1. Conclusion on D’Annunzio: Yes, you could call this man a proto-fascist, if you want to play that game. Really, he was a man who totally embodied his era. He could just have easily been a Bolshevik. Indeed, he considered it. Speed, the machine, aircraft, the nation...
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2. ...decadence, Nietzschean confrontation with nihilism, motorboats, racing cars, & adventure. Fear of beauty falling to democracy. And also...boredom. Being so bored of everything that you want a bloody huge war. He understood it all.
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3. He also understood the type of theatrical and exaggerated engagement that is needed for mass politics. This is, of course, quite fascist. But it is also how all politics is done, especially since the advent of TV. Politics is a spectacle.
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4. It was D’annunzio who innovated by delivering speeches to the crowd and not to the assembled dignitaries. Can you imagine not looking at the audience now and only addressing the PM? Unthinkable!
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5. Overall, I actually admire the way he led his life. He was ruthless, but I don’t think he was sentimentally cruel. He used people, a bit like all artists. He definitely crafted his life and, like Mishima, carried out coups against the national psyche.
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6. He wasn’t a hypocrite like the journalists who bang the drum for war today. He did go to war. And, though it bored him, he basically enjoyed it and admitted he did. I think his impact on politics in general is underestimated, and we shouldn’t just conflate him with fascism.
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7. He wasn’t terribly chummy with Mussolini and he detested Hitler. He was, by then, from another and higher age. Mussolini and Hitler were the scum that rose up from the Great War. I can’t help but think d’Annunzio was a likeable fellow.
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