What Do I Mean by Fascist?

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If I call myself one, perhaps I don't agree with Umberto Eco's 14 points.

I think that a certain anti-Fascist on the right (more like an US Republican) made a valuable distinction.

• Italian Fascism, National Socialism, Social Democracy are all related.
• Italian Fascism is not more related to National Socialism and National Socialism not more related to Italian Fascism than each to Social Democracy.

So, what do all of these have in common? Following the first part of the distinction.

They have in common to reject both Capitalism of the extreme Manchester school, or even too uncomfortably close to it, and instead emphasise workers' rights, while at the same time also rejecting Communist expropriation and instead emphasising property rights. Or to put it shorter : all three try to conjugate respect for workers' rights with respect for property. Me four.*

So, where do they differentiate? Or where does Italian Fascism differentiate from the other two?

• Italian Fascism as well as National Socialism reject the feminist heritage of Social Democracy, like promoting free sex without consequences, first promoting contraceptives, then later on even abortion.**
• Italian Fascism as well as Social Democracy (at least previously) rejects mercy killing of the disabled.
• Italian Fascism up to 1934 as well as Social Democracy reject Racism, while Italian Fascism from 1938 on, as well as National Socialism embace Racism.

On the last one, I'm with the early Mussolini, not the late one.

That's also the case with Spanish and Austrian Fascism, as well as with Portuguese and at least some Brazilian versions***

To be fair to Umberto, he doesn't list Racism as a feature of Fascism. Parts of what he does list are to me unfortunate accidents in Il Duce's version, specifically Il Squadrismo .... I was fortunately not involved in a civil war, like Il Biennio Rosso, so, I can definitely live without features like

3) The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4) Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
...
9) Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10) Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

But I definitely like points 1 and 2, though not the way he spells it out:

1) The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2) The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

Syncretistic and occult elements are within Christendom very much the opposite of traditionalism. The Nazi Gnosis was less important in Nazism than mostly dechristianised Protestantism.°

Rejecting the Enlightenment is very much not irrationalist, because the Enlightenment itself was less rational than the Catholic "Superstition" it rejected. And remains so to this day.

I totally agree with the Inklings on that point, however much they may have agreed with Eco in exaggerating how important Nazi Gnosis was for National Socialism.

As to n° 6 "appeal to social frustration" — what ideology isn't doing so the last few centuries since the Enlightenment?/HGL

* Pun on "me too" sounding like "me two" ...
** My grandparents who were Social Democrats were so early enough to be it well before the abortion part, and to actually be disgusted by the change.
*** O Integralismo may have been regretted by Dom Helder Cámara as a "sin of youth" ... I'm not so sure. Except, of course, I'm not a fan of Gustavo Barroso's antisemitism, especially if he went further than Drumont.
° Statistics for the Waffen-SS corroborate what I said, on a video seen last month or two months, I got a break-down : c. 25 % each of Catholic and Gottesgläubig (that Nazi Gnosis was officially called so), c. 50 % of Evangelische, which unlike US Evangelicals in the German context doesn't mean very fervently Christian Protestants, but more like very moderately Christian and fervently progressive Protestants.