Sounds like Brasillach is a good case study on how a certain kind of Stirner-esque anarchism can be compatible with fascism. Reminds me of another interesting piece at https://c4ss.org/content/56480 focusing on some Italian Stirnerites who played important roles in the growth of the early fascist movement. The author is himself a type of individualist anarcho-socialist, but he cautions against the style of individualism that sees rationality and ethics as constricting limitations on personal freedom that should be dropped in favor of the fascist glorification of instinct and will.
I wish there was some kind of forensic psychology marker that would enable one to definitively pre-determine/forecast that a given ostensibly “non-conformist” bohemian aesthete would transition to a power-worshipping, supremely conformist, bohemian fascist agitator. In some ways, the phenomenon seems as vexing now as it did in Brasillach’s time.
Oh, great. Now I know what Peter Thiel's book club has been reading.
(Well, Elon listened to the audiobook.)
(For the avoidance of doubt: I'm suggesting that they have been reading Brasillach, not Tucker's biography of Brasillach, which sounds excellent.)
Very pleased to see Paxton's take confirmed. The French scholars of fascism became Paxton admirers (Paxton partisans?) years ago and they are still.
Sounds like Brasillach is a good case study on how a certain kind of Stirner-esque anarchism can be compatible with fascism. Reminds me of another interesting piece at https://c4ss.org/content/56480 focusing on some Italian Stirnerites who played important roles in the growth of the early fascist movement. The author is himself a type of individualist anarcho-socialist, but he cautions against the style of individualism that sees rationality and ethics as constricting limitations on personal freedom that should be dropped in favor of the fascist glorification of instinct and will.
I wish there was some kind of forensic psychology marker that would enable one to definitively pre-determine/forecast that a given ostensibly “non-conformist” bohemian aesthete would transition to a power-worshipping, supremely conformist, bohemian fascist agitator. In some ways, the phenomenon seems as vexing now as it did in Brasillach’s time.
It Bannon.