Re: <nettime> So what's the use of art, theory, activism?

[Allan Siegel via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

On 22/01/2025 23:50, Brian Holmes via nettime-l wrote:
> "And I am now an elder, who must
> turn experience - even the experience of failures - into something valuable
> for present and coming generations."
Thank you Brian for your perseverance! It is invaluable during these 
times. And, this reminder from the writings of Umberto Eco...
best
allan

"Ur-Fascism is based upon a/selective populism/, a qualitative populism, 
one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but 
the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a 
quantitative point of view — one follows the decisions of the majority. 
For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and 
the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the 
Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common 
will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their 
power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to 
play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical 
fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer 
need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in 
our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of 
a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice 
of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be/against “rotten” 
parliamentary governments/. One of the first sentences uttered by 
Mussolini in the Italian parliament was “I could have transformed this 
deaf and gloomy place into a bivouac for my maniples” — “maniples” being 
a subdivision of the traditional Roman legion. As a matter of fact, he 
immediately found better housing for his maniples, but a little later he 
liquidated the parliament. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the 
legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of 
the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism." from UR-FASCISM




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