“I guess that’s what happens when there’s so much emphasis on nationalism in the educational system,” he adds. “And as we know, there’s a very small distance between nationalism and fascism.”
Sorry for this long introduction but leaving the “story” to the journalist who wrote it, too often just multiplies the inadequacy of their analysis, and the USG didn’t fund my study of political theory and support me in the practice of law just for me to defer to journalists. Or teach me the rudiments of Psychological Operations so that I can “multiply” bad, incorrect, or incomplete information by ignoring its deficiencies without comment. So excuse me if I put a bit of that investment to work, as all of us should be here in this forum. And as always, delete it, if my analysis is so disagreeable, or if so, please explain factually how it is, so that all of us can learn from my possible mistake. And sorry if some of what I say is repetitious, but it is meant to apply to the facts of the article I am sharing. To the article below, “nationalism” if it only meant the sort of pride almost all people have for their own countries, and their fellow citizens through the intersubjectivity all humans have for “their fellows,” whether that is familial, geographical, situational/experiential, or common citizenship has always been seen as “normal” and non-threatening, as we saw in countries like Sweden and Switzerland. But to countries engaged in “Perpetual War,” as Israel is in a permanent "war of pacification” against the Palestinians and their neighbors, Leo Strauss’s friend Carl Schmitt defined a different demarcation which changed its character with his sort of “nationalism,” that of the necessity of the “Friend-Enemy Distinction.” Ironically, “ordinary social scientists” in the field, with the disallowance of any non-quantitative approaches to the study of human societies, fail to even research this because it is impossible to “quantify” people’s feeling. Coupled with a reluctance to explain to people in societies at war that in addition to “killing their enemies,” a change is necessarily taking place in their consciousness so that most will come only to see the world divided into "Us vs Them,” (Friends, and Enemies), with only time and the human replacement which comes with time helping a society to return to “normal,” if they don’t allow the militarists to continue their war on consciousness by memorializing and unduly “heroizing” the “Warfighters,” as Germany did twice. First after the victory over the French in 1871, then in the loss in WWI. All of which served as the precursor and the manifestation of fascist consciousness, as George L. Mosse wrote. Edmund Husserl, the Jewish German founder of “Phenomenology,” or as he preferred, the “science of consciousness,” understood this and saw it take place in Germany beginning in the 1920s, and by the 1930s tried to warn European intellectual colleagues of what was happening, and to criticize their common method of “positivism,” for its inadequacies in understanding the “Human Condition,” in his Vienna Lectures, to no avail. And we still refuse to look at what effect a constant “state of war” has on the collective consciousness of a society (even if so many don’t even know the war is taking place, it still seeps into virtually everyone’s life experience) so that only “extreme measures,” preferably coupled with brutality and cruelty, come to be seen as acceptable counter-measures to any societal ill/problem. Thus, fascism! Even if the term is frowned upon being used to describe ourselves. As can be seen in the “nationalism” of the type described below, one that "National Conservative” Yoram Hazony does his best to incite even more, in Israel, and the U.S., and as with the “NaziCons” like Giorgia Meloni, as the “NatCons" would need to be called in Italy, most appropriately. And we’re alway presented with only two “choices” in this fascist lexicon, as if there is never any other method to deal with such issues. Though admittedly when the dominant “Absolute Majoritarian” ideology first promoted by a fellow who once taught at Yale, worked for the CIA, founded an “Influence Operation” magazine, and is haled as a founder of the “Conservative Movement,” becomes the “official ideology” of a nation so that all dissent is to be squelched, as we now see as well from the party that this self-same “Conservative” belonged to (before the exodus of “Southern Democrats” to the Republicans, which he would predictably have been part of had he lived slightly longer). And as our, and Israeli “Warfighters,” have relentlessly researched, that same “Friend-Enemy” consciousness can be artificially produced through “Cognitive Warfare,” what was formerly called “Psychological Operations,” now taken to an “all of society, Total War” attack upon human’s very minds, beginning with those “at home,” to incite the populations to support the wars, and suppress dissent. As we see in Israel, and the US, every day. So none of what is described here should come as a surprise, is my point, with this statement bolstering that: "When asked if he was surprised by the warm reception Ben-Gvir received in a place that isn’t his natural turf, Degani admitted he was a bit. “I know I shouldn’t be, because surveys have shown that young Israelis are far more racist than their European counterparts. But still, the admiration these kids showed for him was a bit shocking.
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