Fascism Quotes

“In a striking metaphor, Michael Burleigh suggests that the Nazis sought to rebuild German society as engineers rebuild a bridge. They could not demolish it, since that would disrupt traffic, and therefore they replaced each individual part, so that passengers wouldn’t notice.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Fascism, as Ortega y Gasset says, is always ‘A and not A’.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Yet how can we make sense of an ideology that appeals to skinheads and intellectuals; denounces the bourgeoisie while forming alliances with conservatives; adopts a macho style yet attracts many women; calls for a return to tradition and is fascinated by technology; idealizes the people and is contemptuous of mass society; and preaches violence in the name of order? Fascism, as Ortega y Gasset says, is always ‘A and not A’.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“The term fascism remains taboo, but the ideas associated with it are less so.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“The passage of an Irish Home Rule Act seemed to foreshadow the break-up of the United Kingdom. Ulster’s resistance to Irish Home Rule stimulated radical nationalism there, and many Conservatives sympathized with it.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Along with liberalism, conservatism, communism, socialism, and democracy, fascism is one of the great political ideologies that shaped the 20th century. In the 21st century interest in the history of fascism and its crimes is perhaps greater than ever. Yet how can we make sense of an ideology that appeals to skinheads and intellectuals; denounces the bourgeoisie while forming alliances with conservatives; adopts a macho style yet attracts many women; calls for a return to tradition and is fascinated by technology; idealizes the people and is contemptuous of mass society; and preaches violence in the name of order? Fascism, as Ortega y Gasset says, is always ‘A and not A’.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Anyway, the question of whether or not the modern far right’s stance is ‘fascist’ has no bearing on the moral acceptability of its proposals. For instance, would the expulsion of non‐whites from a country be more acceptable if it was the work of a non‐fascist government?”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Far‐right movements promise to respect the advances made by women but they attack feminists, and they advocate policies that would actually remove many gains.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Racism is a prejudice erected into a system.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“History also shows that the oppressiveness of racism is exacerbated by its arbitrariness. No one has shown that differences between people living on opposite sides of national boundaries, which were usually the result of dynastic accident or the fortunes of war, are related to ‘deep psychology’ or genetics. Neither has anyone shown that tiny genetic differences of people with different skin colour have any effect on cultures. Moreover, the differences within nations are as great or greater than those between nations. Yet the very vagueness of their principles permits racists to adapt their ideas to whatever purpose they espouse.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“The availability of workers to the far right may owe something to the fact that from the 1990s many socialist parties embraced the neo‐conservative agenda.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Economic difficulty coincides with a sense of cultural disadvantage. Work no longer provides identity and status for many young men. Given cultural pressure to consume conspicuously, and the linkage of consumer goods to sex appeal, poor young men feel left out. They resent governments that are more inclined to tackle discrimination on grounds of gender, race, or sexual orientation than they are to deal with class inequality—doubtless governments ignore class inequality because it alone is intrinsic to capitalism.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Socialists blended into a wider radical tradition, which had rarely favoured rights for women and had sometimes been xenophobic. This exclusionary sub‐current became more pronounced in the late 19th century in opposition to Marxism, for Marxism stressed internationalism and factory workers rather than the people in general. Simultaneously, the emergence of feminism brought out implicit misogyny. Consequently, some socialists shifted from left to right.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“A proper scholarly method is intrinsically antifascist, in that it treats sceptically what fascists regard as beyond criticism.”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction

“Historic fascists generally argued that women’s primary function was domestic and reproductive. National-populists”
― Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction