There's a kind of thinker who is more worried about being accused of crying wolf than they are worried about being eaten by wolves. There was that one time on the playground that the bully backed them into an corner and raised their fist, but when they called for help the bully shouted "psych!" and everyone laughed. They concluded that the worst thing isn't bullies, but getting laughed at for calling out bullies. Then they grew up to become a journalist.
John, I agree with your arguments about fascism and semi-facsicm. I also think that it's instructive that the same people who reject using that term outside of the interwar era have no problem throwing around such terms as democracy, republic, and communism. Using their logic, however, "democracy" should only apply to Ancient Athens and "republic" to Ancient Rome. And one could argue that "communism" has never truly been implemented as an actual governing ideology. Yet, just as we all use and understand democracy, republic, and communism in sort of generic ways to describe current ideologies, so can we use and understand fascism broadly as a generic term, rather than just the narrow "classical fascism" of the interwar period.
If Hamid continues to be a "burr" under your writing "saddle," I guess we will need to thank him. I read his book Islamic Exceptionalism years ago. It provoked me to read further, which is why I have to thank him.
It is impressive that Hamid has doubled down on his "but will liberals accept a Trump win" bit after it was shown to be essentially irrelevant in 2020. Rather than probe what was so catastrophically off in his earlier analysis, he's recommitted to a totally vacuous intellectual framework that at least doesn't require him to admit he has no real insight to speak of.
folks like Hamid are hilarious. Getting a high-five from the elephant in the room while simultaneously reassuring everyone that there couldn't possibly be an elephant in the room, how would it even get through the door??
The imagination failure of the "inconceivable and absurd" crowd remind me of Primo Levi's search (in the Drowned & the Saved) for an answer of why so many people refused to see what was happening until it was far, far too late. He recalled this German phrase "Was darf nicht sein, kann nicht sein" - what should not be, cannot be. It seems that for a certain type of centrist, the more the fear rises, the more they must loudly proclaim that they are not afraid of the dark, and that in fact, it is still plenty bright enough and all this talk of gathering shadows is defeatist and alarmist. Analytical it ain't. So it's not that surprising that it doesn't respond well to challenges for serious discussion on the merits of the case
There's a kind of thinker who is more worried about being accused of crying wolf than they are worried about being eaten by wolves. There was that one time on the playground that the bully backed them into an corner and raised their fist, but when they called for help the bully shouted "psych!" and everyone laughed. They concluded that the worst thing isn't bullies, but getting laughed at for calling out bullies. Then they grew up to become a journalist.
The cult of savvy is going to kill us all.
John, I agree with your arguments about fascism and semi-facsicm. I also think that it's instructive that the same people who reject using that term outside of the interwar era have no problem throwing around such terms as democracy, republic, and communism. Using their logic, however, "democracy" should only apply to Ancient Athens and "republic" to Ancient Rome. And one could argue that "communism" has never truly been implemented as an actual governing ideology. Yet, just as we all use and understand democracy, republic, and communism in sort of generic ways to describe current ideologies, so can we use and understand fascism broadly as a generic term, rather than just the narrow "classical fascism" of the interwar period.
Worth the Hamid provocation. Excellent piece.
If Hamid continues to be a "burr" under your writing "saddle," I guess we will need to thank him. I read his book Islamic Exceptionalism years ago. It provoked me to read further, which is why I have to thank him.
It is impressive that Hamid has doubled down on his "but will liberals accept a Trump win" bit after it was shown to be essentially irrelevant in 2020. Rather than probe what was so catastrophically off in his earlier analysis, he's recommitted to a totally vacuous intellectual framework that at least doesn't require him to admit he has no real insight to speak of.
folks like Hamid are hilarious. Getting a high-five from the elephant in the room while simultaneously reassuring everyone that there couldn't possibly be an elephant in the room, how would it even get through the door??
The imagination failure of the "inconceivable and absurd" crowd remind me of Primo Levi's search (in the Drowned & the Saved) for an answer of why so many people refused to see what was happening until it was far, far too late. He recalled this German phrase "Was darf nicht sein, kann nicht sein" - what should not be, cannot be. It seems that for a certain type of centrist, the more the fear rises, the more they must loudly proclaim that they are not afraid of the dark, and that in fact, it is still plenty bright enough and all this talk of gathering shadows is defeatist and alarmist. Analytical it ain't. So it's not that surprising that it doesn't respond well to challenges for serious discussion on the merits of the case