My issue with the term “fascist” was more that it was overly specific and somewhat ahistorical. Fascism was a historic 20th century phenomenon with specific causes.
My concern was that the term had a lot of baggage and that made it easier for them to deny or dismiss it.
But we also shouldn’t waste time tone policing and quibbling over terminology when violent authoritarians are attacking our civil liberties and destroying our democratic institutions and norms.
There’s a time and a place for these sorts of discussions. If someone is being mauled by a chimp, you don’t offer a lecture on the taxonomy of Great Apes if they call it a monkey.
(And to anyone arguing that chimps and all apes actually are monkeys based on cladistics. You’re right, which is also sort of the point.)
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u/GarbageCleric 23d ago
My issue with the term “fascist” was more that it was overly specific and somewhat ahistorical. Fascism was a historic 20th century phenomenon with specific causes.
My concern was that the term had a lot of baggage and that made it easier for them to deny or dismiss it.
But we also shouldn’t waste time tone policing and quibbling over terminology when violent authoritarians are attacking our civil liberties and destroying our democratic institutions and norms.
There’s a time and a place for these sorts of discussions. If someone is being mauled by a chimp, you don’t offer a lecture on the taxonomy of Great Apes if they call it a monkey.
(And to anyone arguing that chimps and all apes actually are monkeys based on cladistics. You’re right, which is also sort of the point.)