Late Capitalist Fascism, Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, Polity Press

What if fascism didn’t disappear at the end of WW II with the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini? Who the fuck said it did? Even more troubling, what if fascism can no longer be confined to political parties When the fuck was it confined to political parties?  or ultra nationalist politicians but has become?? something much more diffuse that is spread across our societies as cultural expressions and psychological states?

This is the disturbing thesis developed ??? by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, who argues that late capitalism has produced hollowed-out and exchangeable subjectivities that provide a breeding ground for a new kind of diffuse, banal fascism. There was an un-banal fascism? The overt and concentrated fascism of the new fascist parties thrives on the diffuse fascism present in social media and everyday life, where the fear of being left behind and losing out has fuelled resentment towards foreigners and others who are perceived as threats to a national community under siege.

Only by confronting both the overt fascism of parties and politicians and the diffuse fascism of everyday life will we be able to combat fascism effectively and prevent the slide into barbarism.

Bolt, and Dominique Routhier

"Realism 2020: Farewell to (Bourgeois) Art Criticism"

On February 25, 2020, the Christian Dior Autumn-Winter 2020 fashion show took place in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, in a 1.000 n12 building erected for the event. Over the delicately creme colored building entrance are four black letters: “Dior.”

I don't really care if they're writing about Dior to argue that the artist involved is a hypocrite. Their own hypocrisy, without a hint of self-awareness, is worse. The piece is published in a high-gloss art/glam magazine. The footnotes are the usual, but also this

[27] In the context of rising fascist tendencies in contemporary art, Dorian Batycka usefully defines the tactic of “overidentification” as “the act of identifying oneself to an excessive degree with ideas or concepts antithetical to one’s own ideology.”

"Is Accelerationism a Gateway Aesthetic to Fascism? On the Rise of Taboo in Contemporary Art".  Published in the same journal, uploaded on a blog called xenogothic. The name again.

The cast:

Dorian Batycka  art critic, curator @hyperallergic @theartnewspaper @artnet @coindesk  etc

Coindesk. Every link, to art, the art market, to capitalism and the world of luxury commodities. 

The diffuse fascism of everyday life precedes and outlasts the fascist state. These fucking idiots are symptoms of the fucking disease. One of them might get the joke. Was the Bauhaus decadent? Of course. Was Brecht?

 "What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut/ With diamonds?"

In the end it all dovetails.

A repeat from 2014, with additions, relating to Mark Fisher, art as life, fascism, and the rest.