the U.S. today, those of the Muslim faith).

The organizations you mention specifically target academics who deviate
from the myths that support American far-right ideology. They try to
intimidate into silence scholars whose work reveals the complexities and
contradictions of capitalism; they target gender studies scholars,
scholars of Islam and the Middle East, and those for example in African
American studies and indigenous studies whose work threatens the rosy
picture of the past they wish our education systems to present as
objects of veneration. By harshly attacking those who seek to show the
truth in its full complexity, the organizations you mention undermine
the search for truth. This is the essence of anti-intellectualism; it is
an attack on truth.

Q: Historically, many professors who have been targets have been either
real or imagined Marxists. Today many of the targets in the United
States are scholars of race or gender. What is the significance of that
shift?

A: In illiberal far-right ideology, equality is rejected, and hierarchy
is embraced in its stead. Liberalism (and Marxism) in contrast each have
some notion of equality as an ideal. So those whose work criticizes
failures of equality are targets of reactionary illiberalism, whether
that failure is systematic economic inequality, racial inequality or
gender inequality. The goal is to delegitimize those who call attention
to unjust inequalities along any dimension. Fascist ideology
specifically focuses on hierarchies of race and gender, and so increased
attacks that focus on those who defend equality along these dimensions
are a particularly worrisome sign.

Q: You note attacks on scholars in Hungary, Russia and elsewhere. Do you
see similarities between those attacks and those against scholars in the
United States?

A: Yes, as I emphasize in my book, we are seeing very similar attacks on
universities in the United States as we have seen in Eastern Europe,
where universities such as Central European University and the European
University of St. Petersburg have been attacked specifically for
spreading liberalism -- a charge we are familiar with in the United
States. As I document, harsh attacks on gender studies are a common
feature of attacks on universities in both Eastern Europe and in the
United States.

Q: Do you believe we are in a period in which fascist ideas pose a
danger to the values of academe?

A: There is an unprecedented tidal wave of money directed at
universities to help promote unfettered free market capitalism -- that
remains, I think, the greatest danger to the autonomy of the university
in the United States today. But there is also a worldwide nationalist
attack on liberalism, which includes attacks on universities with a
global, cosmopolitan ethos. I’m concerned about their convergence.
Fascist politics are often useful tools for business elites, who are
often not committed to the ideology behind them, but may find them
useful as strategically useful weapons (think for example of the way
that powerful elites in the United States have used racist appeals to
attack government programs such as the Affordable Care Act).

My concern is that we could see a consensus forming that universities
should be solely for job skills training, together with “Great Books”
programs that glorify the various values of the ruling class -- from
European identity to unfettered free market capitalism. We also cannot
forget our history, that professors with voices critical of dominant
ideologies have long been targets. Even David Bohm, one of the greatest
physicists who ever lived, lost his position at Princeton University
during the Red Scare, robbing the United States of a substantive
connection to his legacy. It is far from impossible that those days will
return. If universities are to retain their values, it will be key for
university administrators to hold the line, specifically to protect
controversial faculty members -- of whatever ideological stripe -- who
challenge the status quo.