For context in case someone missed it: this past week has had an explosion of fiction and art being posted to Twitter and to a lesser extent a few other social media sites, accounts and memoirs of a brutal eternal conflict on Jupiter's icy moon Europa.
At first people thought this was a spontaneous fic situation like Goncharov, but it turns out to have been viral marketing for an (upcoming?) tabletop roleplaying game zine that got wildly out of hand (up to and including some indirect acknowledgment from a NASA social media account).
So it's less unreality and more, fanfic I guess.
...And now I really badly want to get my hands on that zine, I was already starting to brainstorm how to translate the thing into an RPG and turns out I won't even have to lmao.
an american pope feels deeply weird
you should've seen the live crowd reaction where I was standing
I see a lot of people throw around the term fascist on this website, but I’ve never seen a definition for it, so I’m going to provide one.
The definition of fascism, if you look it up in a dictionary, should sound something like this:
a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and race above the individual, that is associated with an autocratic government
Source: Merriam-Webster
This definition of fascism notably includes both Nazism and Classical Fascism (Italian Fascism) but leaves out other Fascist movements, namely Brazilian Integralism and Falangism.
So to really understand Fascism, you must first understand the “arms” of what makes up a fascist government or movement.
The arms that I was taught are as follows:
1. Corporatism - the belief that class conflict is unnecessary and the various social classes must cooperate and do their job. Please note that it is used in other contexts, and Fascism usually adds on the caveat that the classes cooperate with the good of the state
2. Militarism - Fascist movement traditionally merge state & military, which goes with corporatism to militarize society into strict and rigid social hierarchies. This also has the added effect of making Fascist nations more belligerent but also more unstable, as a fascist military when overstepping its duties often contradicts official government policy (for an example, look up the Marco Polo bridge incident)
3. Hatred of intellectualism - fascist movements dislike intellectualism, as freedom of thought can contradict what they believe to be the one truth. This is an important time to tell you that Fascism is a reactionary movement. Fascists do not like change, and dream of an imagined past ideal society.
4. Violent rhetoric against communism - Fascist movements arose in Europe as a result of the ascendancy of the USSR. Many prominent fascists used the fear of communism to cement their power and initiate purges. Fascists dislike communism because communism advocates for abolition of class structure and social equality, neither of which fit with the nationalist & hierarchical view of Fascists.
5. Ultra-nationalism & supremacy of the state - these two go hand in hand, as Fascists believe their nation to be above all else, superior and unbeatable in every way to every other country in the world. The state is the supreme power in fascist nations, and compliance is not expected as much demanded from all citizens. This often ties into racist views of fascists, who believe their race, similar to their nation, to be superior to all else. It is important to note that some fascist movements were not as extreme in the race department, as Integralism advocated for people of all races co-existing, so long as they were subservient to the states will, and Falangism believed that all Hispanic peoples (Spaniards, non-Brazilian South Americans, Latinos, Mexicans, and Philipinos) were all part of the super race, and should interbreed to create superhumans.
6. One leader - fascist movements have one person who is viewed as supreme & infallible, who wields autocratic authority over every aspect of the state and is treated as though they are the nation in many cases.
7. Feeling of national humiliation - fascist movements often espouse that their country has been slighted or humiliated by their allies or rivals in the past, and that the only way to make up for this stain on national honor is to expel those who humiliated the country (often ethnic minorities) and create a homogeneous and pure society
8. Mass media & propaganda - Fascism uses false statements and misinformation as propaganda to cement their authority and make their influence complete.
So with all of that in mind here are some prominent fascist governments both in history and modern day:
1. Italian fascism, aka classical fascism was started by Benito Mussolini and was the offical ideology of Italy until the end of WWII. Corporatism was the biggest tenant of this branch, along with a strong feeling of national betrayal by the allies in WWI.
2. Nazism, a movement that existed after WWI was taken up by Austrian politician Adolf Hitler, who led Germany until his death in 1945. Nazism called for racial purity, and used anti-Semitic & slavophobic rhetoric, all of which eventually led to the invasion of Poland (a Slavic country with a large Jewish population) and the start of WWII
3. Francoism / Falangism were competing Spanish ultranationalist ideologies following the conclusion of the Spanish civil war. Dictators Franz Franco won out and his ideology would rule Spain until the 1970s. The linguistic discrimination used by Francoism laid the groundwork for the modern Catalan & Basque independence movements
4. The Japanese military ruled Japan in a military dictatorship during WWII, and used fascist rhetoric and tactics, coupled with Japanese society being already arranged in a way to facilitate this, and supreme loyalty to the Emperor. The movement died out after WWII and the US occupation of Japan, as the Japanese military was formally disbanded and downsized immensely
5. Yes by my definition, Trumpism is a fascist movement. Please note that Trump is not a Nazi, he is a fascist and more specifically a Trumpist.
6. There were many smaller and less significant fascist countries during WWII and after, but I don’t know enough about none of them to say definitively if they were / are
Mister Rogers
I go to the grocery store, heading straight for the dairy section. Positioning myself in the middle of the milk shelf, I let out one single long, wailing, cheese-curdling scream. Every single carton of fresh dairy product within hearing distance has now been rendered undrinkable. The poor worker whose only task this shift was to keep me out of the store and most importantly away from the dairy at all costs is fired on the spot. I do not linger to bear witness to the grief and destruction I have caused. Knowing that I caused it is enough.
These petty, pointless acts of meaningless evil are the reason that I will not see the kingdom of heaven.
nothing better than the wrong capitalization of Sie
????😭😭😭
When my students talk over me I do this bit where I quietly tell them I’m really shy and to please let me talk and somehow it works.
I’m entering my Vetinari era. Going to start saying shit like “Capital!” and “Do not let me detain you.” and “A great rolling sea of evil. Shallower in some places, of course, but deeper, oh, so much deeper in others. But people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end.” Gonna start juggling knives.
To reduce my screen time, I have weaponised my overactive and entirely impractical levels of empathy for inanimate objects. Wym you’re picking it up again? While it was sleeping? You complete and utter monster, let it rest!!
And it works. It works like a CHARM. Silly problems require silly solutions!