John Whittam

“The English poet said it best: There were more preposterous vicissitudes in life than a single philosophy could conjure.” (The Bourne Identity)

Since I’m a Six on the Enneagram I try to go soft on the Germans; they weren’t the only fascists. Mussolini came first, and he inspired Hitler. Also there’s a sort of weird fascination with fascism, you know: the triumph of fear…. And a lot of people who weren’t Germans went along with it, even if the Germans killed many many more people than the Italians, you know. The Italian fascists actually—and this surprised me—didn’t have the same race-based layer to their fascism—they went from Uniquely Italian, to ‘Universal Fascism’ and back again, and then also made friends with Hitler, Racist Number One in Europe and the World, you know….

So, it doesn’t make any sense. That’s actually something I learned from the book: there are as many fascisms as there are fascists. A lot of things in life are like that, some of them honest, (‘two Jews, three opinions’—Jewish saying), but it’s kinda exaggerated when you’re dealing with power and nation and dishonesty. To an anti-fascist, fascism is whatever you don’t like, and whatever you dislike most of all; and to a fascist, why, fascism is what you /do/ like, and whatever you /do/ like best of all….

…. Sometimes I wonder if I’m too engaged in the history of fascism and all that, but it’s amazing how unthreatening and how unlike being in a riot the whole thing is, how Kantian and unreal, you know: you get the feel that Mussolini was just playing this game—Fascism: Conquer the World, you know (the *original* 1922 classic strategy game: yours now for 5.99!)—and yeah, somehow it can make you feel safe, like: now you know, you know the stories; you know the strategies; you’ve felt the feels (well, maybe not); you really know….

So, I don’t know.

…. Trump was bad, don’t get me wrong, but he was never really that close to becoming like Mussolini or whoever; he was just too much of a wicked idiot, to be anything more dangerous on a bigger scale. I’m sure he hurt some people, but all he really did was divide and destroy, and try to plunge the country into chaos; to rule for a decade or two you’d have to be a little wily, play people against each other, and not just take pleasure from destroying, fighting, and creating enemies. I’m sure there are people like Trump in most fascist movements, but as the leader he (and the other jokers like him) are pretty much non-starters, you know.

…. “To moderates in the PNF (Fascist Party)….”

It is amusing to know that there can be moderate fascists. (That’s probably what I was once; and now, I’m not.) Of course, that would only further infuriate some people—everything only further infuriates some people, you know. I can see the book now: Moderate Fascists. And whatever it said in the book, it would become a hashtag put down for anyone showing any kindness on the internet, right. Of course, it is true that being personable and less bad and more reformist doesn’t mean you won’t waffle your way through an ineffective or ‘bad’ political life, right. But it is amusing how people react sometimes; the blood that has to be shed so that we can be pure—the destruction that has to be wreaked so that we can remain little fluffy bunnies: pure and innocent and anti-fascist. We must be the fluffy bunnies with hearts of iron—or else. (That needs animation, lol.) It’s funny: it is that boy-child combination of immaturity and naïveté, with the capacity for great thrusts of thoughtless violence, you know.

…. And Mussolini was a moderate fascism—maybe more moderate than Thatcher. If there had been rioting strikers in Mussolini’s Italy, he would have figured out some Vulcan mind meld way to undermine and divide them until they merged into the Great Fascist Collective; in Thatcher’s Britain, rioting strikers required a simple two-step solution: one, send in the Marines; two, problem solved.

I’m exaggerating…. right? 😸

…. The Italian Fascists just seem less demon-driven than the German Nazis. —We control Italy; nobody denies it!…. Whose turn was it to pay for pizza night? Was it you, Giacomo? Yes, it’s been awhile since you’ve paid your fair share for our office’s weekly pizza night. I propose that we formally reprimand Giacomo, unless he pays for one large plain pizza for all of us to enjoy…. (Later, in Berlin) “And, if we do not destroy them! If we do not destroy all of them!” —Louder. —IF WE DO NOT DESTROY THEM. —Good. (makes note).

There were other nations that collaborated with the German Nazis, but for a few years there, the Germans in particular, were just…. Mean, you know. They got sad at people. They didn’t just take power! They didn’t just fight a war! They didn’t just have pizza night! They really…. Phew. (chuckles) For a few years, they really lost their cool, you know.

…. In a way, the Italians had kinda the opposite kind of tyranny from the Germans. Hitler wanted to stir up fear; Mussolini wanted people to go to sleep.

…. And they were racists, certainly by the end, at least.

…. “The Manifesto of Racist Scientists”

O God! That shouldn’t be funny! O god—it’s like a cartoon! A racist cartoon character or something!

…. I thought it was full of teachercraft to learn that Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany weren’t really bosom buddies from the beginning, you know—and it kinda makes sense, because if Hitler had won, it wouldn’t have been good for Italy, even in the narrow sense of Mussolini’s Italy, you know. Hitler would have been Big Brother, “1984”-style, and Mussolini would have been Big Brother, “Big Brothers & Big Sisters”-style, you know: providing the global dictatorship’s child care, basically…. A ruthlessly hierarchical world is not the ideal place to win the silver medal, basically.

…. I have read a lot of religion books because I was set on living the right way, right, but I wasn’t alone: the world is full of show-offs and perfect people and religious people and people who set the bar way high for themselves and then drastically underdeliver (Sure, dad, I’ll work in the vineyard for you….). Encountering this sort of thing would always sorta make me think about the Nazis, until eventually I decided I wanted to think less about religion and do something else; I thought, I’m always on about Hitler, why not learn about the actual Nazis and fascists? But now I think that it’s not necessary to solve this problem in such a literal way, (historians and journalists are very literal in our society), but it was nice to take that first half-step away. Now I try to focus less on being a scholar and more on being happy; I can, say, read the words that come from the comic’s silver throat—many of whom make jokes about how unfair the world is!—and sports and media figures books, and although for certain reasons I only put music not in English here, I can liven that up with some K-pop and film music, and I dabble in regular Anglophone music and put it on another site…. Anyway, I’m not going to give up studying the big bad wolf of the world, you know, since I’m not avoidant in my own estimation, and also people can overcome things, too, even when they’re set against it, right, and terrible things end and had internal limits, too, and having fewer of the one leads to the other coming on quicker…. History doesn’t have to be Scrooge’s errand, but I do weigh history—and the serious things of the world—differently than I used to, you know.

…. Sometimes you play the tyrant and you frighten people; sometimes you play the tyrant and you embarrass yourself.

…. We have to knock Italy out of the war. It will be easy…. And, fun. —Churchill

For a never-wrong-hero-man, it’s surprising how often Spencer could be wrong. The whole point was he was trying to calibrate the war to Britain’s capabilities, not the rest of the Allies…. And knocking Italy out of the war was neither necessary, nor easy, as it turned out.

…. It’s hard not to say something trite at the end about man’s useless desire for stupid conflict—war for war’s sake, you know. And if there weren’t anybody on either side who subscribed to war for war’s sake, it’s hard to see how war could ever happen, even if mass power makes something like fascism more dangerous in modernity. I don’t think people are rational in their motivations, in the end. They build bombs in order to explode them, really.… (meer)