“fascism” & linguistics

Stan Goff
Stan Goff
Nov 3 · 4 min read
Ludwig Wittgenstein

This isn’t a post about fascism per se, because the intent of this post is to look at questions pertaining to language. But fascism as a term is a window into the discussion.

First, let’s consider the so-called linguistic turn in philosophy. It’s interesting how those who were most facile with language were among those who most wanted to reduce philosophy — and life — to questions of language. While this may have bent the stick too far, there has also been a heightened awareness of language that can be quite revelatory.

The basis of my reflection here is the concept Wittgenstein applied to language in the latter half of his philosophical career: ordinary language philosophy. This can be summarized in the statement, “The meaning of a word is in its use.”

Bitch: female canine (n), complain (v), a complaint (n), ill-tempered woman (yes, it’s sexist as hell), someone who is abjectly obedient (also sexist as hell, deriving from association with females as subalterns), putative parent of a bad man (son of a bitch). Modifier: bitch-slap.

Crown: headgear of a monarch, symbol of the monarch, symbol of all monarchs, headgear and trophy in beauty contests, whiskey brand, Burger King icon and cheap toy.

When Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) formulated his ideas about language, which he compared to games, he pointed out that language can mean “giving orders, and obeying them, describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements, constructing an object from a description (a drawing), reporting an event, speculating about an event, forming and testing a hypothesis, presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams, making up a story; and reading it, play-acting, singing, guessing riddles, making a joke or telling it, solving a problem in practical arithmetic, translating from one language into another, asking, thinking, cursing, greeting, and praying.”

There is a struggle going on over the term fascism. It’s a wee bit arcane, but one side implicitly defines fascism through a checklist of characteristics — hypermasculinist ethno-nationalism, nativism, scapegoating, and authoritarian rule — while another defines it as a stage in a process where the reactionary right turns its guns on the left. Of course, it can be both, but the struggle seems to be over the meaning of the word. Herein is the problem. One person might be using the term as an analogy: “She’s a twelve-step fascist.” Another person might use it to describe a set of ideas: “He has a fascist point of view.” Yet another might use it as shorthand for a set of policies: “Modi is a fascist,” meaning there are similar features shared between Mussolini’s Italy and Modi’s India — and you and I understand that this is the extent of the term. Another person might try to historicize fascism: “Facsism (literally, Mussolini’s term) arose in Italy under the following conditions. In other words, the meaning is in the use.

Wittgenstein acknowledged that there are instances where language is precisely correlated to some one phenomenon to which a word refers. Scientific measurements, for example, or physical directions. The sun is 93 million miles away. You’ll find her place straight ahead for three blocks, then turn right, and its past a giant oak tree on the left. But in “large classes of cases,” Wittgenstein avers, the precise meaning of words and phrases can only reflect the intention of the speaker/writer to the listener/reader by grasping the context of its use. Spelling-Nazis, Grammar-Nazis, Definition-Nazis, and Universal Darwinists want every word to correspond with the same thing every time, and yes I called them Nazis without without meaning they hate Jews and Communists and goose step with swastikas on their sleeves. And yet readers know exactly what I mean.

Every word we use does not entail a list of metaphysical commitments, as Toril Moi points out in Sex, Gender, and the Body. I have been guilty of this myself. I abhor the term progressive, but I have to admit that my aversion to the term is based not on its uses — most people who claim it are not the like the racist masculinist imperialists who first claimed the term (think Teddy Roosevelt), but on my reading of the history of the concept, and on the weasel-like way it’s used as a kind of vanilla term for socialism.

In truth, used to mean “improvement,” there might be two kinds of “progress,” one Promethian and one convivial. I could probably be alright with convivial progress. But I have, probably somewhat unfairly, attacked the term in a way that implies that it does entail a metaphysical commitment to the ugly history of progressivism since the early twentieth century. Mea culpa.

As I am again — against my will — embroiled in politics at my advancing age, I notice this as a reminder to myself that I cannot persuade if I fail to listen, and listen attentively to what people are trying to convey. This may mean setting aside, except in egregious cases (I don’t tolerate overt racial and gender slurs), my own tendency to watch other people’s language with an eye to judging them, and correcting them (I’m not immune to this arrogance), as opposed to understanding them. I have to be more like a good counselor than a bad cop.