POT 3203 Fall 2024

Week 9 Module

THEME: Fascism

DEADLINES:

Quiz and Part A questions:       Monday  10/21 in Webcourses.

Part B posts:                                  Wednesadt 10/23 in Yellowdig

WEEK 9 ASSIGNED READINGS AND VIEWING:

All subjects to quiz.

Read: Ball et al. chapter 7: Fascism

View: Europa, Europa, feature film by Agnieszka Holland, 1990, 113 minutes. Available through the UCF library at: https://ucf.kanopy.com/video/europa-europaLinks to an external site.

AND READ THREE ADDITIONAL MATERIALS available in Files at Assigned Readings, Week 8.

NYT_Carlson_Replacement_Theory in Files. Or click on:

$CANVAS_COURSE_REFERENCE$/files/folder/B)%20Assigned%20Materials/Week%208?preview=105269840

ADL, Letter to Fox News, April 2021, in Files. Or click on:

$CANVAS_COURSE_REFERENCE$/files/folder/B)%20Assigned%20Materials/Week%208?preview=105269841

Carlson’s defense on Fox News (11 minutes video), at:

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-laughs-at-hysterical-critics-of-his-replacement-comments-rails-against-demographic-change-on-his-showLinks to an external site.

Listen to Carlson Tucker defending his ideas about replacement theory in the video (11 minutes). Click on the first box and let the commercial advertisement run its course before accessing the targeted video. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE to the website. There is no need.

PRESENTATION

"That which has happened is a warning. To forget it is guilt. It must be continually remembered. It was possible for this to happen, and it remains         possible for it to happen again at any minute. Only in knowledge can it be prevented."     Karl Jaspers

This week is dedicated to historical Fascism as an ideology and to its resurgence in the form of the Alt-Right. Ball’s chapter on fascism is supplemented by a featured film based on the real-life experience of a Polish teenager named Solomon Perel. Perel is caught between communism and Nazism in the maelstrom of World War 2. I believe you will find the film interesting. It is a good medium to illustrate the main themes of both Nazism (race) and Marxism (class). In my view it is also a good illustration of how malleable our ideological identities can be under some circumstances. The young hero moves from political indifference, to Marxism, and later to Nazism. In reality, his main interests focus on sheer survival in a threatening context and sexuality. At the end of the story, he genuinely commits to Zionism and moves to Israel.

One of my professors in graduate school, the late Aristide Zolberg, experienced a partly similar story. His father was a Jewish businessman in Poland. Before the onset of the war, Ari was sent to live with distant Catholic cousins in Belgium. Ari was raised there as a Catholic. He felt the tug of changing his identity to Catholicism in Nazi occupied Belgium. Ari’s father was murdered at Auschwitz. His mother survived. He immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1940s where he adopted the identity of Jewish American.

Part B is focused on analyzing the Great Replacement Theory” circulating in some segments of the hard right and its possible connection with Counter-Enlightenment ideas.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After completing this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Identify the main features of Enlightenment thought.
2. Identify the main features of the Counter-Enlightenment.
3. Trace the connection between the Counter-Enlightenment and the several varieties or variants of twentieth-century fascism.
4. Describe the main tenets of fascism as found in its Italian and German variants.
5. Describe the view of freedom found in the several variants of fascism.
6. Describe and explain the fascist conception of, and attitude toward, democracy.
7. Describe the connection between Woltmann’s “racial Darwinism” and its interpretation and application by the Nazis.
8. Say what the Nazis meant by “the final solution” and how they attempted to carry it out.
9. Discuss the refugee crisis in contemporary Europe and its role in reviving far right or neo-fascist movements there.
10. Identify and discuss the main tenets of the American “Alt-Right and critically discuss whether the Great Replacement theory is connected to Counter-Enlightenment ideas.
11. Identify and describe the main turning points in Solomon Perel’s identity.

PART A TASKS in Webcourses

See Tips for Posting in Part A in Files.

Q-0:  Is there an idea or a claim expressed in the readings that you find difficult, confusing, or unclear? If so, tell us which idea this is. Cite the document title and page where you encountered this idea. We cannot help you if the description of what is unclear is overly broad. You do not need to answer this question. If everything is clear, there is not point in answering. Q-0 is NOT for issues or ideas you understand but disagree with. It is only for ideas or claims you do not understand. If you have a disagreement or simply a doubt about an idea contained in the readings, you make that the basis of your critical question in Part B (Packback). Another student might answer your question there.

Q-1: Which idea(s) or claim(s) expressed in the readings (and viewing) did you find the most interesting or meaningful? Summarize that idea, claim or piece of information. Explain why you found it meaningful. Does it clarify something important in your mind? If so, what? Does it change something important in your thinking? If so, again what?

200 words minimum. State your word count.

 NOTE: In answering the question in Part A, you must strive to demonstrate that you reflected on the meaning of the readings and viewing. There is no right or wrong answer. There are only answers demonstrating shallow and perfunctory or serious and deep reflections on the material. We want to see the latter.

Your Part A answer is graded 75% for thoughtful content and 25% for proficient writing.

PART B TASKS in Yellowdig

Task-1: Answer the question raised by the instructor. This week’s question is:

This week’s question: Can “Replacement Theory” Be Logically Separated from Implicit Racist Assumptions?

DEFINITION

An assumption is an idea taken for granted and explicitly or implicitly shaping one’s response to situations, events, other ideas, etc.  

CONTEXT

The popular TV personality Tucker Carlson and some politicians now speak of “Replacement Theory.” A growing population of foreign-born voters would be intentionally introduced in the country by malign forces to change its character for the worse. (For now, I skip over the conspiratorial aspect of this claim. BTW, I teach a course on Conspiracy Theories and Democracy in the fall semester.)

Here I wish to focus more narrowly on the racial issue. Tucker Carlson and others reject the reproach that their usage of replacement theory is racist. Can they logically do that?

“Replacement theory” is not discussed at length by Ball et al. (beyond a passing reference on p. 253 to the neo-Nazi slogan “Jews will not replace us”). Nevertheless, it is not difficult to see parallels with Nazi concerns for the superiority and purity of Aryan civilization or the Turner Diaries’ concern for white civilization in America.

But perhaps the similarity is merely accidental and not logically connected. That will be the subject of the instructor’s question in Part B.

THE QUESTION:

The Enlightenment advanced the idea that there is only one universal human nature. People are alike under the skin. Therefore, this question: How can a concern about growth in the share of non-whites in the U.S. population not be implicitly based on a rejection of the Enlightenment idea of a single and universal human nature?

How can this demographic concern not be based on an implicit acceptance of the idea of inherent, permanent, differences and inequality of abilities among different groups of people (Ball et al. p. 221)?

The core issue here is one of logical consistency.

On the one hand, if there is a single and universal human nature shared by all peoples, why would we ever be concerned about change in the ethnic or racial composition of the population?

On the other hand, *if* human groups are not alike, and *if* their differences are deep and permanent, why would we not be concerned about such change?

Can we logically reconcile a concern about demographic change with the Enlightenment idea of a single, universal, human nature?

Is this concern about demographic change not logically tied to the Counter-Enlightenment idea of inherent, durable, and unequal racial qualities?

Can Carlson and others entertain a concern for the growing presence of nonwhites in the U.S. without implicitly assuming the natural inequality of the races along the lines discussed in chapter 7 of Ball et al.

In brief, is "replacement theory" inherently racist or not?

SOURCE: Ball et al., pp, 248-254.