Fascism, a Primer, Part 2: From Under the Rubble, Episode 16
Fleming and Scott continue their search for the meaning and implications of fascism and anti-fascism.
Original Air Date: September 15, 2017
Show Run Time: 12 minutes
Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming
Show Host(s): Rex Scott
From Under the Rubble℗ is a Production of the Fleming Foundation. Copyright 2017. All Rights are Reserved.
An excellent primer on theory and practice of fascism and the evolution of the word. Too bad for Mussolini that he didn’t retire in 1934. How would history remember him in that case?
This podcast is worth a couple of listens. Good to hear Rockford Rex on there. Makes for a wonderful conversation. I hope to hear more of the Fleming-Scott Dialogues. Certainly a refreshing change from Michael “I’m a strong conservative” Medved on the afternoon commute.
Radical Rex, as he was once known on local Christian radio, has been helping out at our programs for several years. He is a generous and resourceful man with talents and skills in the audio-visual world that put the rest of us to shame. He has been kind enough to assist us in these endeavors so far as time allows. He has good instincts, and the fact that he is ideologically something of a tabula rasa makes him an interesting partner–so long as he doesn’t try to insert a Judas Priest track as bumper music!
Rex is officially the first person I met from Rockford, being the kind man who picked me up at the (late, lamented?) Clock Tower four years ago. My first Summer School.
Off topic, but since we are discussing matters concerning Italy here, news comes this weekend that Gaston Moschin has died at age 88. I know nothing of his body of work, save this: he played Don Fanucci in Godfather II, the humble mafioso who only wanted to wet his beak. RIP
If only we had senators of his decency!
Thank you for these podcasts. Fascism never seemed to be as well defined as other ideologies, which can be a difficulty for those who try understand it, aside from the fact that good sources for learning about are not always easily available or well known. Of course, when promoters of other isms try to create a clear exposition of their ism, often they get lost in a muddle of confusion, self deception, and specialized terminology not understood by neophytes.
Would it be wrong to say that Fascism, as bad as it was, seems to be more down to earth, more pragmatic, and less delusional, than just about any other ism, except, perhaps, some forms of libertarianism?
It is worse in certain respects than libertarianism in elevating the national community and “the state” to a morally and spiritually privileged position, but it is better in being more pragmatic, less abstract, and more consistent with the realities of human life. These days, of course, Fascist is a term of abuse for all the virtues and everything normal. Such misuse of language is far too flattering to the Fascists. There is, of course, the famous article in the Italian Encyclopedia, officially authored by Mussolini but written by Giovanni Gentile. It is an interesting statement of the “organic” view of the commonwealth, though to their credit the Italians were never up to implementing any philosophy of government. Even Italian Communist–at least the ones I have known–tend to be pretty normal people, though in the War many of the Communist Partisans behaved as thugs. The chapters in The Red Horse dealing with the Partisans came out of the accounts of his brother the physician who became a medical missionary after the war. I met him once at dinner (in Besana) and could not help calling him by his fictional name. He took it in good spirit–I suppose he was used to it.
I should add that we live in such a degraded culture that one simply cannot talk honestly about Fascism–or anything political–without giving enemies and even rival colleagues weapons. Dick Neuhaus–whom John Lofton used to call the Bag Pastor–sounded me out on Fascism when we were both in our cups and tried to use it against me in a meeting the next day. Unfortunately, he was so philosophically and historically ignorant, it was not too difficult to shut him down. Still, it was sufficient warning never to speak candidly in the presence of opportunists and liars.