Note on Fascism

Fascism is as diffuse as the phenomenon of power itself. Fundamentally, it is a sick or depraved impulse for or desire for power. On a subconscious level, whoever supports fascism wills their own destruction. It is desire turned against itself. Consequently, liberalism has to be comprehended not as exceptional to but coextensive with the very form of fascism it claims to have 'conquered'.




"[C]omprehensive fascism need not be an attack by the body politic on itself, or upon its parts. Comprehensive fascism makes 'things' work. It constitutes a kind of global efficacy. It is habitual. As such, it is an order that operates beyond politics and is indifferent to normalized political fields (i.e. the state, government, democracy, social movements or the markets). Comprehensive fascism makes the world go round, not by targeting the body politic, but by making human habit that desires more habit."

Geoffrey Whitehall, 'Movement and human logistics: pre-emption, technology, and fascism,' in Deleuze and Fascism, ed. Julian Reid and Brad Evans, Routledge, 2014, pp. 74-5.