"In my country today there are those who are saying that the myth of the Resistance was a Communist lie. It is true that the Communists exploited the Resistance as if it were their personal property, since they played a prime role in it; but I remember partisans with kerchiefs of different colors. Sticking close to the radio, I spent my nights – the windows closed, the blackout making the small space around the set a lone luminous halo – listening to the messages sent by the Voice of London to the partisans. They were cryptic and poetic at the same time (The sun also rises, The roses will bloom) and most of them were "messaggi per la Franchi." Somebody whispered to me that Franchi was the leader of the most powerful clandestine network in northwestern Italy, a man of legendary courage. Franchi became my hero. Franchi (whose real name was Edgardo Sogno) was a monarchist, so strongly anti-Communist that after the war he joined very right-wing groups, and was charged with collaborating in a project for a reactionary coup d'état. Who cares? Sogno still remains the dream hero of my childhood. Liberation was a common deed for people of different colors." (Eco, 2)
I recently saw a piece on Eco's "UR-Fascism" done through media analysis. Or should I say I saw that the literature was what they cited, decided to skip the drivel and jumped right to what a worthwhile thinker had to say. Highly worth a read, you can find it here.
https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf
I have little problem with Eco's definition of Fascism. A few more readings and maybe I could try to tighten up a point here or there, but it seems on par with telling one that has lived through Communism that they are wrong. That is to say I should check my hubris before doing such a thing. So I think, to a wise and knowledgeable right-winger this is worth having in the back pocket to run up against a movement they may wish to join, and see what boxes it ticks. Fascism was a failure and any right winger looking for solutions would do best to reject it. Not reactionary thought, not tradition, not the Right, but fascism is a real bastard of an ideology and runs off of the bastardly deeds of the bastards that make it up.
So back to the quote from the beginning. This part a YouTuber Lefty probably doesn't want you to hear. It's not Praxis to say that in truth Communists will exploit resistance movements. Hell, Communists are supposed to eradicate all exploitation practical and to be seen not doing so would be a betrayal of the Proletariat. Nor does it help the left to realize that a Monarchist and reactionary such as Sogno could perhaps be against both Fascism and Communism. Eco lived Fascism and so its return was at the forefront of his mind. I of course, being a "Righty" in America in 2019 see a much greater likelihood of our slide into Communism than Fascism, but I'd rather not help either the humanity crushing pistons of leftism nor the death-cult of Fascism. So what is one to do in this age where it seems to many like the left has won? When their ideology is a river rushing towards the waterfall, are we to be limestone in that river, constantly eroding? Should we not try to dam it up again with our bodies, like Mussolini and Hitler did? No! We should reach out to our fellow right wingers with the stories of people like Sogno, complex people who do not fit the left-mold. We must be unafraid to face down Fascists and Communists alike, although having his courage will net one no position of power in today's world. Read the works of Chesterton and Scruton and Moldbug for sure, it's a good start. The Right must be trees, not rocks. Trees whose roots go deeper than any silt the river could wash out of the bottom, whose branches hang out above the water as hand-hold for the drowning family to climb out of the rapids with. Rocks are eroded by the river inevitably and only serve as something for the fish to dart around and lay eggs under, or other native river-dwellers to use. Some people are fish and they'll swim fine, breathe fine. They don't need a tree to live in, damming their river up is cruel and the tree is not for them as the river is not for one that breathes air. Many people are monkeys and they can't live in this river their whole life, unable to reach the bank. forcing a drowning monkey to swim until its arms give out is no less cruel than damning up a fish's river. The right must regrow our spiritual and mental habitat for us drowning monkeys to survive.
Further material:
This is a video by a channel called "The Distributist." It lays out some archetypes for the right in the "culture war," ones that have failed and ways to improve. I highly recommend it.
Until Next time.
-Platypus