Fascism Rises

In this age of the recrudescence of fascism, there is just one lesson to learn:  that the human race cannot afford it.  Charismatic leaders who summon visions of halcyon times to manipulate a targeted slice of the population are not only narcissists; they are required to be beyond reproach or shame.  That is how the dynamic works.  The chosen people go all-in on a messianic savior.  Leader and follower spin each other in a centrifuge of mind-narrowing ideology.

A faith-propped fascist is not concerned for future generations or even reality.  The goal isn't a strong country on the world stage.  It is self-aggrandizement.  Success in this goal insures dysfunction.   Instead of facing the titanic magnitude of the Amazon burning, the leader of Brazil blames liberals and demands apologies.  Donald Trump pulls the USA out of the Paris Accord, ignoring scientific consensus on global warming.

It has been said that in the nuclear age, war itself is the true enemy.  And yet Modi, envisioning India as a nationalistic Hindu country, eliminates the Kashmir's special status with police state tactics, shutting off internet and other media, while cordoning the area block by block.  This enrages Pakistan.  Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and a history of modern, violent conflicts.  The repression in Kashmir is a reckless gambit in which no doubt there is some significant probability of sparking nuclear war.  Maybe it is even something like 1% or 10% or more.  We don't know.  No one does.

As worshipped fascists multiply, feeding off of fear and spreading us-vs-them extremism, the possibility of nuclear armageddon grows.  Two fanatic governments, neither able to back down, rattling sabers at each other, except now the sabers are ICBMs.

We can't do this.  For both military and environmental reasons, we can't abide fascist demagogues, The dynamic of a god-like leader with unthinking followers is inevitably cataclysmic.  The technologies we control now, and the eco-habits we develop, coupled with a population of 7.7 billion and growing, are self-destructive without farsighted wisdom.  They are too capable of inflicting a scale of tragedy never before seen in the history of civilization.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was right when he said we "are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

The only things that can save us are the advancement of reason and ethics.  Both are completely compatible with spirituality and emotion.  Indeed, they require them.  The more politics drifts away from the real and virtuous--the more it becomes about acquiring power for the in-group at the expense of the 'enemy'--the more evil it becomes.  Hate-mongering, race-baiting, misogyny, military repression, Orwellian mind games, and the cynicism of parasitic, plutocratic greed--all these and more result when ethics is abandoned for the national manifestation of egotism , which is fascism.

All countries have flaws and can learn from others.  What diversity teaches us is that people are amazingly malleable.  A great deal depends on how they are taught.  Think of this:  No human being born yet, not a single one, has ever been raised in a truly good society.  How would we turn out if we were?  We've made progress.  Incredible progress that many in the past called impossible.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we gave future generations a chance to get closer and closer to the ideal?




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