Yes, I remember that from the days of the self-help craze back in, what, the 80s? The way it was explained to me is that teaching people self-esteem is teaching them that they have intrinsic worth just by being human beings. This suggests humans are on an equal level with God, when the whole point is that humans are damaged goods who need God to make them whole. Or these days I suppose it’s Donald Trump. Same thing. The idea is that throughout your life you’re under constant surveillance, and you’ll always fail to live up to the godly ideal. When you kick the bucket you’re still no good, but God appreciates how hard you tried, poor thing, and if you’ve followed all the proper rituals during your life, God will accept you into heaven even though you don’t really deserve it.
I wonder if going through constantly reminded what an unworthy piece of shit you are is what fills RWNJ’s with such fury. The only way to feel any sense of self-worth is by treating everyone else on earth as worth even less than they are.
If their ideology is so great, why are they so afraid of all other ideologies (aka: facts). The logical and moral supremacy of their ideas should be a stalwart bulwark against any Liberal infection poisoning the minds of their cheerleaders, quarterbacks, and purity ring clubs (cults), right?
Don’t build a little free library, don’t paint it cheerful, eye-catching colors, don’t make it creative or unique, don’t stock it with interesting books donated by the community, and don’t put it up in a neighborhood that has people who read, especially children who read, in it! Or in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood!
Don’t put cans of food in it, in case there are people in need of a bit of pantry help either!
This has been a public “service” announcement brought to you by people who understand that every kid hears “do” and stops to think about things whenever a grownup says “don’t ever do” or expressly forbids something oddly specific.
Umberto Eco listed the insane paradoxes at the heart of fascism in a 1995 essay, “Ur-Fascism”. This is a summary of his list of 14 typical characteristics of fascism (found at openculture.com):
The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
Repression can have unintended adverse consequences (and an unknowable timeline), making it hard to predict how and how far it damages a culture. In a media-saturated society with enormous economic disparities like the one in the U.S., it’s going to be anyone’s guess how repression’s blowback is going to manifest.
The harder the GOP’s “Cheat to Win” minions work, the more obvious they appear that they are clearly afraid of something. That “something” is not going to be stuffed back in the tube like errant toothpaste squeezed out onto the bathroom counter. Too late for that.
Among the many beings on our planet who suffered during the polar vortex and Winter Storm Uri 2021, estimates have been revised upward to ~700 people in Texas who died in connection with Uri. Some froze to death. Others died in housefires, or from lack of oxygen provided by machines running on electrical power, etc.:
I spent that week trying to stay alive in my 40°F (that’s 4.444444°C) home for several days.
A lack of “burnable materials” ain’t the problem.
A grift-tastic set of GOP officeholders who have been bought and paid for by energy corporations are the problem:
… from where I sit, here, now, in the middle of the Texas Hill Country, it’s not the big cities that are first to go fascist. In fact, the bigger Texas cities (Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso)…
… are least likely to be rabid conservative bastions. Er, izzat what you meant by “fascist”? Most of the flags, yard signs and bumperstickers I see when I drive around Texas are outside the big cities.
Looking over the list though, to me the most ridiculous thing on there (and so, I suppose, the most telling) is two books entitled The Reproductive System. Where does one even start opposing that level of ignorance?
Thinking back to being a teenager, one sure fire way of making me want to read something was knowing it was banned (or more specifically in my case, deemed inappropriate).
EXACTLY. But their grievance industry always paints them as simultaneously super-alpha-men, but also the most discriminated against. I have no idea how they can live in those heads.
Exactlly. Which is why they must be overthrown via methods being put in place.
Which is why Czar Abbott is ruling by fiat restticting masks, vaccine mandates, voting innovations, etc. Can’t let those liberal bastions get uppity…
The list is long; banning books is just the latest addition to it.
Yep.
Which is why I mentioned the installation of fascist mayors & councils in the big cities.
The Hill Country has always been my favorite part of Texas, btw… Austin, in particular.
I think that’s generally true, but there are neighborhoods in the big cities (certainly in my hometown, Dallas) where fascism, Trumpism, and election-denialism are boldly on display; these tend to be the white middle-class areas as well as the conservative New Money/Old Money enclaves.
Agreed.
Definitely seeing that in some neighborhoods in Austin as well. It is just as you say, exactly what you described.
What I was driving at was the diversity of opinion I usually find in bigger Texas cities. It’s just easier for me to find more and other happy mutants in abundance there. There are niches for all the different humans there in the cities’ socio-ecological system.
My mom lives in a small town in the northeast of the state, and was reviled by many of her neighbors for having the only Obama signs in town in 2008 and 2012.
On her “side of the tracks”, anyway.
(Yes, it’s one of those places that still has “right” and “wrong” sides of the tracks.)
Pedestrian, and highway bridges over the tracks should help. But as long as there’s a chance that your interaction with the other side is blocked by a 3 mile wall of box cars that takes twenty minutes to cross, the community will be split.
flags, yard signs and bumperstickers I see when I drive around Texas are outside the big cities.
