Ba'athism is such a good contribution to this conversation, both because of how seamlessly it bridges a stultifying Western gap in how we talk about fascism as a cluster of ideas, and because it provides a better working vocabulary than the sort of "Talibama" jokes in colloquial discourse that pass for the use of geopolitical comparison to warn against the rise of fascistic groups at home.
You've also hit upon one of the classics that I never managed to watch, so The Conformist is going straight up my list!
(Also, I love the pace of this series; I hope it's manageable and rewarding for you.)
Thanks so much, M L. I'd long thought about how Ba'athism works and how it could focus thinking about fascism as a phenomenon, of course, empirically evolving, and not as some kind of predefined genre, so to speak.
Oh, you are in for such a treat with The Conformist! Its sumptuousness will wash over you -- the color cinematography, the framing, the music that Billy mentions below . . . I'll stop.
This has actually been a challenging month, and more, on my time. (I move in four days -- and so much more.) I'm glad I've gotten anything accomplished. But I've neglected by favorite Substack writers, among whom you number, of course. I was interrupted in the midst of several pieces, alas. But next week!
Good one. Thanks for the restored Conformist trailer (one of my top ten. desert island movies) - that music will haunt me today - you'll be amused by this: I attended its American premiere at the NY Film Festival, and when it was over, half the audience was on its feet shouting Bravo - and the other half was booing and yelling; at the time, JLG had recently criticized Bertolucci for selling out to "Nixon-Paramount." Ah, those were the days...
We'll need 2 prints, for our respective islands, Mr. Mernit. Maybe if Goddard had watched Before the Revolution more closely, he wouldn't have been as surprised by Bertolucci's liberal tendencies. :) But, yes, as Dave Kehr is quoted in the trailer, "the memory of a time when movies were the most important art." Sigh. You were lucky. I first saw Conformist on Flatbush Avenue in a mall not too far beyond the Marine Parkway Bridge, our of Rockaway. I remember one of my many viewings at what I recall as the 8th Street Playhouse -- at the southeast corner of 8th and Sixth Avenue, long gone. At the time, the wall around the screen was a remarkable white, of all colors, which lent a surrealizing quality to the film, especially during that largely white outdoor insane asylum scene. I'm beginning to pine.
Of course, we all know how J.D. Vance responded to Wolf Blitzer's question about 45's pronouncement that we're living in a fascist state. Or, as Tim Walz says, "Weird."
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"A confirmed fascist would never say that." What a great line in context!
Well, that's the method, Maureen -- call your opponent what you are and muck everything up.
It is a great line, even greater when we consider that Jean-Louis Trintignant's Clerici nonetheless, conflicted and cowardly, cooperates with, though can't bring himself to participate in, the professor's assassination and the murder of the professor's wife, with whom Clerici had become enamored.
Very interesting article. But I don't understand your POV that Stalin or Brezhnev were not champions of working man. Forget about Brezhnev, but the Russian Revolution in 1917 begun from this idea: all the power - to workers and peasants. With this slogan the Bolsheviks reared the holy Russia, from the West to the East. Lenin promised that any "cook (somehow, female)will rule the State." And they ruled, I remember, our female weaver became the Minister of Culture. The political economy of Marx and Engels was realized into Socialism, which decayed completely 74 years later.
Larisa, you offer the hope political ideals of the Russian Revolution, but they were quickly betrayed and definitively so by Stalin, a murderous megalomaniac who championed nothing but his own power. My comments refer to the historical reality.
Everybody knows now, actually from 1956, that Stalin was a “murderous megalomaniac.” My memoir is about it also because my father spent seven years in Gulag for his first novel. In my comment I was talking about historical fact about of Revolution when nobody could even had foreseen what happened later. It is our point of historical reality from today only.
It would be silly of me to offer the hope of political ideals of the Russian Revolution now than I try to offer my memoir Wrong Country about its atrocities, including my father’s, who spent seven years in the Gulag for his novel, which was recognized as anti-Soviet. In my comment, I was talking about the historical fact that Stalin became known as a ”murderous megalomaniac” only in 1956, the 20th Congress of the Com. Party. We can’t talk about the past from now as it had been known to them in their past. Does it make sense?
What you are describing - if your analysis is correct - are symptoms. All that Fascism is, is using the fasces as the authority to Rule. So it doesn't matter how you attain it , only that you have it, hold it and are able to retain it. The result, or the symptoms are dependent on who you rule. The reason Americans have difficulty with this is that they aren't opposed to fascism they merely don't like some particular result of it. For example, people are programmed to believe that "democracy" is the best means to obtain the fasces, so they become anxious when you say e.g., that the governmental structure of the USA whether it is seen as a nation or a confederation of pseudo states, electing a person that represents you ("republicanism") does not represent you; in a light most favorable they represent themself in USA reality whether it is General (now disabled under "The New Federalism") State ("particular") or local - which is its purist form they represent the SPM. So for the executive and legislative function, that's as good as it gets. Under that sort of system your only hope and salvation is an independent judiciary where you are allowed to enter to vindicate your fundamental rights against the arbitrary actions of The State and your ability to do so or persons capable and willing to assist you is what fascism aims to destroy. Everything else are symptoms of arbitrary power in deprivation of your fundamental rights viz., Life, Liberty and Property; and this is done by the SPM under the auspices of The Emergency !! Or in a light most favorable as i.a., Vattel explained in slow gradual almost imperceptible steps.
Wonderful piece, Jay.
Ba'athism is such a good contribution to this conversation, both because of how seamlessly it bridges a stultifying Western gap in how we talk about fascism as a cluster of ideas, and because it provides a better working vocabulary than the sort of "Talibama" jokes in colloquial discourse that pass for the use of geopolitical comparison to warn against the rise of fascistic groups at home.
You've also hit upon one of the classics that I never managed to watch, so The Conformist is going straight up my list!
(Also, I love the pace of this series; I hope it's manageable and rewarding for you.)
Thanks so much, M L. I'd long thought about how Ba'athism works and how it could focus thinking about fascism as a phenomenon, of course, empirically evolving, and not as some kind of predefined genre, so to speak.
Oh, you are in for such a treat with The Conformist! Its sumptuousness will wash over you -- the color cinematography, the framing, the music that Billy mentions below . . . I'll stop.
This has actually been a challenging month, and more, on my time. (I move in four days -- and so much more.) I'm glad I've gotten anything accomplished. But I've neglected by favorite Substack writers, among whom you number, of course. I was interrupted in the midst of several pieces, alas. But next week!
Good one. Thanks for the restored Conformist trailer (one of my top ten. desert island movies) - that music will haunt me today - you'll be amused by this: I attended its American premiere at the NY Film Festival, and when it was over, half the audience was on its feet shouting Bravo - and the other half was booing and yelling; at the time, JLG had recently criticized Bertolucci for selling out to "Nixon-Paramount." Ah, those were the days...
We'll need 2 prints, for our respective islands, Mr. Mernit. Maybe if Goddard had watched Before the Revolution more closely, he wouldn't have been as surprised by Bertolucci's liberal tendencies. :) But, yes, as Dave Kehr is quoted in the trailer, "the memory of a time when movies were the most important art." Sigh. You were lucky. I first saw Conformist on Flatbush Avenue in a mall not too far beyond the Marine Parkway Bridge, our of Rockaway. I remember one of my many viewings at what I recall as the 8th Street Playhouse -- at the southeast corner of 8th and Sixth Avenue, long gone. At the time, the wall around the screen was a remarkable white, of all colors, which lent a surrealizing quality to the film, especially during that largely white outdoor insane asylum scene. I'm beginning to pine.
Of course, we all know how J.D. Vance responded to Wolf Blitzer's question about 45's pronouncement that we're living in a fascist state. Or, as Tim Walz says, "Weird."
------
"A confirmed fascist would never say that." What a great line in context!
Well, that's the method, Maureen -- call your opponent what you are and muck everything up.
It is a great line, even greater when we consider that Jean-Louis Trintignant's Clerici nonetheless, conflicted and cowardly, cooperates with, though can't bring himself to participate in, the professor's assassination and the murder of the professor's wife, with whom Clerici had become enamored.
Very interesting article. But I don't understand your POV that Stalin or Brezhnev were not champions of working man. Forget about Brezhnev, but the Russian Revolution in 1917 begun from this idea: all the power - to workers and peasants. With this slogan the Bolsheviks reared the holy Russia, from the West to the East. Lenin promised that any "cook (somehow, female)will rule the State." And they ruled, I remember, our female weaver became the Minister of Culture. The political economy of Marx and Engels was realized into Socialism, which decayed completely 74 years later.
Larisa, you offer the hope political ideals of the Russian Revolution, but they were quickly betrayed and definitively so by Stalin, a murderous megalomaniac who championed nothing but his own power. My comments refer to the historical reality.
Everybody knows now, actually from 1956, that Stalin was a “murderous megalomaniac.” My memoir is about it also because my father spent seven years in Gulag for his first novel. In my comment I was talking about historical fact about of Revolution when nobody could even had foreseen what happened later. It is our point of historical reality from today only.
It would be silly of me to offer the hope of political ideals of the Russian Revolution now than I try to offer my memoir Wrong Country about its atrocities, including my father’s, who spent seven years in the Gulag for his novel, which was recognized as anti-Soviet. In my comment, I was talking about the historical fact that Stalin became known as a ”murderous megalomaniac” only in 1956, the 20th Congress of the Com. Party. We can’t talk about the past from now as it had been known to them in their past. Does it make sense?
Yes, it makes sense. You've clarified the distinction in time and perspective you are seeking to make. I understand.
Oh, thank you very much. Sometimes I am afraid for my English.
What you are describing - if your analysis is correct - are symptoms. All that Fascism is, is using the fasces as the authority to Rule. So it doesn't matter how you attain it , only that you have it, hold it and are able to retain it. The result, or the symptoms are dependent on who you rule. The reason Americans have difficulty with this is that they aren't opposed to fascism they merely don't like some particular result of it. For example, people are programmed to believe that "democracy" is the best means to obtain the fasces, so they become anxious when you say e.g., that the governmental structure of the USA whether it is seen as a nation or a confederation of pseudo states, electing a person that represents you ("republicanism") does not represent you; in a light most favorable they represent themself in USA reality whether it is General (now disabled under "The New Federalism") State ("particular") or local - which is its purist form they represent the SPM. So for the executive and legislative function, that's as good as it gets. Under that sort of system your only hope and salvation is an independent judiciary where you are allowed to enter to vindicate your fundamental rights against the arbitrary actions of The State and your ability to do so or persons capable and willing to assist you is what fascism aims to destroy. Everything else are symptoms of arbitrary power in deprivation of your fundamental rights viz., Life, Liberty and Property; and this is done by the SPM under the auspices of The Emergency !! Or in a light most favorable as i.a., Vattel explained in slow gradual almost imperceptible steps.