(2005-02-04) Lind War Fascism

William Lind ponders whether the War On Iraq will lead to Fascism, or just "abstract Nationalism". Fascism is not merely dictatorship. The core idea of fascism is Will as the highest Virtue. Fascism sought to drop the whole Judeo Christian content of Western Culture and return to the values of the classical world, where Power was the greatest good... This was a serious error, because it turned an instrumental value (Extrinsic), will, into a substantive value. In reality, will is good or evil depending upon what is willed. By attempting to turn will into a substantive value, fascism destroyed itself... I would suggest that, instead of fascism, the danger now facing America is one of the many ills released from that Pandora's Box, the French Revolution: Abstract Nationalism. As Burke pointed out, Conservative Patriotism is very different from the abstract nationalism of "la Patrie." It is a concrete attachment to our own places: our own valleys or towns, our farms, hills or plains. It is local, it is real and it rightly sees WalMart as a far greater threat than tin-pot dictators in Third World countries... But Martin Van Creveld's book also points to the likely fate of such an (abstract) nationalism: it will crumble after it fails in war. In Europe, the state as an ideal died in World War I, in the mud at places like the Somme and Verdun. I suspect that the same thing is going to happen here after the American people have to confront the reality of America's defeat in Iraq. Bush's wild Wilsonian-ism is out of time; it is a ghost from an era long past, an illusion that is now sustained only by the public's trust that somehow, our troops' unquestionable valor in Iraq will bring victory.