Umberto Eco -- 10 features of fascism in correlation to MAUSA³ :

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Eco has 14 features "that are typical of fascism." The term he uses is UR-FASCISM or "eternal fascism." Although all of his 14 features are definitely features of both fascism as well as National Socialism, many of the 14 features can be combined into similar ideas. Combining is a way of simplifying into a formula all those ideas that are similar or that overlap or that are basically the same or sub features of a broader idea or category. I will here first combine his 14 features by simplifying his formula using the terms already established in the Burke formula, and then beneath that I will list out his original, more complex, 14 points in their entirety for comparison. 

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1. Ultra-Nationalism

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This includes a cult of tradition that is "syncretistic." Syncretism, according to Eco, is "the combination of different forms of belief or practice; such a combination must tolerate contradictions."

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Eco's seventh feature is a form of nationalism and social Darwinism combined in the creation of a non-existent inner threat to the nation. Those with privilege in a country are the majority ethnic group. Nationalism, just as with social Darwinism, creates a feeling of being "besieged" by inner corruption, usually ethnic, that needs to be cleansed or purified. "The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot [racist conspiracy theory] is the appeal to xenophobia."

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Eco's eighth feature is the non-existent outer threat to the nation, also combined with social Darwinism in that the threat is usually ethnic or racially based. "The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. ... the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak."

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2. Anti-Intellectualism

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Just the above listed idea of syncretism belongs to a cult of a mythological nationalist past, it is also anti-intellectual. As Eco explains, "... there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message." It is a rejection of modernism. "The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-fascism can be defined as irrationalism."

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Eco's third point is also a form of anti-intellectualism as well. It's about "the cult of action for action's sake," which means to act without thinking, "without reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation." Fascists "distrust the intellectual world. ... The official Fascist intellectuals [actually pseudo-intellectuals] were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values."

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Eco's fourth point is also about anti-intellectualism. It's about "disagreement as treason." In other words, "The critical [or questioning] spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism," and of course, fascists are against questioning or having different opinions. Everyone has to be united in their thinking as one bundle or community, as represented by the ancient Roman symbol of the fasces. 

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Eco's fourteenth and final feature is about Orwell's Newspeak. It's about fascism corruption of language by its changing of the fundamental meaning of key terms. It also achieves this with "an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in  order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning."

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3. Social Darwinism

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Eco's fifth, seventh, and eighth features are social Darwinist in that "Ur-fascism is racist by definition" and the others or enemies of the people or of the nation are an ethnic or a racial enemy as well as a threat to the peace, strength, stability, and racial purity of the nation.

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4. Anti-Liberalism

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Eco's sixth and thirteenth features are a rejection of capitalism and of democratic parliamentarianism as forms of a corrupt and degenerate modern liberal world order. Eco focuses on the capitalist economic system that doesn't consistently work for everyone, especially "to a frustrated middle class" and writes that fascism "must be against 'rotten' parliamentary governments."

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Eco's twelfth feature is a renunciation of equality. Fascism is about machismo. For example, in National Socialism a woman's place was symbolized by the three K's: Kirche, Küche, Kinder or in other words, a woman's place in the world was limited to religion, the kitchen, and to children. This included not just a "disdain for women" but likewise an "intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard [non-traditional] sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality." These habits were considered examples of modern liberal degeneration. 

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5. Meritocracy

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Eco's ninth feature has to do with inner purification. It is also a way of discovering the heroes within the nation, those with naturally superior strength and abilities or those whose abilities are made superior through struggle. Even though National Socialism frequently promoted the idea of a no class system that does away with the traditional aristocracy, elites, and works, the idea of meritocracy also illustrates it's ultimate contradiction ideologically since meritocracy was the method used for identifying fascism's ruling elites from the rest of its popular mass. And this ninth feature is exactly that idea of meritocracy, that "life is lived for struggle" and that "life is permanent warfare," known as the Armageddon Complex.

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Eco's eleventh feature is another element of meritocracy. It's part of the struggle used to winnow out the elite from the popular masses. In fascism, "everybody is educated to become a hero. ... This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death." 

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6. Authoritarianism

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Eco's tenth feature is about the Führerprinzip or the cult of the leader. It's about the fascist contempt for the weak and worship of the powerful and strong. It is a form of elitism, the purpose or point of meritocracy. It "is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler." 

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Eco's thirteenth feature is the Common Will. It is similar to anti-intellectualism in that there is no individual will or thinking. "One follows the decisions of the majority. ... the Leader [Führer] pretends to be their interpreter" of what this common will should be. This common will is euphemistically called "The Voice of the People." 

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7. Anti-Marxism

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Umberto Eco doesn't mention anything about Marxism or or about economic theories such as socialism or communism. The only mention he makes about economics is in his sixth feature where he talks about a frustrated middle class.

 

Just to recap, ant-Marxism is anything that has to do with Marxist ideology, including the economic theories of socialism or communism, fascists are definitely against. Since National Socialism, like all fascism, is a reactionary or extremist conservative movement, they are inherently against all things left-wing. Marxists are known to be ideological purists, unlike National Socialists. Fascists are not ideological purists in the inflexible way Marxists are. Fascists are opportunists, and are not at all worried about ideological purity and will borrow from other ideologies and movements freely if they feel that by doing so it will increase their power and opportunity. A great example of this ideological contradiction within fascism is its willingness to use the benefits of the welfare state to increase its community or national well-being, even though by so doing, they are indulging themselves in a form of state socialism promoted by Marxism. For fascists the end justifies the means. 

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These are Umberto Eco's 14 features of Ur-Fascism as simplified into the 7 core elements of the MAUSA³ Burke formula for fascism, the idea being that so many of Eco's 14 points overlap with other features so that it is easy to simply them down to these main 7 features. 

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Now I will present the original 14 features as written by Umberto Eco without the MAUSA³ simplification. 

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Umberto Eco -- Formula for Fascism:

 

In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages--in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.
 

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice"; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message. If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge--that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism (Ur-fascism is irrationalism).

 

Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual
values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modem depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

 

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Dr-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent
use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. The critical spirit makes distinctions and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.

 

In modem culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.

 

Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration (Status Anxiety).

That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

 

This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the
Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

 

When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

 

Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

 

In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

 

This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play. the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons--doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

 

In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view--one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People
is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

 

Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

 

Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances--every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in
our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

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