Vad gör en fascist?

Individen, mikropolitiken och aktivismens logik

Abstract

What Makes a Fascist? The Individual, Micropolitics and the Logic of Activism

The article contains a discussion of fascism and anti-fascism, with a focus on the role of the individual subject. The author turns first to Theodor W. Adorno and then to Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari in order to question a common understanding of the constitution of fascism. While Adorno sees the individual subject as the locus of a possible anti-fascist resistance, he also regards modern individualism as one of the crucial factors behind the surge of fascism. Deleuze & Guattari opens another perspective on fascism through their distinction between micro- and macropolitics, and a discussion of ”segmentarity”. Hence the article argues that the boundary between fascism and humanism/liberalism/democracy is not as clear as it is normally understood today, when ”fascism” tends to become the abject of modern civilization. This argument is finally developed through a discussion of two very different contemporary examples of activism. Fascism, the article concludes, is in one sense a latent possibility within modern society, rather than its opposite.