Profligate use, in currently heated political discourse, of the words “fascist” and “fascism” threatens to render them uninformative. One hears accusations of “fascism” applied to such a diversity of political types that being called one seems little more distinctive than wearing blue jeans. Neo-Nazis—appropriately—have been called fascists. But clusters of people on the opposite end of the political spectrum also get so labeled: for example,this pieceuses “fascist” to refer to students at Yale demanding a safe space. And we’ve even seen, ironically, the word “fascist”appliedto members of the leftist group Antifa, who are supposed to beanti-fascist. Any word that gets thrown around this widely risks becoming an empty or mostly empty label.

Profligate use, furthermore, is endemic to negatively charged political terms. “Terrorist” is the obvious example: anyone who attends to usage can tell that English speakers often label as “terrorist” anyone of a different political stripe who does something violent. Cynically, we might think “x is a terrorist” just meansx is violent and not part of my in-group. Similarly self-centered usage arises with words like “socialism.” “Socialism” gets applied almost indexically: “socialism” is using government money to pay for things thatdon’t benefit me.

这样的观察并不新鲜。George Orwell, famously,notedsomething similar about “fascist” in 1944: “ . . . almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.”

如果这个词已经传播了这么长时间，我们应该放弃吗?它不再是一个有用的词了吗(除了作为一种侮辱)?我们应该抛弃它吗?

I don’t think we should accept those conclusions. Two reasons leap out.

首先，这个论点证明得太多了:如果肆意使用是抛弃一个政治术语的足够理由，我们几乎是wouldn’t have political terms. So a better conclusion would be that it’s just inevitable that political terms will always need semantic maintenance by the conscientious (hence the attempt I’m making in this blog).

Second, there are groups of people in history who havecalled themselves“Fascists” (or some variant involving that term) as part of an official name. Benito Mussolini’s political party, for example, called itselfPartito Nazionale Fascista(National Fascist Party). It would be a mistake to stop using the word to refer to such groups, even if (grant for the sake of argument) the term’s applicability to present groups is murky.

In addition, I actually think that even today “fascism” has a firmer meaning than its unprincipled usage would suggest (NB: Orwell’s view that the word has been “abused” subtly implies something similar, since in order for a term to be abused, it must have a meaning in the first place). My view is that, in addition to “Fascist” being anamefor certain historical groups that explicitly adopted that label, “fascist” can also function as adescriptionfor other groups that share key characteristics with the groups so named.

The origin of the word—and the reason it was originally chosen—helps us understand what it means. “Fascism” is derived from the Italian word “fascio,” which itself derives from the Latin word “fasces,” which refers to a bundle of rods that is bound together so as to be stronger than the rods would be when separate. The view of the early Italian Fascists was that, if people of a certain kind bind themselves together, they will bestronger as a groupand that such strength through binding togetheris a good thing.

So the ideas implied by the fascio—elements of a kind, binding together, and strength—give us guidance to how we should understand the political movements to which “fascist” genuinely applies. Such groups emphasize that people of a certain kind (Italian, white, Aryan, or whatever) should bind themselves together as a group and thereby obtain strength. Correspondingly, people who arenotof that certain kind are deprioritized, pushed aside, or worse . . . exterminated. And that is also supposed to be for the good of the group.

Since it’s the strength of the fascio that matters in the eyes of fascists, two perversions of the idea of justice consequently arise. The first is the one just implied: people of the “wrong” kind don’t get justice at all. The second is a bit less obvious but still palpable: since it’s the strength of the group that matters, there’s little room for justice for individuals who aren’t making the group stronger. All of this means that fascists essentially don’t believe in impartial justice at all, despite what they might say. Accordingly, application of law has been invariably loose in fascist regimes.

That raises the following question: if fascists don’t generally endorse impartial justice, how does their group governance even work? This is where thestrong leadercomes in: one thing to look for in discerning whether a certain group truly deserves to be called “fascist” is the way they relate to the leader of the group. Since impartial laws of justice have little to no place, fascists come to have quasi-religious devotion to a “great” leader—a Mussolini, a Hitler, a Franco,or . . .

Finally, the emphasis on the strength of “our” group, combined with the demotion of justice, leads naturally to the glorification of violence as a means of expanding group strength. And this feature—not just use of, butglorificationof violence—has been a characteristic, even though it’s often disguised, of all fascists.

总而言之，这一系列特征，以及将它们联系在一起的奇怪逻辑，都被“法西斯主义”一词所暗示:群体内主义、对外人的怀疑、对群体领袖的准宗教忠诚、对公正的法律和正义的贬低，以及对暴力手段的美化。此外，当所有这些都结合在一起，形成一个可以追溯到最初的“法西斯主义者”的历史谱系时，“法西斯主义者”这个词显然就适用了。相反，这个词的其他用法渐渐变成了侮辱。因此，我们应该准确地使用这个词，而不是懒惰地使用。如果我们这样做，这是一个有用的词，尤其是最近。