As much as people of the Western world would like to think of themselves as free thinking people, we show signs of conditioning or social conditioning all the time. There are plenty of occasions where social conditioning is good, for example teaching kids not to steal and all that. Interestingly enough, Western society has been brought up to have kneejerk reactions against Fascism as if it was the devil itself embodied in political ideology. Which is fine, fascism is a horrible ideology. However, as much as people would like to think they are champions of the idea that fascism is a bad thing, they lack the understanding of what fascism encompasses, when in fact fascist ideas are fairly common in society (particularly British society).
Whilst there is great Historical debate on what the tenets of fascism are (which I believe is wrong; the tenets of fascism should be known through advocates of fascism – we should actually listen to open fascists and their debates to find out what fascism is) there are strong recurring themes. Anti-globalisation, anti-capitalism, anti-individualism, anti-racial diversity, anti-liberalism, anti-conservativism, anti-socialism, anti-sexual liberalism – it would seem to some that fascism is just ‘anti-everything’. This would be wrong; they are of a more unique position (state dictated but not owned and controlled economy to note alongside strong authoritarian rule; single party state and lots of police power tend to be important). These are in play to keep traditional state values yet to make them nationally secure. It’s definitely worth reading further to get a grasp at what fascism is; I would actually recommend the Wikipedia article on it because it’s surprisingly good.
Now, I’m not arguing that fascism is popular in the UK, but fascist esque ideas are. The best selling newspaper in the UK, The Daily Mail, openly discusses these. They openly express contempt for greedy bankers yet always support the market system and they need to be sorted (control on economy yet not ownership of the economy), they openly devalue those who are apparently detrimental to society (which isn’t too far off from Nazi’s set of ‘asocials’ ), support fighting back on drugs and alcohol abuse and believe that prisioners should have harsher sentences (anti-liberalism, pro-more police power), moan about the Conservative elite in Britain (some taste of anti-Conservativism there), views for the ‘family unit’ and open dislike of working Mums on the basis that their primary concern is their children (anti-individualism, anti-sexual liberalism), and so forth. I could go on; they hold up on pro-national dignity and hold up those ‘time honoured values’ and pretty much dislike everything else and work against that threatens it. This is a simplified view, but nevertheless; I actually encourage people to go check out the Daily Mail and make comparisons for themselves. Daily Mail is definitely a Nationalist paper, which usually at the heart at of it shows many tenets of fascism.
Yet this isn’t born of a nation of fascists; this is born from a nation of bitter, cynical, borderline apathetic bastards who have always had a Conservative tradition (British Conservativism, none of that Republican nonsense) and fascist ideas are born from this. However, we’re not active fascists for several reasons; political apathy, our ‘go Labour or Conservative’ esque nature of politics, and social conditioning against the idea of fascism due to World War II, integration of liberal values through Human Rights, etc. And this is evident; the Daily Mail will moan for things like ‘too many CCTVs go away 1984’; they do uphold some ideas which are integrated through the rise of some liberal values. However, just because some liberal values have snuck into their perception of tradition doesn’t cause everything else there to go away.
As much as we moan about fascism in this country, it’s highly hypocritical for plenty of people to think that we’re better than them simply because we do not practice fascism. When plenty of people in this country hold fascist ideas as opinions, they really are no better.
However, is this something to worry about? Not particularly. It’s just the way we’ve always been. For one, our political laziness might just be useful considering some people.
Thanks for this Craig, definitely worth reading. Interesting comparison between the Daily Mail's targets - out of whom they make examples - and the Nazi's Asocials. I didn't know it was the best selling paper now, that's a real shame.
The Daily Mail sells significantly better than other news papers, you'd be surprised. You don't need sales sheets for that if you spend eight hours every Saturday in a supermarket unfortunately.
Craigo wrote on Aug 5th, 2009 at 5:19pm : The Sun is of a very much different breed to the Daily Mail.
I'll admit that most of what I know about the sun is from second hand accounts. I'm afraid if I started reading it my IQ would probably drop through the floor. Would it be fair to accuse them of Jingoism?
You should read other sites. Seriously, Telegraph, Daily Mail, flick through every now and again to get an idea of what they're saying, how they're saying. The places where you need to look are their main stories (and how they present them), what their stories are and their opinion pages.
And not really, Mail is worse for that. The Sun is popularist through and through. It does do the 'go British' thing but it's popularist nonsense. I occasionally bring up to readers that the owner of that paper is half American, half Australian. Rather fun.
Intresting read. I've always found it funny how the Daily Mail/ Sun always find a way to bring up 'the war', yet go on about immigration and harsher sentencing.
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