What’s the Opposite of Fascism?

There I was, standing on the street beside the little cafe, sneaking a ciggie. A woman walked by. Wearing a “Fascism” T-shirt. What it is, why not to be part of it. Great T-shirt, I said, pointing. She took me in. Sunglasses, leather jacket, tiny white dog. Safe. Thank you, she said, surprised. And then, angrily.

We should all be outraged.

Yes we should, I said. (Snowy barked in approval.)

Today we’re going to discuss the opposite of fascism. What it is, why it matters, what led America down this path, and what the future holds.

I think this question matters. Because the “opposite of fascism” is something that’s on many people’s minds these days, not least the bad guys, who, too, are trying to define and even legislate it out of existence. We’re going to answer this question rigorously, carefully, and seriously.

You might imagine that the opposite of fascism is something like “democracy.” But that’s not quite correct. Democracy follows from what the opposite of fascism is. And to understand that, we need to first genuinely understand fascism itself.

The definition Americans are often taught—”the intersection of corporate and state power” isn’t just inadequate, it’s almost besides the point. It was a much, much darker impulse than just that which led to the Holocaust, after all.

Fascism is the cleavage of human beings into superhuman and subhuman. From that point, all else follows naturally. The atrocities, the horrors, the contempt for the rule of law, the abuses of power, the craving for dictatorship, the cultism, the pageantry—all of it.

Now. In this way, much, maybe most of human history has been proto-fascist. After all, even in feudal eras, societies were divided into super and subhuman. Kings were said to have “divine rights,” even to be “one” with various gods. “Nobles” were said to have literally nobler blood. And so forth, right down to untouchable castes.

What’s different in the modern context is fascism’s claim to essential genetic superiority, its gloss of pseudoscience. And in this way, fascism is an ancient evil, wearing a modern mask. We are the superhumans, because it’s in the fundamental constituent elements of our biology, our genes. And you are the subhumans, too, for the same reason.

So in this sense, fascism is a determinism. Please see that clearly. Because everything is predetermined, there is not just any need for freedom, rights, constitutions—they are the enemies of what’s already determined by biological destiny. The moral fabric of the fascist universe is inverted, and its only justice is violence and power.

For this reason, too, fascism is eternal conflict. The superhumans must prove their super-humanity, how above-human they are, by constantly dominating the “weak” and “impure” subhumans. This is fascism’s great perversion of universal morality, and universal in this sense means every form of morality and ethics known to us, from Christian to Buddhist to Kantian and beyond. Fascists crave violence and power over precisely because eternal conflict is what is just. Power over is all there is, and all there ever can be. There is no other point to existence whatsover.

Now. I’ve taken you through this so that you understand fascism intimately, as a perverse pseudo “philosophy.” Philosophy, after all, means “the love of wisdom,” and there’s little of either to be found here. And now that you understand what fascism really is—take a moment to sit with how repellent the above is, let it sink in—we can come to the opposite of fascism.

If fascism is the cleave of humans into sub and super human, then what is its opposite? Immediately, you should be able to see: it’s not just democracy. It is something deeper and more fundamental still.

The opposite of fascism is humanism. I won’t recount the story of humanism here. But of course its roots stretch deep, from ancient Eastern and Western, through to the Renaissance, and beyond. The humanism that we know today, though, is what concerns us—it is a direct reflection of the last age of fascism. 

It was in the ashes of the last World War that figures like Sartre and Camus and Brecht reimagined humanism. Precisely because they had seen the horrors of fascism, and rejected it at not just an intellectual and moral and emotional level—but at an existential one. This was the birth of existentialism.

So what is humanism? I think that three elements of it matter most. The first is dignity. Humanism says that all human beings are inherently equal, and thus deserve dignity, as an inherent right, just by virtue of existing. The second is liberation. Human beings deserve the right to be liberated from systems and projects of repression, just by virtue of existing. And the third is transformation: human beings exist not in a static way, but grow and mature towards fulfillment, and this—rather than the biological destiny of fascism—is the point of human existence, not eternal conflict.

Now. Take a moment and sit with that, too. Think how beautiful and wise and noble this set of ideas genuinely is. It is humanity’s single greatest accomplishment, if you ask me. Because for millennia, principles like these were heretical. They couldn’t be whispered aloud. History never changed, precisely because human beings had predetermined places in social and political economic orders.

Humanism is the opposite of fascism. And if you genuinely understand that, you can see, too, why fascism took root in America. Precisely because America was the one wealthy society to reject humanism. You see, existentialist humanism became the basis for social democracy in Europe—quite literally. Life is painful enough—let us bear it together, rather than adding to its suffering. And as Europe matured into true social democracy, Canada joined its ranks. Together, this is an axis where humanism still lives—and may perhaps thrive.

But America was different. For decades now, humanism has been a kind of whispered insult even amongst its intellectuals, so impoverished is American thinking. And of course on the right, humanism is akin to “communism” or “socialism”—a sort of epithet used to keep Americans in the dark, at this point, about centuries of revolutions in thought, politics, society, and economics.

The rejection of humanism had real consequences for America. America is a profoundly dehumanized place—from the loneliness, to the violence, to the atomization. Instead of humanism, of course, America embraced hyper capitalism, which dehumanized Americans further, turning them into literal cogs, by now, in algorithmic machines dispensing dopamine hits to keep them in line. Dehumanization is to America what good coffee is to Europe, if you like, go ahead and chuckle.

But of course this level of dehumanization is precisely what paved the way for fascism to rise in America. Because when society grows not just atomized, or depressed, or isolated, but genuinely comes to feel dehumanized—then of course, the time is ripe for a demagogue to arise, who says: you are the chosen ones, the super humans, only you’ve been persecuted by these wicked ones, the sub humans, and only by putting them in their rightful place can you prove your worth again—and restore justice to the fabric of the cosmos. Hence, MAGA.

So why am I taking you through all this? Just to score intellectual points? Not at all, though I do want to teach you a little bit. The reason, though, is to begin answering the question on so many lips. What do I do about all this? Americans look for solutions. They’re a pragmatic people. But in this bitter contest between fascism and humanism? Is it a “solution” that is needed, or something deeper?

If we understand that the opposite of fascism is humanism, then our tasks become clearer. We must humanize. We must be human. We must undertake these three great tasks of humanism, dignity, liberation, and transformation—not just in our own lives, as the therapists say, but to the broadest extent in our moral and social circles that we can. Our towns, cities, and hamlets must become places where we can be human again, living with dignity, liberated, and in transformation. And I think that while that sounds abstract, some of you will already get my drift. There are many, many ways to create this ripple effect, aren’t there?

Humanism has one great imperative. Camus said it best. To love. The battle has always been between love and fascism. This is what Orwell wrote about, after all. It was falling in love that made Winston Smith revolt against Big Brother. Love is the author of our destinies. Not heaven, not hell, not biology. And in that regard, our existences must resound with this truest of freedoms, gifts, essences. We will all become dust. And to love is the truest pain of all. It is what gives our suffering meaning, purpose, truth, and nobility. Without it? There is just the endless darkness of eternal conflict, as power replaces the human soul, and obedience inhabits the place where once a will used to be. 

And I don’t want you to think anymore in anodyne American terms. Haven’t they failed you? I want you to reckon with the way the world thinks, which by now is far more sophisticated and advanced. Just sit with it and let your intuition guide you. We are talking about being in a different way. 

It is for precisely this reason that the last great revolution in thought, in politics, and in society was humanism. Its imperative is the message and the messenger both. We can never hold all that we wish so desperately to in our fragile human arms. And yet even as time and being slip through our fingers, at least we have done something better with them than senselessly beat each other into submission, raging against mortality, claiming that we were never human at all. This road leads to all darknesses and all abysses, this is the truest ignorance of all, the rejection of our deepest essence, which is that we are nothing but, can only ever be, cannot be anything other than, human. 

Nor should we ever wish to be anything else.

I have lit this little candle for you in the darkness. How long will it burn? The night is deep, and the stars are going out. May it help you find your way home, my friends.

Love,

Umair (and Snowy!)

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