Fascism
Denying fascism's claim to philosophical respectability, Hobsbawm writes,"Theory was not the strong point of movements devoted to the inadequancies of reason and rationalism and the superiority of instinct and will" and further on the same page "Mussolini could have readily dispensed with his house philosopher, Giovanni Gentile, and Hitler probably neither knew nor cared about the support of the philosopher Heidegger." Instead, he claims, the popular appeal of fascism lay with its claims to technocratic achievement: "Was not the proverbial argument in favour of fascist Italy that 'Mussolini made the trains run on time'?"
He also writes, "Would the horror of the holocaust be any less if historians concluded that it exterminated not six millions but five or even four?"
Read more about this topic: The Age Of Extremes
Famous quotes containing the word fascism:
“Worst of all, there is no sign of any relaxation of antisemitism. Logically it has nothing to do with Fascism. But the human race is imitative rather than logical; and as Fascism spreads antisemitism spreads.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The strategic adversary is fascism ... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”
—Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
“Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the Grand Climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)