Fascist (insult)

The word "'fascist'" ( or "fascism") is sometimes used to denigrate people, institutions or groups that would not describe themselves as ideologically fascist, and that may not fall within the formal definition of the word. As a political epithet, the word fascist has been applied to a broad range of people and groups on the extreme right for the most part, but also to groups on the far left and most points in between. It has also been applied to people of many religious faiths, particularly fundamentalist groups. Not surprisingly, the individual, institution or group(s) called fascist often find the use of the term in this way to be highly offensive and inappropriate.

The word "fascist" when used in this sense is meant to mean "oppressive," "intolerant," "chauvinist," "genocidal", "dictatorial," "racist" and/or "aggressive," all concepts that are at least loosely inspired by the ideology of actual fascism. One might accuse an inconveniently placed police road block as being a "fascist tactic" or an overly authoritarian teacher as being "a total fascist." Terms like "Nazi" and "Hitlerite," correctly or incorrectly, are often used in similar contexts.

The word social fascists was used by communists against social democrats before 1933 and is still in use in some communist circles when referring to modern social democracy movements. As early as 1944, the term had already become so widely and loosely employed that British essayist and novelist George Orwell was moved to write:

It would seem 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, bullfighting, 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.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, 'fascist' was popular term used by liberals to describe a wide range of individuals, governments, and public institutions. The term was often paired with other insulting terms, the most common being pig, as in fascist-pig. In this context, the term fascist generally referred to conservative positions which prioritised the maintenance of existing social relations over various personal rights upheld by protesters and dissidents. It basically served as an emotive substitute for "authoritarian", though it also described specific analytical functions (such as emphasising the privileging of order over freedom in an opponent's discourse, the perceived racism of 'imperialist' practices, or even specific Marxist theories of the origins of fascism).

In the 1980s the term was used by leftist critics to describe the Reagan administration and in the 2000s, the George W. Bush administration. In her 1970 book Beyond Mere Obedience radical activist and theologian Dorothee Sölle, coined the term Christofascist to describe fundamentalist Christians.

By the 2000s, the term was just as frequently used in the opposite direction. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a number of commentators, particularly in the United States, began using the term "Islamofascism" to describe Islamism and militant Islam. On August 10, 2006, in the wake of an alleged terror plot foiled in London, President Bush described the war on terror as a war against "Islamic fascists".

So by 2004, Samantha Power, lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, reflected Orwell's words from 60 years previously when she said, "Fascism -- unlike Communism, socialism, capitalism or conservatism -- is a smear word more often used to brand one's foes than it is a descriptor used to shed light on them."

The term is also often used as an insult with regards to the ruling party being too heavy-handed in certain actions. For instance, it was frequently used to describe Margaret Thatcher's policies such as using the police to quell public disruptions during the miner's strike.

The cult British sitcom, The Young Ones, regularly had the term "fascist" used as an insult. It was often used to get a laugh at the expense of Neil, the hippie, who by all ideological standards would have been anything but an actual fascist.

National Review Online editor Jonah Goldberg presents a perspective that fascism is fostered from liberal ideals, as the title of his 2007 book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning asserts.

Possible justifications for use

While attracting criticisms for imprecision and for downplaying the extremity of actual fascism, the use of "fascist" as an epithet for authoritarian and intolerant power-holders has a distinct analytical basis, suggesting that fascism is a continuum or a social relation rather than simply a political system, and that acts of repression are in some way homologous with fascist ideology.

For instance, the description of authoritarian politicians as "fascist" may well be more accurate than their own self-depiction as agents of the people or as liberal democrats, since such dictators often attach more importance to social stability, order and the 'national interest' than to individual rights, social inclusion, or the avoidance of discrimination. An example might be the regimes of Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet and Rafael Trujillo.

Theories such as Felix Guattari's concept of microfascism and Wilhelm Reich's theory of fascism as repressive-desire provide an analytical basis for interpreting intolerance, chauvinism and authoritarianism as "fascist". The idea of authoritarian personalities prone to fascist attachments may be one reason why "fascism" is used as an epithet for the same kind of people who might be called "anal-retentive". On An(Archy) and Schizoanalysis by Rolando Perez is an example of a text which uses the word "fascist" in an analytically-informed way which is almost coterminous with the usage of "epithet", showing that such usage is not necessarily ill-informed or unsystematic. One basic point of these perspectives is that a libertarian or emancipatory outlook requires openness of social space, tolerance or celebration of difference and opposition to arbitrary authority; an absence of such an outlook contributes to social closure and exclusion, thus producing social effects similar to a fascist regime (oppression of minorities, lack of basic liberties and so on).

There are also Marxist theories which back up particular uses of "fascism" beyond its usual remit. For instance, Poulantzas's theory of state monopoly capitalism could be associated with the idea of a military-industrial complex to suggest that 1960s America had a fascist social structure; this kind of aoist or Guevarist analysis often underpinned the rhetorical depiction of Cold War authoritarians as fascists. The German anti-fascist group AFA and Basque separatists ETA take continuities in the Spanish and German states after the supposed fall of fascism to indicate a continuation of fascism in ongoing repressive practices.

Some Marxists from groups such as the Indian section of the USFI and the Hekmatist groups in Iran and Iraq have also provided analytical accounts as to why the term "fascist" should be applied to groups such as the Hindutva movement, the 1979 Islamic Iranian regime or the Islamist sections of the Iraqi insurgency.

Other scholars contend that the traditional meaning of the term fascism does not apply to Hindutva groups, and may hinder an analysis of their activities.