all around the world we are witnessing
the rise of right-wing parties and
political figures with extremist views
many people are saying these parties and
politicians are fascist but do we know
what fascism is? I am Rodrigo Guim,
anthropologist and social critic and
this is Critique with Nietzsche and
Foucault
[Music]
what do you understand when you hear the
term fascism please comment below so I
can enter into a conversation with you
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here throughout the world we are
witnessing the electoral rise of
right-wing parties and politicians
sometimes even supported by coups and
other suspect
schemes as we have experienced here in
Brazil for example these political
figures come with extremely reactionary
racist xenophobic chauvinist and anti
leftists or anti-communist rhetoric they
even call communist or socialist those
parties that are far from being so their
rhetoric divides the world in two sides
those who are not with them are their
enemies their nationalism does not
include the possibility for radical
differences to coexist within the
nation-state some of these right-wing
parties and politicians would resort to
violence against their own population if
they could and they promote the idea
that the population should armed itself
to defend itself from itself externally
these politicians also look for enemies
around the world as if they were the
leading bastions of justice all of these
and other traits have made many people
around the world called these parties or
politicians as fascists but how can we
understand what fascism is and what it
does that is what I want to talk to you
about today
historians social scientists and critics
have tried to give a general definition
of fascism the definitions vary a lot
there is no final definition of fascism
and that is because there is only one
initial social movement that of Benito
Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s that
that called itself fascist afterwards
many people made remarks about how Nazi
ISM was similar in many respects to
fascism so they also called Nazz ISM
fascist what is predominantly called
fascism today is a type of chauvinistic
and xenophobic nationalism which implies
combating others who are not identified
with in this supposed unity of the
nation-state
the governments that are called fascists
choose enemies to fight internal and
external enemies immigrants in the
United States and in some countries of
Europe are both internal and external
enemies of those governments in Brazil
the current government has in the native
peoples the so called indigenous peoples
their internal enemies and also in the
so called leftists or communists as they
say there is a witch-hunt going on in
Brazil today and I use the term witch
here because these enemies of the
government are much more fictional than
real enemies in the United States Donald
Trump uses the slogan America first
here in Brazil both scenario uses Brazil
above all what is interesting is that an
idea is created of an original national
community even if that idea goes against
its own history indigenous people are
the native peoples of the country before
the country existed nation-states
throughout the world were created out of
violence against their own native
peoples against those that were enslaved
and continued to be second-class
citizens
in Brazil we have the continuing
genocide of indigenous people and black
people that has never stopped today the
state uses religion to support the idea
of national unity a dominant religion is
confirmed and reaffirms as the only
religion
in the United States a common slogan is
god bless america
now in brazil our president uses God
above all in India we have a Hindu
fundamentalist group that has taken
power and continues to spread violence
against others that are not Hindu well
this has been going on and also in so
many places
moreover the so called fascist
governments are dominated by men and
have have patriarchal policies towards
women who are treated as not having many
rights other than those of childbearing
women's rights as well as LGBT rights
are regarded as abnormal and unnatural
so they are not considered by
governments with fascist tendencies we
can say that there is in the world today
a process of fascist ization this term
was coined by a gana Chatterjee who
wrote the book violent gods a book about
governments of Hindu nationalism with
fascist tendencies in India and she
defines the term this way citation a
gestational normalized and systemic and
structural violence on those defined by
dominance as other and less than the
dominant fascism is more a broad concept
that is used then a closed truth it is
easier to talk about fascist traits or
tendencies like the Trump government in
the United States or boasts another
government in Brazil these governments
have traits or tendencies to fascism
Michel Foucault wrote a preface to the
book anti Oedipus by Deleuze and
Guattari
he takes out of this book an art of
living as he called it and summarized it
into seven points which I shall cite and
comment each one first point free
political action from all unitary and
totalizing pare
with this first point Michel Foucault's
is pointing to one of the main traits of
fascism or fascist a fascist way of life
which is the will to a Unitarian
totalizing narrative or even practice of
ourselves or or or Nations of groups
when no difference is to be had where
everyone needs to think the same live
the same or else be excluded be
persecuted a be an highlighted be killed
we going to go to prison whatever
so fascism is this paranoia of wanting
everyone to live and think the same
second point develop action thought and
desires by proliferation juxtaposition
and disjunction and not by subdivision
and pyramidal hierarchy zation so here
Foucault is pointing to the tendencies
of our institutions our practices of
power but also our ways of thinking to
make a hierarchy out of everything to
make a hierarchy even of lives of the
value of the lives of people's so we
tend to think of everything in the world
as being pyramidal as being hierarchy of
being so this tendency of course not
alone the seven points of code they go
together as an art of life so he's
rejecting this this these seven points
altogether but as warnings to us not as
he's not giving us the only way to live
that it's the opposite of what he's
trying to do but here hierarchy when
it's linked to this with this desire for
a unitary and total paranoia around
being this does not fit well with
possibilities of thought with
possibilities of life Third Point
withdraw a legends from the old
categories of the negative the law the
limit castration lack lacunae which
Western thought has so long held sacred
as a form of power and an access to
reality prefer what is positive and
multiple difference over uniformity
flows over unities mobile arrangements
over systems believe that what is
productive is not sedentary but nomadic
so here four core points to the nomadic
or nomadism which is one of the central
concepts held by the lose and it goes
against the dominance of fixity rigidity
towards thought towards being towards
institutions so the idea that the law
the norm can define for us the best way
to live is is is a falsity is is a lie
because there is nothing in life that
can prove us that can point to us that
it is better to live a life under laws
under fixed laws that define for us the
all the ways we can live we can think
then to not live with laws any law so it
is a prejudice against life to think
that norms and laws must fix for us our
ways of being thinking and living the
fourth point is do not think that one
has to be sad in order to be militant
even though the thing one is fighting is
abominable it is the connection of
desire to reality and not its retreat
into the forms of representation that
possesses revolutionary force so
Foucault is pointing to something that
is very cool
in dominant culture today which is the
wanting of revolution as that which
affirms my true self in the world or a
friends affirms the truth of society of
the world as if things in the world has
had only one truth and a fixed truth so
basically what Foucault is saying here
is that there is no unitary there is no
fixed foundation for what can be called
revolution not even the self is is fixed
enough is monolithic enough is a point
of departure for some revolution to
happen because the self is always in a
process of change and the world is in a
part process of change it is with action
happening that we can think that we can
act and not based on a fixed idea of
ourselves or of the world that we will
provoke what can be called a revolution
in the world so desire in itself cannot
be fixed desire is a constant moving
force in the world fifth point
do not use thought to ground a political
practicing truth nor political action to
discredit as mere speculation a line of
thought use political practice as an
intensifier of thought and analysis as a
multiplier of forms and domains for the
intervention of political action
so here Foucault brings back the old
riddle of the chicken or the egg which
comes first thought or action and none
they always have to come together if you
want effective action you need to work
on thought and if you want thought to
reflect on action thought needs to be
always
linked to political practice so
political action or practice and thought
as political they come hand-in-hand they
come together there is no way to
separate them thoughts does not come
first and action does not come first if
you only act spontaneously and think
that by acting acting acting you might
be just reacting to things and if you
only are waiting for the final truth
thought to give you the final truth in
order to act what you will do probably
is never act so they always come
together there is no primacy of action
over thought or thought over action
sixth point do not demand of politics
that it restore the rights of the
individual as philosophy has defined
them the individual is the product of
power what is needed is to D
individualize by means of multiplication
and displacement diverse combinations
the group must not be the organic bond
uniting higher caste individuals but a
constant generator of D
individualization so for cool again is
pointing to the ways that individual
subjects and groups as well are always
processes in the making and one needs to
look at how we are formed as subjects in
order to be able to act within groups
and groups must always question there
are assumptions about the subjects and
about itself as a subject as a unity as
a group as a nation as whatever any
unity so to the individualize means to
look at everything individuals as well
as other types of groups the state as
processes that depend and cohabit the
moment with other processes that are
going always going on so you need to
look at the dynamics
links between processes every union
everything that seems to be a unity is
is a fiction in a way because it's it's
a fiction because it's constructed
through history through processes that
have been going on and then will
continue and there's little room to
speculate about the future of these
processes of individuals or of groups
there is a high margin of
unpredictability of incommensurability
about subjects and about groups that
always exist last point seven points do
not become enamored of power so Foucault
is asking us not to love become in love
with power because to become in love
with power means that we are going to
leave out all our possibilities for life
for Thought for desire for action in
favor of a game that is already set in a
way for us to give our energy to this
game and to participate in this game so
that we can have the rewards of the game
and the reward of power exists for some
people that are already within the
domains of dominance but even for those
people that are are already
participating in the dominant to have
power means they're gonna have to
sacrifice lots and lots of possibilities
of life for themselves and of course for
others as well
so to become in love with power means we
are giving up on the possibilities of
life for ourselves on the possibilities
of differences and lives to be able to
live their own difference in the world
Michel Foucault wished the refusal of
all forms of fascism
from the colossal ones that envelop and
crush us like state fascism to the tiny
forms the bitter tyranny of our daily
lives now I will turn to Nietzsche and
what we can take away from him regarding
fascism first I need to recount that
Nietzsche is wrongly linked to fascism
and you know that his work has been used
by the Nazis
we know how his sister who was friends
with Hitler took passages out of context
and discarded those passages that were
totally against mass politics against
nationalism against anti-semitism
Nietzsche before becoming ill even broke
ties with the composer Richard Wagner
who was his best friend for some time
because of Wagner's anti-semitism and
hyper nationalism here is a passage from
the book
Beyond Good and Evil citation the Jews
are without doubt the strongest purest
most tenacious race living in Europe
today the fact that the Jews if they
wanted or if they were forced as the
anti-semites seem to want Cora could
already be dominant or indeed could
quite literally have control over
present-day Europe this is established
the fact that they are not working and
making plans to this end is likewise
established meanwhile what they wish and
want instead is to be absorbed and
assimilated into Europe this urge and
impulse should be carefully noted and
accommodated in which case it might be
practical and appropriate to throw the
anti-semitic hooligans out of the
country and of citation there is
Nietzsche is here affirming an
admiration for the Jews and asking that
the racist Germans be sent out of the
country there are hundreds of passages
like this in
Nietzsche's books Nietzsche had no
political philosophy his focus was on a
critique of morality as a form of
mentality of herd mentality for him herd
morality was one of the preconditions
for mass politics where the mass is not
thinking for itself it's conducted into
being a mess Annie chair abhorred mass
politics
Nietzsche's Zarathustra caused the state
Citation the coldest of all cold
monsters whatever it says it lies
everything about it is false and
concludes that only where the state ends
there begins the human being who is not
superfluous also in Zarathustra
Nietzsche writes citation the delight in
the herd is more ancient than the
delight in the eye and as long as the
good conscious is identified with the
herd only the bad conscious says I and
of course that is the self in herd
morality is identified as the evil to be
fought any being who is identified as
superior as endowed with intelligence or
some superior ability is readily
regarded as the enemy of the herd the
herd was once only lowness or shallow
thinking applauds shallow thinking and
the lowness of desire it is because of
this but not only for this that the herd
here in Brazil applauds every time our
president speaks out against science
against art against a radicality of
thought against the freedom of people
over their own bodies their own desires
fascist ization tries to control the
future to control people but as much as
it tries it's always failing and as much
as it's always failing one must be
active in order for it to fail and
creative so that we are not just
reacting to is its
failures we need to construct an
affirmative culture to be affirmative of
differences to be affirmative of
intelligence to be affirmative of the
arts to be affirmative of science to be
affirmative of bodies and what people
wish to do with their own bodies so we
need to always be active in the sense of
our firm yourselves so we are not always
responding to the fascist ization of
culture when it comes with its violence
against some group or another we need to
come first our selves we need to affirm
ourselves in our differences in our
possibilities of life and difference so
our desire becomes affirmative of its
don't be coming we are not going to be
always in a desire in a reactive type of
desire where when the fascists say
something we react so we're only
reacting to whatever comes as violence
against us we need to come from another
space dominant culture will still maybe
for some time we have these fascist
tendencies but we cannot be on the
reactive side we need to be active we
need to look for other creative spaces
of thought of affirming of ourselves our
bodies our desires our worlds and not
wait for the affirmation to come where
it won't come from from these fascist
groups parties and politicians that
dominate some of our countries in the
world today well people now I need you
to comment ask questions on YouTube or
Facebook so I can enter into a
conversation with you
this is an immersion in Nietzsche and
Foucault it's a conversation we have
videos whereby the questions brought by
you I bring to the debate and also bring
new questions like I did today see you
next Thursday
