“On the left we often make the mistake of comparing the leaders of today’s populist movements to Mussolini. But this is an improper comparison, historically unfounded, misleading, consolatory and counterproductive”: these are the words of Antonio Scurati taken from an interview with “Il Manifesto” on 23 April 2019. Everyone draws their own conclusions. Let’s not forget, however, that Scurati is the author of a masterpiece like “M. The son of the century”: well, instead of partisanship on one side or the other, let’s read this book and we will understand how a writer should be judged by what he writes.
The problem, however, is another: why do intellectuals continue to shout about the danger of a regime? It doesn’t even remotely exist and I think Scurati knows this well too, but shouting at the regime causes discussion, creates controversy and is populist: a simple, clear concept, almost a fascist slogan in its effectiveness. The real problem – certainly more complex to make the “masses” understand – is that we do not live in a regime but in a Realm. Which is much more dangerous than any fascism because it is the worst fascism.
Of course there are far right and far left groups but they are part of the Realm. And it’s not conspiracy theory.
If there are no more ideologies, we can no longer “believe”. The “truth” is replaced by the “dream” and the “realistic” version of the dream is the fairy tale. Politics then, from being a dispenser of “truth” it was, becomes a “seller of dreams”. A sort of fairytale realm. A kind of Camelot in the Italian version. A place of the imaginary, of the unconscious, where utopia has been replaced by Dream, ideology has been replaced by “dream drift”. It is as if the Italian collective unconscious was regressing towards a neo-infantile phase, in which primary drives dominate, in which the pleasure principle has the upper hand over the reality principle.
L’electorate-Peter Pan he wants propaganda, just like the child wants the cartoon. And then here is anti-fascism. Here is the censorship. Presumed or true. But what does all this discussion on the part of the left lead to? To nothing. More than radical chic, they are radical flops because they fight against an (im)possible future totalitarianism, despite being aware that the danger is total(e)litarism. Anti-fascism today plays the role of foundation and maintenance of the identity of a left now reconciled with the neoliberal order, which he must call himself anti-fascist in order not to be anti-capitalistwho must fight the past and no longer existing truncheon to accept his own contradictions.
Why isn’t the reading of “Democracy in America” proposed to unified networks? Alexis De Tocqueville written in 1842? “If I try to imagine the new aspect that despotism may have in the world, I see an innumerable crowd of equal men, intent only on procuring small and vulgar pleasures with which to satisfy their desires. Each of them, standing aside, is almost a stranger to the fate of all the others: his children and his friends form the whole human species for him; as for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is near them, but does not see them; he touches them but does not feel them; he lives in himself and for himself and, if he still has a family left, it can be said that he no longer has a country. Above them rises an immense and tutelary power, which alone is responsible for ensuring their assets and watching over their fate. He is absolute, detailed, regular, farsighted and gentle. He would resemble paternal authority if, like it, it had the aim of preparing men for manhood, while he instead seeks to fix them irrevocably in childhood, he loves citizens to have fun, as long as they only think about having fun. He willingly works for their well-being, but he wants to be their sole agent and regulator; he provides for their safety and ensures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, transacts their principal affairs, directs their industries, regulates their successions, divides their inheritances; couldn’t it entirely take away from them the effort of thinking and the pain of living?”. If this isn’t fascism.
Gian Paolo Serino, from Newspaper of 28 April 2024
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