In Umberto Eco’s Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, Eco contemplates on what fascism is. He offers a list of 14 “typical” features to recognize fascism, a political system Italians got to name. He refers to these features as “Ur-Fascism” or “Eternal Fascism.” Eco makes clear that these points are unique to fascism and that they “cannot be organized into a system” as “many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism” (Eco, ). Growing up under Mussolini’s power, Eco rather than pinning down a definition of what exactly fascism is, he tries to understand its emotional foundations and provides a general worldview.
I was very impressed by how an insightful and foreseeing essay this is. Umberto Eco not only strike for lucidity but also he reflected his experiences as a kid under the regime of Fascist Italy in a very provocative and challenging manner. Additionally, it was well seen that he was intimately familiar with the hazy nature of the fascistic thought. …show more content…
Eco points out that these 14 features are common to many totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and that any given example of fascism may not show all of them. Yet, one problem with that is since some if not all of these 14 features of fascism can be found in numerous other political movements; and since the features cannot be systematized – according to Eco – then how many pieces does a particular movement need before it can be fairly called a “fascist”? Nationalism on its own is not fascism, but bald nationalism seems to be what is at play in today’s political scenes and back in the days, so when it can be called as fascism? I believe that we don’t need all of the 14 features to call a movement, or the world itself as a
I was very impressed by how an insightful and foreseeing essay this is. Umberto Eco not only strike for lucidity but also he reflected his experiences as a kid under the regime of Fascist Italy in a very provocative and challenging manner. Additionally, it was well seen that he was intimately familiar with the hazy nature of the fascistic thought. …show more content…
Eco points out that these 14 features are common to many totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and that any given example of fascism may not show all of them. Yet, one problem with that is since some if not all of these 14 features of fascism can be found in numerous other political movements; and since the features cannot be systematized – according to Eco – then how many pieces does a particular movement need before it can be fairly called a “fascist”? Nationalism on its own is not fascism, but bald nationalism seems to be what is at play in today’s political scenes and back in the days, so when it can be called as fascism? I believe that we don’t need all of the 14 features to call a movement, or the world itself as a