everyone involved in this debate besides Ganz looked like a moron to me the whole time - ThreadSky

atwilliams.bsky.social • 45 days ago

everyone involved in this debate besides Ganz looked like a moron to me the whole time

In retrospect, the fact that there was a "facism debate" is a damning indictment of some scholars basic observational facilities.

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connorstedman.bsky.social•45 days ago

yup.

runningoutwest.bsky.social•43 days ago

Is that Corey Robin music! Lol

notmovielines.bsky.social•45 days ago

Even worse because I felt like John’s analysis was often very measured. His Twitter presence may be combative with bad faith actors, but if you actually read his work he wrestled with the issue seriously.

Meanwhile Robin and Moyn frequently argued in bad faith and rarely took the issue seriously.

notmovielines.bsky.social•45 days ago

They just kind of flipped at the end when it was too late. It showed a complete lack of intellectual inquiry while John actually seemed conflicted at times. Measured in his columns especially.

geryon.bsky.social•45 days ago

Tooze’s point, that Trump/MAGA is as bad and dangerous as fascism but “fascism” is tightly tied to European interwar movements with different structures (with Italy rather than Germany paradigmatic) like a more unified & organized party, was really pedantic but probably true

atwilliams.bsky.social•45 days ago

right, making pedantic but true assertions to keep a debate going about something that represents an active threat, even to the university one teaches at, im not sure that action has the escape velocity to make it out of being included in "moronic"

geryon.bsky.social•45 days ago

That is fair. My read was that the goal was to point us to different strengths and vulnerabilities of our modern clownshow & more competitive decentralized form of fascism (I like Taylor & Klein’s “end time fascism” take too) but pedantry is maybe a moronic way of doing so

atwilliams.bsky.social•45 days ago

yeah, these are literary distinctions, not Situation Report distinctions

geryon.bsky.social•45 days ago

For sure. Useful to have both some literary and some sit. rep. analysts on the beat, though ideally to keep each in their lane

atwilliams.bsky.social•45 days ago

yep exactly. tooze is at his best when he has time and space to reflect

marshallb19st.bsky.social•45 days ago

Bro was like, "Do you need an example of 'moronic'?"

geryon.bsky.social•45 days ago

My point i guess is that “what to call it” and “how to fight it” are different questions. And if there was anything useful in the fascism debate it was about how to fight it. Bc Germany dominates the image, but Chile, Spain, Italy etc suggest different approaches. Could just debate that directly tho

atwilliams.bsky.social•45 days ago

yeah exactly, i really wish there was more of a recognized distinction between kinds of analysis that work like buyside/sellside notes for action inder uncertainty, and longer retrospective arguments in politics etc

contextneeded.bsky.social•43 days ago

Remember when Fred Trump was arrested at a klan rally

cricketmice.bsky.social•43 days ago

Trump on day 1 of his campaign 2015 called for ethnic cleansing (build the wall, Muslim ban). fascism, debate over. Every pundit acted like they were kicked by a horse and had lost all historical knowledge and memory past 5 minutes like “what’s this brand new thing, far right populism?”

stareaskesis.bsky.social•45 days ago

I was pretty sympathetic to the “fascism is a success term” current, which argued for “aspiring/wannabe fascist” instead (compare “you’re not a communist just because of your opinions if you aren’t a member of a communist party—maybe you’re a communist sympathizer”). But that ship has sailed too

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