Ur-Fascism: Three Views Regarding its Nature and Function

In this short article, I present ur-fascism as an impulse, system, and worldview.

Ur-fascism can be seen as one of the following or all three of these together:

§ A force in nature: Ur-fascism can be seen as a force in nature, as an impulse, urge, or drive in living things, an instinctual proclivity or natural tendency to reinforce, acquire, or perpetuate authority, hierarchy, and boundaries within and among groups in nature, tending to manifest as segregation from other groups, acquiring new resources, taking and occupying new niches, and engaging in conflicts with other groups. If fascism as a system is a local well nourishing a given community, then ur-fascism would represent the underlying groundwater.

§ A system of government: Ur-fascism can also be seen as a political system, as fascism in its most basic form. In this view of it the following elements would be integral to it:

a) The authoritarian impetus in political life, embodied in a leader or group of leaders at once a part of their community but also the principal or most vital organ of that community.

b) The organicist view of society as an organism whose parts must be properly nourished, in several historical instances through the corporation, an organization that represents the vital interests of a key segment of society such as the laborer, teacher, or businessman.

c) The aestheticizing of society, politics as theater, social pageantry and symbolism.

§ A view of life and the world: As a worldview, ur-fascism asserts the reality of a natural drive toward authority, hierarchy, and community, and the tenability, utility, or desirability of a political system that is grounded in authoritarianism, organicism, and the aestheticizing of society. Underlying this is a deeper view of life conceived as an endless struggle between emergent communities composed of biological types comprised of lineages.