> if you think that contemporary applications of the term "fascist" are inaccurate in describing what's happening right now in the US
Didn't say that. I'm saying I've seen the term thrown around wildly to apply to all manner of things. Like the other terms.
The term is probably fundamentally fucked. If you asked Hitler if he's a Nazi, he'd say yes. If you asked Mussolini if he's a Fascist, he'd say yes. These were the words they used to describe themselves. The reason I'm describing the phenomenon versus blaming the folks using the terms broadly is because I don't think this is a personal failing by anyone as much as something that's linguistically happening.
There's also a pragmatic elephant in the room: By the time certain labels are perfectly and undeniably true to say, it's no longer safe for people to speak out and use them!
So our desire for word-correctness should be tempered by our desire for word-utility.
> that's a great way to side line people that are actually talking about real harms
Valid. This is a real linguistic process. But it absolutely debases the original term. I’m not convinced we have to choose between empathy, on one hand, and accuracy, on the other hand.
i think a great example to back your point is that the terminally online turn out in droves to apply the nazi label to all those not in favor of maximising immigration , rational discourse seems to have broken down and the resulting vacuum of meaning is filled by hyperbole as people scamble to feel heard in a world of weak voices & closed ears
"all those not in favor of maximising immigration" is an hyperbole. Do you think the comparison between ICE and the Gestapo is completely unwarranted? Obviously the scales are very different (for now), but it feels justified enough to associate the two, if for no other reason than to remind people that we are on similar tracks that led to the worst times of our shared History.
Seems to me that "all those not in favor of maximising immigration" have largely turned out to be perfectly happy with revoking status from legal immigrants and using unnecessary violence to round people up. The line was always, "We're fine with legal immigrants," which turned out to be a lie, and "follow the law and you have nothing to worry about" which also turned out to be a lie.
How many of those people who got called Nazis are now fighting against the administration's lawless crackdown?
plenty of people get executed under regimes of parties both left and right , im referring to the idea at global scale not specific to any particular country
Mussolini literally coined the word "fascist" to name his movement. Hitler never hid the fact he based his own movement on Mussolini's, so he'd probably describe his party as fascist too. Later, the word became extremely negative for obvious reasons, such that current fascists pretend not to be such, but it doesn't mean they aren't. Overall, I'd say it's used well enough.
Didn't say that. I'm saying I've seen the term thrown around wildly to apply to all manner of things. Like the other terms.
The term is probably fundamentally fucked. If you asked Hitler if he's a Nazi, he'd say yes. If you asked Mussolini if he's a Fascist, he'd say yes. These were the words they used to describe themselves. The reason I'm describing the phenomenon versus blaming the folks using the terms broadly is because I don't think this is a personal failing by anyone as much as something that's linguistically happening.