Thursday, August 5, 2010

I’m a fascist, but you’re a socialist.

Go to RedState.com or DailyKos.com, and you will see these two terms bandied about generously. It seems that there are many schools of thought on why types of insults are so common in American’s political discourse, the term socialism being the insult de jour. The common explanation is that it just a sign of political polarization, anger, and extremism. While all of these things are certainly a factor, I think it has more to do with the fact that the political class has mastered the art of capitalizing on intellectual laziness. This does after all touch on modern American’s two biggest intellectual attributes; the desire to reduce everything to something very simple, and the inherent categorical pattern of thinking, which is a form of prejudicial thinking.
So, all the political class needs to do is to demonize one side by presenting a nice little package for the other side to fit in. If it is the left, communist or socialist will do; if the right, facist or nazi. There is no worry that they will be called on the genetic fallacy as that is built into the thinking of most people (if it quacks like a socialist). This is not to say that there are not elements of these ideologies in our current political ideologies as modern liberals are influenced by Marx and by the American left of the 1930s as well as Conservatives have much in common with some fascist ideology (especially those heavily influenced by the likes of Leo Strauss). American voters make the genetic fallacy (in spades) if they allow these packages to influence their views on an ideology without examining each sides specific views. The implication by these terms is totalitarian government, which I don’t believe is part of either ideology. The problem is that neither ideology fits all characteristics of what we think that socialism and fascism are (liberals policies do have a lot in common with Western democratic socialism, but that is not the image that the pejorative conjures). All ideologies have flaws, but should be able to stand or fall on their own merits rather than categorical similarities alone. Certainly these categories can be helpful if used with care in examine why an ideology might fail or how it developed, but I’m not sure that comparing Obama to Stalin because of increased taxes is such a good idea.

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