JCC The JCC Fascism Thread

Yes, but Jello doesn't follow British sports like motor-racing, rugby, and cricket. It's fake.

Plus I legitimately would leave Australia if it became a Republic. 100% no lie.

 

What happens if Britain abolishes the monarchy and becomes a Republic?

 

I did know this, I was just trolling because your country isn't important to me.

 

You haven't been to Britain have you?

 

Speaking of fascist, I wonder what would have happened to the monarchy if that pro-Nazi Edward VIII had stayed king.

 

As I seem to recall you're a fellow Mishima fan: would you say he falls under this umbrella, or would you say his brand of ultra-nationalism is too peculiar for such a classification? I'm honestly torn.

 

oh my god thanks to you people i found a fascist discussion forum whilst searching for pictures for this thread and i think its my new favorite forum to read-only. ive made at least one new NSA list in the last hour. who wants to join me?

their adminship (yes, they call it that) is NAZBOL, for christsakes!

 

Britain still would have been better than America, and you'd still be offended by it?

 

oh totally. i would argue that mishima is the purest fascist that ever lived. just look at how he organized his literary career and orchestrated his own death as a piece of heroic art for the advancement a return to a more totalitarian form of government. that is fascism, writ large. and i love him for it

have you read Patriotism? or seen the film (directed by and starring mishima himself)? you cant do either without kind of wanting to be a fascist for the duration. its the genius of mishima

 

I wasn't crazy about this part of #1:

It seems to me that Eco is conflating captial-T "Truth" with a scientific definition of "learning." The kind of people who like to mix Stonehenge with their St. Augustine are after Truth, particularly Truth about what it means to be human. (Whether they're also dingbats or not I leave up to you.) I think there is something to be said for the position that Truth about human nature is indeed ancient and to be found equally in all cultures at all times.

This is not to say that humanity can't add to its store of knowledge in any way. Science--as distinct from tradition or religion or folklore--does that every day.

I pretty much agreed with the others. Scary how accurately Eco described certain segments of American society.

 

ophelia i dont think you're understanding what eco was saying there. he's saying that in fascist ideology there can be no new knowledge or learning because Truth must be plain and uncomplicated for the fascist. elegant -- as i keep touching on, one way of looking at fascism is as the pure aestheticization of politics. fascist ideology is extremely shallow, and is so by design, which is often the secret of its political success.

understand that eco is talking about political fascism (eco being italian and "blackshirts" being italian ultranationalists). what he speaks of is the elevation (or perhaps the degeneration) of elements like stonehenge etc from the spiritual to the political. he's not worried about new age blackshirts -- he's simply pointing out that the same urges driving them, urges within all of us, urges to power (seriously wishing i could just quote foucault at length here...) are the seeds of fascism. but they have to be raised to a politics first

 

everybody watch Mishima's Patriotism. everybody read the ~50 page short story Patriotism too, but watch it first because its on youtube and you have no excuse not to. its a 28 minute silent film and it will blow your mind out of your skull. this is the type of **** they dont show at film school because it might accidentally turn you into a non-hack. im almost afraid to post it because it may actually turn some of you into full blown fascists. otoh none of you probably will actually watch it so i guess im safe.



by the way in addition to being one of the greatest writers of all time as well as a accomplished director, playwright, actor, political organizer... he was also more ripped than you.



he was perhaps the only prominent fascist in history to actually be ridiculously good looking, bringing his physical body into accordance with his obligatory fascist obesession with sex and aesthetics

 

You really should Jello.

 

i dont think you will turn into a fascist, jello. you're too entrenched in your pro-aristocracy views to be seduced by fascism. as you pointed out (and i think this is true and i cant imagine eco would disagree with you) an aristocracy has no more place than communists do in fascist state. their symbols need to be more condensed than that. so you may have fascism organized around an Emperor or a Great Leader, but no room for extensive branches of aristocracy underneath. eco (or his translator, i dont think the article originally appeared in english and i dont know if he translated it himself) was using the term "elitism" in a different way than you do. fascists are elitist in that they depend on Ideal forms and over-arching Symbols, not in that they have a huge hard-on for barons and such like you do

 

Hmm. I watched the video, and don't quite know what to think of it. I didn't get attached to either character and have nothing but a passing historical interest in the Japanese monarchy, so it didn't set off any fireworks. For a film about love and death, it was actually kind of dry. Isn't Fascist art supposed to be all about the emotional punch?

 

no emotional punch? no attachment? i really dont know what to tell you. maybe Ender Sai has a question he could ask you on our behalf?

 

I still think it's hilarious that people are still calling Obama a fascist.

 

Maybe I've just been spoiled by "Triumph of the Will." That has catchy tunes and sieg heiling babies in it.

 

tbf the original screenings of Patriotism, (like reifenstahl's masterpiece), were accompanied by a Richard Wagner score (Tristan and Isolde), so that probably helped the fascist punch a bit. the original copies of the film were all destroyed at mishima's wife's request after he committed hara-kiri irl (the last japanese public figure to do so) in the 70s. somebody found the negatives in the early 2000s in a tea chest somewhere, so thats where all the modern versions come from. for some reason they used a different score in that youtube video.

 

Wagner would have helped a lot! The soundtrack to the YouTube video has a very stripped-down, minimalist feel. It kind of goes with the starkness of the film's visuals, but it doesn't really stir the emotions.

 

yeah i wonder what the criterion version is accompanied by...

 

I do love Richard Wagner though. I mean, racism and all that aside it's hard to argue the music isn't beautiful and stirring. I have a Lorin Maazel arrangement of the Ring cycle, without words, and you can hear how he influenced John Williams among others (including Tolkien, who denies it - queue the Hobbit apologists to come in and defend JRRT).

Also I get massive amounts of satisfaction correcting people who say his first name as if it was pronounced "Richard" instead of "Rickard".

 

that music makes it even more depressing and morbidly self-absorbed than it already is. triumph of the will is depressing. olympia is not as depressing, but it's just as vacant.