[Daktoria]

Let's say once upon a time, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan actually knocked out the Soviet Union and the U.S.

Now, let's say Germany and Japan got nukes.

How long would it take until mutually assured destruction and nuclear armageddon?

[Wolfman]

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan actually knocked out the Soviet Union and the U.S.

You're forgetting a bunch of countries on both sides of the conflict, but go on.

Now, let's say Germany and Japan got nukes.

Did the rest of the Axis forces get shelled along with the US? But whatever, they become the new Bi-polar forces. Go on.

How long would it take until mutually assured destruction and nuclear armageddon?

I don't know. How long did it take for MAD to kick in with the US/USSR Cold War take to happen? What was it, two weeks?

[Daktoria]

Wolf, no offense, but why are you always angry?

Anyway, the point is the U.S./USSR didn't have the motive to go crazy. With democracy on one side and selfish communists on the other, you can't really expect either side to go all out in a game of chicken like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

With the Germans and Japanese though, they rather admired "go hard or die trying". You need that iron fist berserkergang in order to get the strongest performance (and not be at risk for limbo).

I just can't see fascists living long among each other. They'll fight common ideological enemies, but once they become supreme, they'll kill themselves in pursuit of killing each other as fast as possible.

It's an interesting mindset though. On one hand, you have to be willing to dominate, enslave, and even torture to get the most out of life and succeed in the hierarchic game. On the other hand, you have to be willing to die out of a sort of self-liberation from reality and demonstration of courage.

Anyone who doesn't grasp that self-liberation is treated as disrespecting the game of life, so they're deserving of punishment regardless.

The part I really don't get though is how environmentalism always manages to get squeezed into the thick of things. Yea, nature is the source of emotions, but wouldn't an optimal aggressive strategy put environmental destruction itself on the line?

Hence the paradox of nuclear armageddon.

[Wolfman]

Wolf, no offense, but why are you always angry?

I hate you.

Anyway, the point is the U.S./USSR didn't have the motive to go crazy. With democracy on one side and selfish communists on the other, you can't really expect either side to go all out in a game of chicken like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So, we're reducing a major feature of the 20th Century down to the good guys vs the bad guys?

I just can't see fascists living long among each other. They'll fight common ideological enemies, but once they become supreme, they'll kill themselves in pursuit of killing each other as fast as possible.

So, Fascists just seek to kill everything that moves?

It's an interesting mindset though. On one hand, you have to be willing to dominate, enslave, and even torture to get the most out of life and succeed in the hierarchic game. On the other hand, you have to be willing to die out of a sort of self-liberation from reality and demonstration of courage.

And they want to go around torturing people to get to a better position to kill everything that moves?

Anyone who doesn't grasp that self-liberation is treated as disrespecting the game of life, so they're deserving of punishment regardless.

What?

The part I really don't get though is how environmentalism always manages to get squeezed into the thick of things. Yea, nature is the source of emotions, but wouldn't an optimal aggressive strategy put environmental destruction itself on the line?

Again: what?

Hence the paradox of nuclear armageddon.

Once more: what?

[Fasces]

We have a fundamental misinterpretation of motive here. If you are arguing that Japan and Germany would want to or be capable of aggression against the other, this claim needs to be proved, Dak. US/Soviet relations were marred by fundamental conflicts in both ideology and geopolitical needs that would not exist in your proposed case. I see no reason to think that a Cold War between the two, rather than against the United States - because a land invasion at the time is simply inconceivable - emerging.

[Daktoria]

I hate you.

Forget me. Whenever I read your posts, you're always angry.

So, we're reducing a major feature of the 20th Century down to the good guys vs the bad guys?

Nah, call it a psychoanalysis of ideology.

So, Fascists just seek to kill everything that moves?

You know, I actually want to say "yes" to this because part and parcel with competition is the extraction and refinement of natural resources.

I don't think fascists would seek to kill everything right away, but eventually, they'd seek to turn the whole world into some sort of Borg/Replicator/Von Neumann machine assembly line. If for no other reason, it'd be to perpetually hypercompete down to the margin.

And they want to go around torturing people to get to a better position to kill everything that moves?

No, they'd torture people in order to make them work and force them to change.

Besides, there'd be no interest in preserving inferior life, so it'd be for entertainment's sake at least. The strongest fascist is a sadistic fascist since a sadistic fascist is the most violent, conniving, and aggressive.

What?

I'm thinking mostly of Japanese Banzai and Kamikaze tactics here. There's probably a German corollary.

Again: what?

http://www.minnesotansforglobalwarming. ... reich.html
http://reason.com/archives/2002/08/08/hitler-was-greedy

_________________

We have a fundamental misinterpretation of motive here. If you are arguing that Japan and Germany would want to or be capable of aggression against the other, this claim needs to be proved, Dak. US/Soviet relations were marred by fundamental conflicts in both ideology and geopolitical needs that would not exist in your proposed case. I see no reason to think that a Cold War between the two, rather than against the United States - because a land invasion at the time is simply inconceivable - emerging.

Well it doesn't matter if it'd take 20-30 or however many years to happen (though you'd probably have strife in south Asia and the Soviet Union as spheres of influence).

The point is that the Germans and Japanese would eventually both be aiming to become the superior race, and the abundant militarism in both cultures would drive them into contest. Oddly enough, it'd probably be viewed as a form of friendly aggression because both sides would intuitively know what's really going on, so it'd be an honorable fight to the death.

Fascist MAD seems to be a suicide pact more than a dystopia.

(As for America, I can't see America recovering and not becoming fascist itself. Without global neoliberalism, the U.S. wouldn't have the economic bootstraps to pull itself up from.)

[Fasces]

Again, you are assuming rather than proving. I don't particularly care what you "believe" is "obvious".

[Wolfman]

Nah, call it a psychoanalysis of ideology.

Psychoanalysis is associated with Sigmund Freud. Freudian Psychology is such a massive load of shit that it's stupendous to me that people actually subscribe to it (psychology major).

You know, I actually want to say "yes" to this because part and parcel with competition is the extraction and refinement of natural resources.

OK then...

I don't think fascists would seek to kill everything right away, but eventually, they'd seek to turn the whole world into some sort of Borg/Replicator/Von Neumann machine assembly line. If for no other reason, it'd be to perpetually hypercompete down to the margin.

OK, you have no idea what Fascism is. So noted. Until you figure out what the hell you're talking about, I'm leaving.

[Daktoria]

Again, you are assuming rather than proving. I don't particularly care what you "believe" is "obvious".

Seriously, how can you possibly have fascism without nationalist, ethnocentric, militarist pride?

It's just a result of the definition. Germans and Japanese are different people, so eventually, they're just not going to like tolerate each other because they're different.

OK, you have no idea what Fascism is. So noted. Until you figure out what the hell you're talking about, I'm leaving.

Enlighten me?

What motive could you possibly have to refrain from completely marginalizing the environment in competing with fellow fascists?

The only way I can see this happening is holding back from going all out just to fight again in the future, but there's no way to objectively define that line, especially since you're already willing to blur the private-public dichotomy for the sake of nationally interested industrial capacity. Without objective definition, negotiating the line itself will become part of the battlefield.

Seriously, I have no idea how you guys tolerate each other besides having a common enemy. The weird part is you'd actually need that common enemy in order to mediate among yourselves. Otherwise, you'd just blow up the whole world out of haphazardness.

[Wolfman]

Enlighten me?

That's what books are for.

What motive could you possibly have to refrain from completely marginalizing the environment in competing with fellow fascists?

What the fuck are you ranting about you goddamn lunatic?

The only way I can see this happening is holding back from going all out just to fight again in the future, but there's no way to objectively define that line.

Or being allies?

Seriously, I have no idea how you guys tolerate each other besides having a common enemy. The weird part is you'd actually need that common enemy in order to mediate among yourselves. Otherwise, you'd just blow up the whole world out of haphazardness.

Because they're allies? Where the fuck are you getting this notion that Fascism is about nothing other then war and genocide?

[Daktoria]

That's what books are for.

What do you suggest I read?

Because they're allies? Where the fuck are you getting this notion that Fascism is about nothing other then war and genocide?

/facepalm

I've never come across a fascist that seemed peaceful and tolerant, have you?

[Wolfman]

What do you suggest I read?

Obvious answer is obvious.

I've never come across a fascist that seemed peaceful and tolerant, have you?

I'm only intolerant of lunatics and the self decidedly retarded. Plato hated Democracy, but I think he was pretty chill otherwise.

[Daktoria]

Sounds like fascism is all about violence and action, action, action.

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaste ... solini.htm

Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial, material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself, self-centered, subject to natural law, which instinctively urges him toward a life of selfish momentary pleasure; it sees not only the individual but the nation and the country; individuals and generations bound together by a moral law, with common traditions and a mission which suppressing the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of pleasure, builds up a higher life, founded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by self-sacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve that purely spiritual existence in which his value as a man consists.

Fascism wants man to be active and to engage in action with all his energies; it wants him to be manfully aware of the difficulties besetting him and ready to face them. It conceives of life as a struggle in which it behooves a man to win for himself a really worthy place

The years preceding the March on Rome cover a period during which the need of action forbade delay and careful doctrinal elaborations. Fighting was going on in the towns and villages. There were discussions but... there was some­thing more sacred and more important... death... Fascists knew how to die.

First of all, as regards the future development of mankind, and quite apart from all present political considerations. Fascism does not, generally speaking, believe in the possibility or utility of perpetual peace. It therefore discards pacifism as a cloak for cowardly supine renuncia­tion in contradistinction to self-sacrifice. War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to face it. All other tests are substitutes which never place a man face to face with himself before the alternative of life or death.

The Fascist State expresses the will to exercise power and to command. Here the Roman tradition is embodied in a conception of strength. Imperial power, as understood by the Fascist doctrine, is not only territorial, or military, or commercial; it is also spiritual and ethical. An imperial nation, that is to say a nation a which directly or indirectly is a leader of others, can exist without the need of conquering a single square mile of territory. Fascism sees in the imperialistic spirit -- i.e. in the tendency of nations to expand - a manifestation of their vitality. In the op­posite tendency, which would limit their interests to the home country, it sees a symptom of decadence. Peoples who rise or rearise are imperialistic; renunciation is characteristic of dying peoples. The Fascist doctrine is that best suited to the tendencies and feelings of a people which, like the Italian, after lying fallow during centuries of foreign servitude, are now reasserting itself in the world.

(4) Struggle is at the origin of all things, for life is full of contrasts: there is love and hatred, white and black, day and night, good and evil; and until these contrasts achieve balance, struggle fatefully remains at the root of human nature. However, it is good for it to be so. Today we can indulge in wars, economic battles, conflicts of ideas, but if a day came to pass when struggle ceased to exist, that day would be tinged with melancholy; it would be a day of ruin, the day of ending. But that day will not come, because history ever discloses new horizons. By attempting to restore calm, peace, tranquility, or. A would be fighting the tendencies of the present period of dynamism. Ore must be prepared for other struggles and for other surprises. Peace will only come when people surrender to a Christian dream of universal brotherhood, when they can hold out hands across the ocean and over the mountains. Personally I do not believe very much in these idealisms, but I do not exclude them for I exclude nothing. (At the Politeama Rossetti, Trieste , September 20, 1920 ; in Discorsi Politici, Milano, Stab. Tipografico del « Popolo d' Italia » , 1921, p. 107).

(21) I believe that if a people wish to live they should develop a will to power, otherwise they vegetate, live miserably and become prey to a stronger people, in whom this will to power is developed to a higher degree. (Speech to the Senate, May 28, 1926).

My point stands. Without a referee, you guys would just kill each other off and destroy everything with you.

[Fasces]

No one is arguing that fascism is not a militaristic ideology. However, the use of militarism does not imply violence or war, in the sense you are attempting to indicate it would. Fascist militarism also serves peacefully as a method to create national development. This is shown, quite easily, through an examination of Mussolini's own use of militarism in his efforts to reclaim swamplands or battle inflation, respectively referred to as the "Battle for Grain" and the "War for the Lira".

Such militarist attitudes could be channeled into competitive, yet still peaceful, pursuits. The space race is a very good example of such a case.

The idea, furthermore, that nationalism necessitates dominance is fundamentally flawed and a caricature of the ideology that I will not address. Hitler's ideal world, in his own words, included room for an independent Anglo race, as well as independent Latins, so I fail to see why an independent Japanese, or "yellow aryans", is inconceivable to you.

Far more likely is that immediately after WWII, the Japanese and Germans effectively divide the world between the two, and focus on colonization, settlement, and development of their spheres. This would be an enormous undertaking, channeling those attitudes, while not yet creating war.

The Cold War was the result of ideological and geopolitical competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. There is no such similar conflict between Japan and Germany.

[Daktoria]

Fasces, I bolded plenty of sections which directly talk about death, fighting, and war. This isn't just activism. It's straight forward militarism in pursuit of becoming the best, and dominant, people (else be dominated).

I'm not denying an age of colonization, but the idea of ethnocentric pride not boiling over is laughable. At the very least, insiders would encourage it out of internal social competition for the chance of people to prove themselves against an adversary.

Otherwise, you're going to have infighting. Violence has to either be released or internalized.

Is there anything else to fascism I'm missing?

[Fasces]

Again, the idea that Germany and Japan would turn on each other - and not dissipate their violent urges on any of the other billions of people in the world, is what you need to prove to me.

[Daktoria]

What happens after the rest of the world's been subdued?

Seriously, even if you say breed inferior people, your people are going to get bored after a while and want something more intense. People aren't satisfied by pathetic competition forever.

[Fasces]

I don't think the rest of the world would ever be subdued. How did the USSR and the USA do in Afghanistan, a small segment of a very large world?

[Daktoria]

The Soviet Union and United States didn't set out to conquer the world. They only set out to establish client states in pursuit of a balance of power.

Afghanistan is like the dark side of the moon anyway. The rest of the southern hemisphere was conquered by far less authoritarian jingoists like the British, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese empires.

[The Clockwork Rat]

Sorry, the Soviet Union didn't want a world-wide revolution?