Devil’s Advocate: Why worry about fascism? | Jason Stanley | Big Think
November 11, 2021
45,823
2,221
618
6.20%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Big Think Episodes Around November 11, 2021
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
3:24Now PlayingDevil’s Advocate: Why worry about fascism? | Jason Stanley | Big Think
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelDevil’s Advocate: Why worry about fascism? with Jason Stanley
Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ►►
Up next►► The 10 tactics of fascism
Fascism is a very particular ideological structure. The first pillar is the Mythic Past. Then there's Propaganda. Anti-intellectualism. Unreality. Hierarchy. Victimhood. Law and order. Sexual anxiety. Sodom and Gomorrah. And then finally, Arbeit macht frei- 'work shall make you free.'
Each of these elements taken in and of itself, is not fascist. You can think about these individual elements in isolation. When it comes to these fascist tactics, people often ask, "Why do you need to worry about it. There's lots of tactics people use to win power. Why worry about these in particular?"
Jason Stanley’s response is to say that fascist politics wears down democracy. Even if it doesn't result in a fascist regime, it creates the conditions for itself. Fascist politics, it's a politics of fear. So even if we don't get a fascist regime in the end, we destroy the basis of democracy.
Read the video transcript
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Jason Stanley:
Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Before coming to Yale in 2013, he was Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Stanley is the author of Know How; Languages in Context; Knowledge and Practical Interests, which won the American Philosophical Association book prize; and How Propaganda Works, which won the PROSE Award for Philosophy from the Association of American Publishers. He writes about authoritarianism, propaganda, free speech, mass incarceration, and other topics for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Review, The Guardian, Project Syndicate and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among other publications.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read more of our stories on fascist politics:
The 10 tactics of fascism
How is fascism distinct from other extreme ideologies? These 10 traits offer clues.
Remembering when bankers tried to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictator
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Big Think | Smarter Faster™
► Big Think
The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century.
► Big Think+
Make your business smarter, faster
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want more Big Think?
► Daily editorial features
► Get the best of Big Think right to your inbox
Links & Promotions
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.