Fascism in Sci-Fi

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"Atheist" simply means "without religion".

k

Not really, it means they don't believe in a god or diety. Buddhists don't either and I know where not a Buddhist country.

We do have "In God We Trust" on our money, so there is a belief in God in America so we are certainly not an Atheist Country.

Defining America is impossible since so many people can spin so many things towards their own beliefs.

Lets call it religiously neutral.

FB
 
I think we're getting a little far afield here. I'll reiterate that ReaverReject's definition of fascism in the first post is so confused as to be meaningless, and leave it at that
 
We do have "In God We Trust" on our money, so there is a belief in God in America so we are certainly not an Atheist Country.


I can't let that one pass. "In God we trust" is a slogan that was added to the money in the 1950s. It does not invalidate the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".

If "athest" is too strong for you, let's say America is "secular" or "has no official religion".
 
That's a fair point I think, Phase...

Like I said, I had to look up Capitalism and Collectivism and the first line of both lengthy definitions was that the definitions have not yet been unanimously agreed upon anyway!! :lol


Rather, I'd suggest a general common theme of the dystopiae (is that the right plural?) depicted in films.
 
I think we're getting a little far afield here. I'll reiterate that ReaverReject's definition of fascism in the first post is so confused as to be meaningless, and leave it at that

Well.... no. He's absolutely right that the fascism of the Nazis - and what greater fascists have ever existed - espoused collectivism, whereby all industry is owned by the state. Hitler was thoroughly anti-capitalist, as he perceived capitalism to be run by his hate-objects, the Jews.
 
1.) Theocracies do exist. Rule by clergy creates a de facto religious state. Likewise, you COULD have an "atheist" government, if the government was at least partially predicated on denying the existence of god. This is different from a secular government which is simply areligious. Areligious (lacking religion) is not the same thing as atheist (denying that god exists).

2.) Fascism is tough to pin down as a concept because it combines the easily spotted "totalitarianism" with some supposed economic model that isn't communist but isn't capitalist either. People conflate fascism and communism because the real world examples that we have of each tend to stray from the rigid political philosophies upon which they're based.

To wit, there has never been a true communist state in the Marxist sense. Instead, "communism" in the Stalinist sense was where the STATE (as distinct from the PEOPLE) owned the means of production, and where much of everyday life was still totalitarian. Compare this to, say, fascism under Mussolini or Hitler where the state did NOT own the means of production but DID operate in a totalitarian manner, and you get folks like McBain who can't distinguish their commies from their nazis.


3.) It's important to distinguish the POLITICAL structure of a state from the ECONOMIC structure of a state, and then ways to distinguish how INDIVIDUALS relate TO the state under different forms of government. Democracy and Communism actually share POLITICAL elements in terms of HOW decisions of the body politic are made. Where they differ is in their ECONOMIC focus and also in terms of how far they go to protect certain individual freedoms over others. True communism, for example, is not really totalitarian in its approach to individual freedoms.



With respect to science fiction, I think "fascism" serves as shorthand for certain features of the government depicted in the work of fiction. They are usually:

- Totalitarian -- in the sense of controlling and often denying individual rights which we value (freedom of public dissent, freedom of religion). These restricted or denied or conditional or limited rights also often lead to imprisonment, execution, or other persecution at the hands of the government.

- The government almost always is strongly militaristic, with the military and/or state police being the mechanism(s) by which the government enforces its power.

- The government is often in collusion with large industrial concerns, but not always. Likewise, there may or may not be a religious or pseudo-religious (IE: Highly ritualized) component to the government.


That's about it for sci-fi. They don't get that much into political philosophy. You get vague impressions of how it all works, but that's all. And that's probably as it should be.
 
Here's the Miriam-Webster definition of

fas·cism
Pronunciation: \ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921

1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality — J. W. Aldridge>

So if you want to talk about Science Fiction movies that show societies with those qualities, go ahead.
 
A two-cent coin which is no longer in use. :lol

As far as I know the slogan wasn't added to all U.S. currency until,the 1950s.
 
What are we talking about here again?


If it's a movie in which the population are controlled by a governmental body that rules with an iron fist... I can only think of "1984". No happy ending in that film.

I read the book- but can't recall if Winston was executed at the end... or was just happily daydreaming about being executed.


Kevin
 
What are we talking about here again?

Kevin


Well, we were all just standing around and ReaverReject threw a loaded question grenade up in here. Got pretty messy after that. I really did not get much out if it except for a cool link to the Treasury department.
 
Here's the Miriam-Webster definition of
fas·cism
Pronunciation: \ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921

1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality — J. W. Aldridge>
So if you want to talk about Science Fiction movies that show societies with those qualities, go ahead.


That's a pretty simplistic definition that doesn't actually attempt to distinguish it from, say, Stalinism.


That's part of the issue with fascism. Like I said, it's most obvious factor is the totalitarian, dictatorial element (although I suppose you could have a fascist junta too). But the more hazy element is the bit about "economic regimentation." What the HELL is that supposed to mean? The soviets were "economically regimented" as are Scandinavian socialists if you want to think of it that way. What's the difference between the two, because I doubt anyone would call the soviets fascist.

Again, the problem with all this type of discussion is that the words become shorthand descriptors for what we see, as distinct from the political science definition. I mean, ostensibly, Argentina was a Democracy during the Falklands War, even if it was actually controlled by a military junta at the time. So was it a democracy? A fascist state? A dictatorial military junta propped up by capitalist industrialist institutions who were free to do as they pleased?

Likewise, Franco was ostensibly a fascist, but his economic policies changed during the course of his reign, and weren't the same as those of, say, Hitler.


At any rate, I think that for the most part, sci-fi governments usually fall into one of three categories:

1.) "The utopian free universe", like "The United Federation of Planets" or some other similar democratic, liberal (in the sense of personal liberties, not "left-leaning") government, usually with some kind of legislative branch and an executive leader of some sort (president, chancellor, etc.).

2.) The "Nazi Germany" clone. Degree of similarity may vary.

3.) The "Imperial Rome" clone. Again, degree of similarity to the actual historical Roman empire will vary.


Sometimes you get outliers, of course. Frank Herbert's first Dune novel is pretty much the Italian Renaissance version of history, except united by an emperor. Once in a while you see "Victorian England in Spaaaaaaace", too. But for the most part, your biggies are your nazi clones, your roman clones, and your U.N. one-world-government clones.
 
Really, I'm the first?

Ok.

ibtl.gif
 
Guys, I think we are getting a little too close to talking about one of the forbidden subjects. So lets be careful before this gets locked.
 
They were not some galactic Empire. I really don't see how the Alliance is anything but similar to many of the worlds countries today. Much like America. The Independents just didn't want the Big Brother style of governing pulled down over their freedom. They'd rather have a slight bit of chaos than complete security.

"An empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples (ethnic groups) united and ruled either by a monarch (emperor, empress) or an oligarchy"

"The central planets — them as formed the Alliance — decided all the planets had to join under their rule"


Supposedly the Alliance is governed by a King, on the planet Londinium.
There's a mention of that in one of the episodes.
 
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