A dictionary definition is not necessarily the correct definition. Almost all dictionaries these days have a "descriptive, not prescriptive" policy - they tell you what a word is likely mean in common usage, rather than tell you how to use a word correctly.
This is an especially big problem with a badly defined word like this,
It's usually better to look at Umberto Eco's "Ur-Fascism". Yes, it's a set of vague aesthetic criteria, but aesthetics is a big part of Fascism and the thing that distinguishes it from other forms of totalitarianism. The aesthetics helped drive public support, which is also crucial to distinguishing Fascism from, say, feudalism: it's inherently a post-democratic politics.
Edit: I wrote this comment, clicked through, and of course Eco is the first writer referenced.
The definition you linked calls almost any dictatorship as a fascism. The article makes difference between "random dictatorship, monarchy, what have you" and "fascism specifically". That being said, even by your definition Stalins Russia did not had that much of a racial component, so it might just be one of those that fall out.
The original article also does not really fit the Socialist Russia that much. It was seeking world domination and did not minded to start a war, but that is the thing - it was concerned more with reality of winning then with appearance of strength for aesthetic purposes. It had own machismo, it had disdain to intellectualism, but both did in fact limited its capabilities.
Some of the features of Marxism Leninism may look like fascism when you step back and squint, but it's f-cked up in its own way. It's not even a far right versus far left thing. That's one of those neat symmetries that doesn't really apply.
Stalin's Russia didn't have a cult of machismo quite like Germany or Italy did, they measured themselves by industrial and intellectual might, rather than how manly they were. Yes there are quite a few similarities I'll grant you, but they didn't have that particular weakness.
fascist as in common parlance, e.g. brutal authoritarian dictators
but fascist in the original sense -- as created by mussolini -- was aggressive nationalism combined with corporatism, and a reclaiming of lost glory (revanchism)
george w bush's america is closer to classical fascism than stalin would ever be
It should be acknowledged that this was at least significantly about lobbying, and shouldn't be considered a cut-and-dry "failed experiment" (though clearly there are lessons that can be learned):
> [Munich Mayor] Reiter wanted Microsoft to move its Microsoft Germany corporate headquarters to to Munich. Microsoft moved and Reiter wants to deliver on his promise to make Munich a Windows-powered city.
Either that or decision makers changed from the decision to drop. The first ones valued sovereignty higher but they moved on and the second ones valued it less.
Yeah I thought that was weird, along with joining ethnic organizations. I don't really need to explain the religion thing, but ethnic organizations are weird since you are forming an identity based on your unchoosable parent's DNA. I've seen both used by leaders to weaponize their members at their members detriment.
Although, if you are doing politics, I can see this being pragmatically useful.
So in my city there used to be some clubs, like the Ukrainian Lounge, the Polish Club, etc. which was a club where people paid dues and the only real requirement was to be part polish, ukrainian etc. It was basically just a bar to hang out at. The reason I put it there is that those guys seemed to get lifelong companionship and socialization out of it. Instead of shaming people for what may drive them, I am throwing out options I have observed.
Telling people to bond over traits they can't choose seems like an excellent way to isolate people with rare traits they can't choose.
I have more in common with a factory worker in China than I do with the president of my own country, even if we happen to share the same skin tone. I am defined by my experiences, after all, not things like genetics, culture or history.
it also doesn't even fight loneliness. Loneliness isn't solved by merely not being physically alone. I grew up in a Catholic environment but because I bought exactly none of it the religious environments were exactly where I felt most isolated.
You're not solving loneliness by joining a cult or a gang. You can only deal with it by making authentic connections to people you actually want to be with. Countless of people are lonely and miserable within families.
I agree, unless faith actually means something to you, forcing yourself to go to church won’t help. Sitting through Mass miserable, disbelieving, and avoiding everyone defeats the whole purpose.
Churches get brought up a lot because they regularly gather people (weekly or even daily) and offer events, volunteer opportunities, and so on.
The point is to find an activity you like, with a specific group of people and consistently attend.
P.S As a fellow Catholic, I’m really sorry you went through such an isolating experience. I hope things feel much better for you now
I never used Erlang, and I'm a functional programming fan. But languages based on heavy VM that abstract OS away always make me doubt that's the right direction.
That's not a crazy instinct, and maybe if OSs were better you would even be right, but there's not really another way to get a skrillion communicating processes that can all crash/fail independently. Without a dedicated VM, all the other approaches are either less safe or too inefficient.
I consider BEAM an indication of a direction that OSs could and maybe should move. It's even possible to run BEAM on bare metal, (almost?) entirely in place of the normal OS.
I've built a hobby OS around BEAM... BEAM doesn't require a whole lot from the OS, I built a minimal kernel that runs a single process, which you could consider a unikernel or at least very close. I had originally wanted BEAM in ring 0, but I had a lot of trouble getting started. This way, I can just use a pre-compiled BEAM for FreeBSD and don't have to fight with weird compilation options. Anyway, with x86-32 at least, I can give my Ring 3 process access to all the ioports and let it request a mmap of any address, so the only drivers I need in the kernel are IRQ controllers, timers, and pre-beam console. Once beam is up, console i/o and networking is managed from erlang code (with a couple nifs)
It's almost like an OS in itself and initially designed to be like a more capable and robust OS on top of rather constrained computers. In my experience it's trivial to shell or port out to the environment when I want to, and I also see people that I don't think of as highly skilled low-level programmers do things with NIF:s so that can't be exceptionally demanding either.
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