Laura Jedeed (Misanthrophile)

A common reactions I get when I tell people I study fascism is, "oh, do you study far-left authoritarianism too ACCUSATORY GLARE" There's a lot to unpack there, but let's start here: "Oh, you study cancer? Do you study heart disease too, or are you just a big hypocrite?"

Look, if you want to study the supposed Stalinist menace posed by everyone left of Romney, go ahead. Maybe you'd learn something about where the violence is actually coming from (hint: not the Left) Meanwhile I'm gonna specialize because specialization is how you git gud

The real issue though is that people have been taught that fascism and communism are two different words for authoritarianism. I hear this over and over again, and it's not true.

Communism is an economic theory that has been implemented in different ways to differing degrees of success. From Denmark to the USSR to the good old USA, Marxist and other communist/socialist thinkers have influenced policy, with various results--some very bad, some pretty ok

That's because communism is an actual robust political theory. Maybe you don't like that theory but holy shit is it intellectual. Lots of writing on it. Detailed. Debate rages on within the wider label of communist/socialist. Different schools of thought, exhaustively explored

Fascism is fundamentally different. There is no ideology. There is no consistent thought. There is no significant body of work Fascism does not believe in truth or falsehood. It believes in whatever brings it to power and allows the in-group to triumph