It Can't Happen Here
It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical political novel by Sinclair Lewis published in 1935. It features newspaperman Doremus Jessup struggling against the fascist regime of President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who resembles Gerald B. Winrod, the Kansas evangelist whose far-right views earned him the nickname "The Jayhawk Nazi". It serves as a warning that political movements akin to Nazism can come to power in countries such as the United States when people blindly support their leaders
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- In the same vein, his It Can't Happen Here is also well worth reading, as is Jack London's The Iron Heel. The more things change the more they stay the same.
- Also see Eco's "Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt".[1]
I'd also recommend reading David Neiwert's essays on his blog Orcinus[2], who (more than 15 years ago, long before the rise of Trump, Proud Boys, the alt-right, QAnon, etc) was already extensively discussing Eco's essays and related analysis of fascism and proto-fascism as it manifested in "patriot", militia, and "white nationalist" movements in the US, who Neiwert did extensive investigative reporting on (and published books on this as well).
His "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism"[3] and "Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism"[4] are good summaries of his work.
Also related are Sinclair Lewis' 1935 "It Can't Happen Here"[5] and Jack London's 1908 "The Iron Heel"[6].
[1] - https://interglacial.com/pub/text/Umberto_Eco_-_Eternal_Fasc...
[2] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
[3] - https://dneiwert.blogspot.com/The%20Rise%20Of%20Pseudo%20Fas...
[4] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/Rush%20Newspeak%20%20Fascism.pd...
- Another good bit of reading material is the book 'It Can't Happen Here' by Sinclair Lewis. Bit of a warning, though, it might hit way too close to home for comfort for American readers. It was written in 1935 but still quite relevant if not prescient.
I think it is good for people to be interested in and discussing the nature of oppression and its consequences. As I see it, oppression is incremental, with people as a group generally responding fairly predictably as it increases. I think this is biologically rooted, stemming from fundamental drives toward autonomy. Any time autonomy is violated, regardless of intent, it is a small bit of harm. Sometimes, that harm is justified. If you pull someone out of the way of a speeding car, you have saved their life by violating their autonomy, but the tiny harm still exists and has consequences. These harms accumulate (though I am sure it is a complicated process where the harms are alleviated by other acts of autonomy, so not purely inevitably accumulative).
Just looking at history and at various situations in which oppression occurs (workplaces, prisons, schools, etc, not just nations) it seems to me there are broad patterns. When peoples autonomy is heavily infringed, they concentrate more on the forms of autonomy which are more difficult or impossible for whatever authority is in play to prevent. They express themselves through their dress, through body modification (piercings, tattoos, branding, scarification, etc), through their language with development of new slang or codes, and can even engage in self-harm (cutting, anorexic starvation, bulimia, binge drinking or eating, harmful drug abuse, etc) to exemplify that they still control something.
If the untouchable authority continues to increase the control it exerts, the people begin seeking to establish an alternative sense of a power hierarchy they can influence. They engage in interpersonal conflict, seeking to establish that they are stronger, better, more well-liked, more pious, more loyal, etc, than those around them.
As the oppression increases, those power hierarchies become more formalized and gangs (or cliques, brotherhoods, clubs, etc) form, with members adopting the gangs norms and moral codes as the authority they respect and are loyal to. They cling to their tribal identity, and see the actions of the group as expressions of their own desires, increasing their sense of autonomy.
As it gets more oppressive, the gangs begin to vie for turf or control or influence. Gang wars emerge. These aren't always literal guns-in-the-street or shivs-in-the-exercise-yard wars and can be done through proxy competitions of all sorts. Anything which the participants mutually agree to can be an analog, but in situations with such a high degree of oppression, violence is often the only thing left. A couple warring prison gangs can't really organize peaceful means of establishing dominance as no one has enough autonomy to do so and the overarching authority has a vested interest in not acknowledging the gangs as legitimate organizations.
In the final stage, the gangs dissolve/join and emerge as an army. They rise and destroy the oppressive authority through the only means the authority has made possible - brute violence. Democracy was revolutionary in its provision of a peaceful means of destroying the controlling authority through electing those who can change things. Every oppressive state that I am aware of has gone through these different phases. There has never been a happy, prosperous police state and I don't think that is a matter of just not getting it right. I think the basic human drive to autonomy would make such a state unlivable even if run by infinitely beneficent people and with every restriction being made in the honest best interests of those being controlled.
The 'inefficiencies' in law enforcement where not everyone is surveilled at all times, which enables some laws to be broken, is not a flaw. It's a feature of the system. And a valuable one. Every ratchet click towards catching every single infraction squeezes people tighter. We've seen in schools what happens when you load the place with cameras, have cops roaming the halls arresting kids for insubordination, requiring ID badges be carried at all times, restricting dress, speech, affectionate contact, etc. Some people will snap and be made to feel so desperate that they are willing to die just to do some damage. What happens when that sort of infrastructure comes to every workplace and every public place including the sidewalk?
- Perhaps there should be a more modern marketing effort to push copies of Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here"? It was written in 1935 but is stunningly modern. Empowerment of every dim-witted nibshit and mean-spirited person looking for the cover of "for the good of the country" or "for your safety" was a big part of it. And of course Trump's campaign mirrored the campaign of the demagogue in the book as well. Not to mention the campaigns against the media...
- >The danger here is that we might be lulling ourselves in a complacent state "it can't happen to us"
this is the perfect chance to plug one of my favorite books, sinclair lewis' "it can't happen here."
the content is predictable, but the implementation of the idea is fantastically detailed and-- in the wake of the US' current political situation-- outrageously predictive for being written decades ago.
- More people need to read Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" (1935) which I didn't take so seriously when I first read it in high school.
