# Fascism

Fascist (from Latin *fasces*, "bundle", "group", ancient symbol of power to punish) groups are subgroups of society that strongly pursue [self interest](self_interest.md) on the detriment of others (those who are not part of said group). Fascism is a [rightist](left_right.md), [competitive](competition.md) tendency, very much connected to [identity politics](identity_politics.md) (being or rather feeling to be part of some group, e.g. nation, sex, [race](race.md) etc.); fascists aim to make themselves as strong, as powerful and as rich as possible, i.e. to weaken and possibly eliminate competing groups, to have power over them, enslave them and to seize their resources. Fascism uses mechanism of [tribalism](tribalism.md) -- a primitive instinct to which the unintelligent easily gives in and which is just as easily abused by a politician. Fascist modi operandi are almost exclusively [evil](evil.md), including [violence](violence.md), [bullying](bully.md), [wars](war.md), [propaganda](propaganda.md), [eye for an eye](revenge.md), [slavery](slavery.md) etc. "America first!" is an example of a fascist slogan, and it remains fascism whatever we replace "America" with, be it any other country, [race](race.md), social minority, social majority and so on.

A few examples of fascist groups are [corporations](corporation.md), [nations](nationalism.md), NSDAP ([Nazis](nazi.md)), [LGBT](lgbt.md), [feminists](feminism.md), [Antifa](antifa.md), [KKK](kkk.md), [Marxists](marxism.md) and, of course, the infamous Italian fascist party of Benito Mussolini. Some famous fascists include Alexander the Great, [Napoleon](napoleon.md), [Churchill](churchill.md), [Julius Caesar](caesar.md), [Hitler](hitler.md), Mussolini, [Stalin](stalin.md), Henry Ford, [Steve Jobs](steve_jobs.md) and all [American](usa.md) presidents (basically any so called "great leader" can be included).

Fascism is always bad and we have to aim for its elimination (that is elimination of fascism, NOT fascists -- fascists are people and living beings to whom we wish no harm). But here comes an immensely important warning: **in eliminating fascism be extremely careful to not become a fascist yourself**. We very intentionally do NOT call for *[fighting](fight_culture.md)* fascism as fight implies violence, the primary tool and pillar of fascism. **Elimination of fascism has to be conducted in a [non-violent](nonviolence.md) way**. Sadly, generation after generation keeps repeating the same mistake over and over: they keep opposing fascism by fascist means, eventually taking the oppressor's place and turning into the new oppressor, only to again be dethroned by the new generation of "to-be-fascist-antifascists". This has happened e.g. with [feminism](feminism.md) and other [pseudoleftist](pseudoleft.md) movements. It's an endless cycle of stupidity but, more importantly, endless suffering of people. The cycle must be ended. We must choose not the easy way of violence, but the difficult way of non-violent rejection which includes loving the enemy as we [love](love.md) ourselves. Fascism is all about loving one's own group while hating the enemy groups -- if we can achieve loving all groups of people, even fascists themselves, fascism will have been by definition eliminated.

**[Identity](identity.md) is the parent of fascism, [fear](fear_culture.md) is its fuel**. Identity makes one mentally separate people into groups, feel part of one of them and feel threatened by the other ones. When fear of an individual reaches certain level -- which is different for everyone -- he turns to fascism. Even that who is normally anti fascist has a breaking point, under extreme pressure of fear one starts to seek purely selfish goals. This is why e.g. [capitalism](capitalism.md) fuels [fear culture](fear_culture.md): it makes people fascists which is a prerequisite for becoming a capitalist. When "leaders" of nations need to lead [war](war.md), they start spreading propaganda of fear so as to turn people into fascists that easily become soldiers. This is why [education](education.md) is important in eliminating fascism: it is important to e.g. show that we need not be afraid of people of other cultures, of sharing information and resources etc. The bullshit of fear propaganda has to be exposed.

There are many easy giveaways of fascism -- in general fascism is linked to some of the following:

- [pride](pride.md)
- sense of [identity](identity_politics.md) (sexual orientation, [race](race.md), sex, nation, political party, ...)
- flags, flag-like symbols
- uniforms, unified fashion (wearing same colors, hairstyles, clothes ...), parades
- sense of [competition](competition.md), war mentality, encouragement of "[fighting spirit](fight_culture.md)", punishment of [defeatism](defeatism.md)
- [heroes](hero_culture.md), leaders, [cults of personality](cult_of_personality.md), strong rhetoric (commonly using words like "[justice](justice.md)", "responsibility", "strength", "victory", ...)
- the sense of [nation](nationalism.md), community or similar separating groups
- demanding "[rights](rights_culture.md)"
- [militarism](militarism.md)
- propaganda, [censorship](censorship.md), brainwashing, mass hysteria
- hype, [fear](fear_culture.md), hysteria, pressure to take action
- ...

In relation to fascism we may define so called **fascist radius** -- given an individual, fascist radius says how far away (by some metric of [distance](distance.md), similarity to the individual, e.g. genetic similarity, geographic distance, intelligence, ...) he considers others part of his group; individuals beyond this radius -- those out of the circle -- he considers enemies. Fascist radius so small that it includes only the individual himself is pure self centrism, such individual considers everyone else potential enemy and only aims to benefit himself and no one else. Radius that will include tens of people might be called a [mafia](mafia.md) radius, the individual will try to benefit a group of individuals who are personally close, typically a family. A bigger radius may be that of a city, company, local sports team fans etc. When the size of the group gets into millions, we typically encounter [nationalism](nationalism.md), but it may also be a different kind of fascism, for example religious or ideological. On the scale of billions of individuals we might get [racism](racism.md), continent supremacy, large religions, human-centrism etc. Only when the fascist radius gets infinitely large or zero fascism degenerates and disappears -- in this case there are no longer separate groups, everyone is either inside the circle (infinite radius) or outside of it (zero radius), and this is what [we](lrs.md) want to achieve.