Fascist (insult)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
The governments most often considered to have been fascist include the Mussolini government in Italy, which invented the word; Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, but other similar movements existed across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. "It will be seen that, as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.", George Orwell, What is Fascism?, 1944 |
Illustration: A Child at Gunpoint (1943) from the Stroop Report
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Since the emergence of fascism in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, the term "fascist" has frequently been used as a pejorative epithet against a wide range of individuals, political movements, governments and public institutions, including those that would not usually be classified as fascist in mainstream political science. It usually serves as an emotionally loaded substitute for authoritarian.
As early as 1944, British writer George Orwell commented that following its widespread use in the European press, "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless" due to its non-specific use detached from its original political associations.
See also
- Anti-democratic thought
- Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
- Definitions of fascism
- Godwin's law
- Reductio ad Hitlerum
