Eco’s ‘eternal fascism’ is a myth; eternal totalitarianism is alive and well

Thirty-one years ago, in a speech at Columbia University – which was later published in a widely circulated booklet – Umberto Eco denounced what he called ‘eternal fascism’ or ‘Ur-Fascism’. He identified 14 characteristics: the presence of even just one of them would be sufficient “to bring a fascist nebula into focus” (U. Eco, “Il fascismo eterno”, La nave di Teseo, p. 33).

In doing so, Eco actually carried out a subtle act of political misrepresentation which, to some extent, still influences the debate today on the relevance of the so-called fascist threat, helping to fuel a veritable inquisitorial psychosis. Eco, in fact, strongly argued that fascism should be identified and combated not because of its declared or actual (political, programmatic) link to the historical experience of the twenty-year period, but because of the presence of one or more of these 14 characteristics. This would, in fact, be an ‘eternal’ fascism, of which the experience in Italy during the last century, spanning the two world wars, would be the prototype, but which could continually resurface. Eco writes, verbatim: ‘Ur-Fascism is still all around us, sometimes in civilian clothes’; ‘it can still return in the most innocent of guises. It is our duty to unmask it and to point the finger at each of its new forms’ (pp. 49–50).

Eco brings together certain aspects which, in his view, profoundly characterised fascism and which should therefore make it possible to identify in advance any political figure who in any way claims to be its heir. These aspects, as if they were the mark of the condemned of yesteryear, are today often used to justify stigmatisation and ostracism in the name of a renewed militant anti-fascism. In truth, these are, first and foremost, elements that cannot all be lumped together as inherently negative. Furthermore, and above all, almost none of them are characteristics unique to fascism alone.

The first element of Ur-Fascism is said to be the ‘cult of tradition’ (p. 34). In this regard, however, Eco confusingly conflates the cult of tradition, traditionalism and syncretism. Syncretism, in the Evian, mystical, esoteric sense, is essentially irrelevant today in the language and thought of Italian politics and therefore does not warrant consideration. If, by syncretism, one means the interweaving of multiple cultural roots (bringing together ‘De Maistre, Guénon and Gramsci’, according to the narrative of a certain ‘new right’, as stated on page 36), it should be noted that all political and philosophical thought is subject to influences and cross-fertilisation; yet this does not mean that such mixing and cross-fertilisation can be considered ‘fascist’. Eco’s narrative becomes downright ridiculous (and dangerous) when he writes that selling St Augustine’s works in bookshops on the same shelf as New Age literature would be an example of syncretism, already a ‘symptom of Ur-Fascism’ (p. 36). If, however, the target of the attack on eternal fascism becomes traditionalism, then two distinct meanings must be distinguished: traditionalism understood as the worship of an archetypal revelation, and traditionalism as respect for a past regarded as a resource to be harnessed in order to build the future. On this point too, Eco does not seem to have a clear understanding, confusing ‘Nazi gnosis’ with certain ‘counter-revolutionary’ Catholic thought as well as with late Hellenistic thought. The first meaning of traditionalism belongs to a conception that is typical of various religions, and ultimately of all assumed revealed truths, and, to some extent, also of certain political ideologies. We find the second meaning in spheres entirely unrelated to fascism: for example, in the strength of the Roman Republic and, at the same time, in the Anglo-Saxon experience, where it forms the cornerstone of the Common Law. Indeed, traditionalism as respect for the past, as a resource for building the future, is the very essence of conservatism. It may be open to debate where it slows down modernisation, but throughout history the drive for modernisation has not always coincided with positive outcomes for society. Traditionalism does not, therefore, appear to be a necessarily negative element, nor a symptom that would identify fascism, which, on the contrary, has historically also been characterised by revolutionary aspects that are entirely anti-traditional.

Other elements which, according to Eco, characterise Ur-Fascism, such as suspicion towards an intellectual world that serves no political purpose, disagreement viewed as treason, fear of difference, obsession with conspiracy theories, the portrayal of the enemy’s wealth as a source of humiliation, ‘life for the struggle’, the appeal to frustrated classes, the people conceived not as a collection of individuals but as a monolithic bloc expressing a common will, the cult of the hero, and even simplistic language, are all elements found in another form of totalitarianism: communism. The elitism which, according to Eco, is ‘typical of every reactionary ideology, in that it is fundamentally aristocratic’ (p. 42), is also found in the Leninist concept of a workers’ vanguard (“rabocij avangard”) which would constitute the core of the revolutionary Communist Party, at the head of and clearly distinct from the rest of the proletariat. Communism, moreover, shows no mercy to the weak, unless they are subservient subjects of the party. I concede that Eco is right about machismo, ‘which implies contempt for women and an intolerant condemnation of non-conformist sexual practices’ (p. 45), and the cult of war (p. 42), which are, however, to be found in the practice of virtually all communist regimes that have existed historically. No communist regime has ever had female leaders; every communist regime has made rearmament and ‘liberation’ wars defining features; yet homosexuality has been harshly persecuted and repressed even under communist regimes. And this is the point. Eco overlooks the common roots of fascism and communism, thereby failing to lay the foundations for a critical reflection on the latter. And, for that matter, where did Mussolini and a not insignificant part of historical fascism come from, elements which, not coincidentally, were later reflected in the Italian Social Republic’s (RSI) programmes for the ‘socialisation of enterprises’? Condemnation, therefore, should apply equally to both fascism and communism, both of which are united by the fact that they were totalitarian systems that established themselves in the first half of the 20th century. The fact that communism is not associated with this discredit is also one of the points of ambiguity in today’s debate on fascism and anti-fascism. A debate that has failed to grasp the genuine risks of ‘eternal totalitarianism’ (Ur-Totalitarismus), instrumentally claiming that it is identified with and limited to fascism alone.

Giuseppe Valditara is the Minister for Education and Merit