Fascism and Science Fiction

@Zendervai - I don't have a problem with military characters, or a positive portrayal of the military. It's the Michael Bay "I suck up to the brass Soldiers at the Rear" level of camp that turns me off.

It gets dangerous when authors portray: a) all military characters as infallible because they are in the military, b) characters who are not the heroes are a-holes (especially those not in the military, straw civilians if you will) and c) again, democracy is seen as a hindrance to the heroes .

When the heroes get to use their status in the (fictional) military to openly trample on the rights of other character or they get to use violence against villains whose only crime is not being the heroes, the author is playing with fire.

Fascists, real ones, don't like the other (race, creed, disability etc). A fascist work uses the miltiary as a figleaf for Designated Heroes who in other works would be villians or who are clearly based on Real Life dregs like the Waffen SS.

The Star Trek episode with the "Nazi Planet" (patterns of force for any trekkers who are watching). Based on the idea of the Nazis being "efficient" - a character tampers with a splintered planet and makes them all Nazis so that they would unite. It backfires because, well, NAZIS! The generals and leader of the Brownshirts turn the planet against their peaceful neighbors because again Nazis.

A fascist work would present a bunch of thugs (in or out of military uniforms) as a "good thing": trampling on freedom of the press, the rights of others etc. And of course those "undesirables" just gotta go - the heroes make quick work of them.

I've served with soldiers who were dirtbags and other who were the nicest people you could share O2 with. I don't like the Armies Are Evil trope because it's a sign of hack writing and I couldn't stand JAG or NCIS because those shows stroked the perfumed princes of the E-ring way too much^note The E-ring is the deepest part of the Pentagon.

Just because the characters are in the miltiary does not make a work fascist.

edited 15th Sep '17 11:59:17 PM by TairaMai

I didn't want to come off like that. Sorry if I did. I, personally, am not the biggest fan of the military in general, but I recognize that it's necessary and that the military isn't inherently facist or anything like that.

I thought I was agreeing with you when it came to John Ringo. He's not a bad author, but some of his stuff kind of wanders in rather worrying directions at times.

It shoud be noted Robert Howard and HPL actually talked at great length in RL as they were pen-pals and quite possibly as close to internest best friends as could exist in the 1930s. Robert Howard and HPL are also an interesting case of being "moderate to mild racist" and "crazy loon racist." I had a lot of fun researching the two men for my Cthulhu Armageddon book which combined the howardian hero with HPL.

Basically, Robert Howard was a racist typical of the Texans of his time. He was all about white heroes versus "savages" but also showed admiration for many other cultures ranging from Chinese to African to Native American. He was the sort of guy who would find the idea of an exotic foreign sidekick to be cool. Conan was, for example, a man of the world and enforced religious freedom with the Christianity equivalent forced to leave the Hindu equivalent alone in his sole novel about Conan as a King. He also had Solomon Kane have a African shaman best friend and helper which was Fair for Its Day.

Howard is also about as far from fascist as you can get as he disdained the concept of civilization as a whole with a general fondness of the idea that lawless men who lived by their own creed and considered laws as well as conformity a sign of weakness. He's very much a cowboy sort of fellow and the idea of sublimating oneself into the greater whole (inherent to fascism) is an idea all of his characters would loathe. He prioritizes the individual and disdains the collective.

HPL struggled with serious reactionary ethnophobia. Part of this is what's due to fact Lovecraft was a serious amateur scientist who had just enough information to BELIEVE he was smart. Specifically, he was deeply involved in racial pseudoscience which is some of the heart for the worst atrocities of the 20th century. REH was a amateur HISTORIAN and thus had a lot more general respect for cultures and their achievements—which is why Hyboria is actually a fairly interesting mish-mash of cultures. Yeah, REH believed white people were superior but it wasn't an ethos.

HPL, by contrast, tended to view the white world under assail from foreign immigrants (anything other than Anglo-Saxons) with civilization about to collapse under the fact there was no God or higher purpose to the world. He hated New York because it was a cosmopolitan place which busted up his view of Anglo Saxon superiority pretty well and was the typical, "Would cross a street to avoid a black man" stereotype.

Many of his letters with Robert E. Howard (an agnostic who at once criticized HPL's militant atheism for being disrespectful to smart believers across the world even if he didn't share their views) basically ended with REH going, "Lighten up, dude."

edited 16th Sep '17 9:53:45 AM by CharlesPhipps

That's a really interesting, informative post. And it confirms something I had been thinking in terms of why (besides the really obvious) Lovecraft was not Fair for Its Day. As you say, he was a real believer in "race science", and needless to say, the more someone believed in that during the time period, the more bigoted they were going to be. Which is not to say of course that someone couldn't be pretty bigoted without that level of dubious learning, but that basically, I think he "self selected" into one of the more racist groups of the time period.

edited 16th Sep '17 9:42:55 AM by Hodor2

So, not going to argue that Howard was a fascist, but the fanboying of the "rugged individualist" you just mentioned? Not infrequently a part of fascism. Oskar Dirlewanger's Poacher's Brigade, which committed among the worst atrocities of WWII was assembled, at least initially, from convicted poachers, whom Himmler regarded as "pure, primitive German types" who were too in tune with themselves and the true human nature to be capable of following silly, man-made laws. This sort of thinking was not unique to Himmler, and strains of it run throughout Nazism.

The Nazis claimed to be a bunch of things they weren't, like Socialists for instance. In the case of Howard, the "individualism" he espoused was also one which was deeply suspicious of authority and his ideal king (embodied by Kull and Conan) were individuals who were patrons of intellectualism and tolerance of other races who generally desired peace.

We don't tend to associate this with Conan but it's Truer to the Text. Conan wasn't a Blood Knight nor were any of Howard's heroes but they were GOOD at killing.

But yes, Howard wasn't a perfect guy but I do tend to think he gets lumped a bit with the fascist crowd unfairly.

edited 16th Sep '17 9:51:41 AM by CharlesPhipps

That's a product of Howard's work having a lot of fascist fanboys. Neo-Nazis love Conan, because they are able to easily read their version of the rugged individualist onto the character (and of course his fighting hordes of nonwhite folks innately appeals to them).

That's not what the Socialist in National Socialist refers to, and I wish people would stop conflating them. It's a reference to the idea of the Aryan race as a community.

There's also no pretending in the Nazi idolization of the individual. Hitler's entire plan called for replicating the American West on the Russian frontier, with the intention of transforming every German emigre to the East into the archetype of the rugged American frontiersman.

The Nazi regime was not in love with the concept of the state. The Nazi regime aimed to destroy the concept of the state, so there could be a return to what Hitler thought of as the "natural order", with stronger men and stronger races preying on those too weak to defend themselves. He never got there which is why people tend to miss this, but the Nazi regime had a version of race-based anarchy as its end game.

Sorry.

I'll take your word for it.

No apology needed. The Nazi regime was, at the end of the day, weird when you get into the philosophical end of it.

That's something you find in quite a few political ideologies: they're so convinced that their model for society is right, natural, and better for everyone, that they figure if they can just get people to give it a shot, no one will ever want to live any other way, and they won't need to enforce it any more.

In the United States, "rugged individualism" means not being beholden to others unless you chose to. Not being forced to obey and fight for clan/family/caste/etc. Only constrained by the rule of law as it applies to everyone.

Like all hack philosophers, the Nazis are the antithesis of their beliefs: the nation grew stronger under their regime. Most fascists were all "Only strong leaders can save us now!" And all loyalty was subverted to serve the cause. Hence those snappy Hugo Boss uniforms for the SS.

Take the SevenDaysInMay (and the Film of the Book).

A fascist would flip the script:

The character of Colonel Martin Casey makes a choice to support his president. Even in the face of pressure of the popular General Scott. Because the Constitution and the rule of law trump his opinions of the President.

General Scott on the other hand is a fascist's wet dream: a popular general calling for aggressive aciton on the Soviets -Constitution, law, his oath be dammed.

Another example is the movie Cobra. Film Brain tore it a new one here.

TL;DW - the "hero" of the picture Cobra is a Jerkass overly manly type who guns down criminals and tries to protect the Damsel in Distress and does NOT let the rule of law stop him. The villains are a bunch of wackos- but- one of them is played by a Latino actor making the scene where the white lead kills him and then scoffs and the rules and due process ULTRA CRINGEWORTHY.

But to a fascist - these jerks are the heroes, "rugged individuals" who abuse their position. Wrapped in the cloak of authority they pervert it.

Check out his link btw.

edited 16th Sep '17 4:43:28 PM by TairaMai

The sad thing, actually, is that the Nazis weren't the antithesis of their goals. Hitler quite consciously chose to use the tools of the state to destroy the state. In his worldview, the modern nation-state was an artificial (and therefore Jewish) construct, set up so that the weak and parasitic could take advantage of and exploit the strong. He also believed that by preventing the human race from degenerating into a state of permanent racial warfare, the state prevented humanity from behaving/evolving in the way that God and/or natural law intended. From the moment he took power Hitler began dismantling the state, replacing the machinery of government with a nigh-feudalistic chain of patronage that ran up the Nazi Party ranks and had himself at the top. While the military and the police forces were strengthened, the rest of the government more or less withered away, as political institutions were erased and all power passed into the hands of individuals who were personally loyal to Hitler.

Hitler built the Nazi "state", such as it was, with the express goal of destroying all the other states around him, and recreating a version of the American West in Russia. His endgame was more or less the world's worst cowboy movie, in which German settlers in Ukraine, the Baltics, and Russia, united not by the state but by racial solidarity and faith in a single Great Leader whose godlike stature would supersede the nation-state as a focus of loyalty. Nazi Germany was an anarchic mess from the moment Hitler took power, and it only got worse with time, because that was the whole point.

Long story short, being authoritarian and being statist aren't the same thing. Nazism is authoritarian, but it stands in opposition to the concept of the modern nation-state. Hitler's invasion of the USSR was meant as a journey back in time to a fictitious past that was one part Old West, one part feudalism, and all parts thoroughly psychotic.

edited 16th Sep '17 8:53:58 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Hitler had his ideas, but the party had theirs. Anyhow we are straying from the thread topic.

Fascism as a whole is about a strong state at the expense of law-anti-liberalism, anti-communism and anti-conservatism backed up by the group at the point of a gun.

• anti-liberalism: screw equality, the heroes are what's right.
• anti-communism: natch, but anything that even remotely looks like communism is the villain.
• anti-conservatism: traditional institutions suck, only the heroes can save society with their new institutions.

So again, I'd like to see a work that actually proposes removing traditional institutions or one that casts equality and democracy in a bad light (aside from Ringo & Co.).

Are we? Because it's pretty hard to have a conversation about fascism in sci-fi if we cannot concur on what constitutes fascism. And the members of the Nazi Party generally played into Hitler's hands, be it intentionally or unintentionally. Their constant jockeying for power only strengthened Hitler's position and marked Der Fuhrer as the one indispensable part of the system, the ultimate top of a chain of racial and personal patronage.

Disagree—fascism, and especially Nazism, is about a strong leader at the expense of the state. To call the Nazi state strong is to misread how Nazism functioned—the institutions of the state were gutted by the Nazi ascendance, and replaced with personal linkages. Party functionaries, SA goons, and SS fanatics carved out fiefdoms in the wreckage of the German state, creating overlapping personal political territories that battled against one another for the patronage of Der Fuhrer. Careers lived and died at the whims of Hitler and the sufferance of rivals, to an extent that would simply be impossible in a functioning state (even a brutally repressive one), and institutions that are meant to be organs of state coercion—the military, the police forces—became entities unto themselves, loyal not to the German state, but to Hitler personally.

That's pretty common in sci-fi, perhaps even more common in fantasy, and is at least partially a byproduct of fiction in general. Protagonists are structured as special simply by virtue of the narrative, while those who oppose them are liable to be structured as wrong, and evil for being wrong. I've seen the argument made that any story featuring a single hero or group of heroes who solve all problems is inherently fascist—which would make most of fiction inherently fascist (or at least antidemocratic).

What's funny, however, is that this actually makes sense because fascism itself is based on fiction and fantasy. It's a form of utopian thinking that tries to bring a reactionary past-that-never-was into a future-that-cannot-be. As an ideology, fascism invents fictitious problems for The Leader to solve and creates fantastical enemies for he and his armies to destroy. It's an exercise in illusion and fantasy, and as such, draws on fictional tropes and cliches to drive its points into its adherents' heads. Fiction looks fascistic, because fascism's promises are fictitious.

While we may disagree on some points the above statement needs to be framed and studied in schools because it's so on the mark.

• There is the appeal to a tradition that never existed: see the "paganism" of the Nazis, the Antebellum South of the Dunning school or the Neo-Confederates etc.

• Yes, the problems that heroes solve in fiction are fiction, but as you point out, the problems a fascist work has the heroes solve are shaped to frame the hero-as-strongman as the only answer. "If we give power to the hero(s) we can solve this problem!"

• I would add that fascism, like a cult, has those excluded from a group and those who are "the other". The other is the villain, the reason the world is the way it is. LGBT, ethnic groups, the disabled.

I'll let TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan and the baddie of the piece illustrate the point:

Of course the Chancellor gets his in the end, but that quote is fascism.

edited 17th Sep '17 1:17:37 AM by TairaMai

A lot of Sci-Fi military fiction likes to present soldiers as... homicidal Boy Scouts, for lack of a better term. Sure they may be rambunctious and rowdy, but at the end of the day their hearts are true. If they do bad things, it's the fault of their superiors, who led them astray.

A lot was the post war eras: World War II, the The Korean War, the The Vietnam War. A lot of soldiers were draftees who saw to much. They became authors who did invoke the War Is Hell trope.

Edited by TairaMai on Dec 26th 2021 at 8:57:55 AM

Back on the Heinlein thing for a moment: a lot of his mid-century works were explicitly designed to be "rah, rah, military" because he was writing messages targeted specifically at the U.S. military leadership, in an attempt to persuade them to adopt what he saw as sensible policies.

In particular, he was a huge fan of the rocketry program, and later the space program, and may well have had seminal influence by inspiring large numbers of young folks to seek out careers in those fields. He also saw intense danger in nuclear weaponry and spent an enormous amount of effort in an attempt to convince the military of the seriousness of that arms race and the need for defensive preparation.

In truth, he was a big Libertarian, and grew increasingly so as he got older, but not all of his works followed that formula because he felt that delivering his message was more important.

His works tended to be anti-racist (with the sad and notable exception of Farnham's Freehold), and he wrote quite a few non-white protagonists that his publishers quietly shoved under the rug. Friday, of the titular novel, is partially Native American, and the protagonists of Glory Road and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls are black — not that you'd ever know it from the cover art.

He was also a big fan of sexual equality, while still preserving the essential differences between the sexes. To paraphrase a common statement of his characters: "Men and women are different, and vive la difference!"

edited 18th Sep '17 6:55:54 AM by Fighteer

It's like I said, the man who wrote the "bible" of the hippy movement wasn't a fascist no matter what modern critics keep twisting his works to be.

@Charles Phipps: Mostly agree with your post but I don't think the Asurans were meant, despite the name, to represent Hindus, that was Vendhya. I take them to be fantasy Jews, a small and secretive religious minority persecuted by the Crystal Jesus Mitrans and accused of "atrocities". Conan stops the persecutions because he can't find any evidence of the so-called atrocities.

edited 18th Sep '17 7:08:29 AM by tricksterson

I thought the "Shemmites" were the stand-in for Jews/Arabs (both Semitic peoples), and my impression was that they wee generally presented in the context of being greedy and/or lusting after "Aryan" women.

edited 18th Sep '17 7:19:44 AM by Hodor2

"HPL struggled with serious reactionary ethnophobia. Part of this is what's due to fact Lovecraft was a serious amateur scientist who had just enough information to BELIEVE he was smart. Specifically, he was deeply involved in racial pseudoscience which is some of the heart for the worst atrocities of the 20th century. REH was a amateur HISTORIAN and thus had a lot more general respect for cultures and their achievements—which is why Hyboria is actually a fairly interesting mish-mash of cultures. Yeah, REH believed white people were superior but it wasn't an ethos. "

even them most white chararter arent good because they love civilization and most of the time, they were jerk or evil people who were worst because conan at least admit is brutality, I feel the nazis would the type of villian howard would use in is plup have he live to see is atrocities.

on howard...I find that if he have born today, he will be the clasical computer geek who belive he know why white are better.

"Fiction looks fascistic, because fascism's promises are fictitious."

That have to be one of the best line you must said in thise forum, I will keep it for future reference, good job sir, good job.

Shemmies were more of semittie people like canan and the bibical stories, they are portray at times as the "treacherous and sadistic middle eastern"

There are signs that Howard would have been revolted by the Holocaust like his anger at the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks and his disagreement with Lovecraft about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. HPL defended the Italians as a civilizing influence while Howard was repelled by their use of poison gas.

There's also the fact Conan spends the vast majority of his time in vaguely Middle Eastern communities so calling the Shem "the" Jews or Arabs is questionable. Mind you, the Picts are used as stand-ins for Native Americans with Aquilonian border forts under assault by the natives so you have plenty of mixing up for whatever Howard thought would tell a good story too.

Interestingly, flanderization kicked in for Conan's writing as it was later writers who turned Stygia into Egyptian Mordor. Whenever Howard had some culture pure evil, it was always something in the far distant past. Generally, Conan is meant to be a cosmopolitan sort of character and one of the things Howard likes to note is today's "savages" are tomorrow's "empires."

Conan becoming king of aquilonia was meant to be an ethos Howard thought was important since he had King Kull do the same.

edited 23rd Sep '17 7:53:32 AM by CharlesPhipps

edited 27th Sep '17 4:32:40 AM by Druplesnubb