[Politics] Italy elects a 'far right' government

[Questions]

... to expand a bit on this:

Humans adhere to paradigms, which can be explained as worldviews that we generally take for granted. Examples include that we divide the year into four seasons or a day into 24 hours. We take these as true without questioning them... similarly we think "to go to work is the right thing to do because otherwise I can't buy things and I'd starve = work is good" or "this paper with numbers on has value because if we think it doesn't, we're in trouble and our world collapse".

We don't want paradigms to change, we object to it. But they sometimes change anyway, because we always exchange symbols (such as words or sounds or pictures). Symbols are coded information, we take the information (not necessarily true or false, just information) and our brains process it for us, and there it turns into thoughts. As long as the exchange of symbols remain the same, paradigms usually do as well.

If we go back some 500 years ago, before most people could read, our exchange of symbols generally looked like this:
Individual <--symbols--- Priest

Sure, when we interacted with each other it was like it always has:

Individual <-----symbols------> Individual

But since the only outside influence, who had a greater set of symbols and more power to distribute those, the priest would also control that indvidual-to-individual interaction, as they had received their symbols not from reading and not from the press and not from (other than very selective God-loving) art.

Hence, God was God.

Then some weirdo thought it would be nice if people in general could also read because societies where becoming more complex and the need for other information than "God is God" were necessary. This meant new forms of symbol/information exchange:
Individual <--- Book saying God might not be God

Of course, as with every paradigm shift, there was a lot of resistance that later grow into chaos. As God was no longer (not always at least, this was a centuries long process) God, the King was no longer King, and the French revolution happened and created new paradigms, most of which still exist today (democracy is good, can't live without a parliament, the right-left political scale will always be with us and whatnot).

With the advent of telecommunications - TV, radio, phones, easier way of travelling - people in the 20s and 30s received another new way of exchanging (and receiving) symbols. Among other things, there were movies, and since Jews - who generally did not adopt Christian values and kept their own set of symbols - were pioneers in eg film making, the new set of symbols/information was kind of a culture shock for the current paradigm in a lot of European countries. For instance, things like sexuality were not as taboo in the Jewish community as they were in prudent Germany. Hence people got angry again, there was even this bloke (Hitler) who started a party for all of those who hated the new information and those who spread it. The old world was trying to resist the new. Eventually we reached acceptance that things like naked women, psychology and people with different skin colours actually would not kill us, and a new paradigm was created where these things were accepted (at least more than before).

In the last twenty years, yet again the exchange of symbols has changed in a remarkable manner and here we are in a crisis, not really knowing what to do with the world, we're not even quite sure who to blame, but lots of people sure know they feel uncomfortable in a world without norms and set paradigms, so they desperately try to go back.

The thing is that "nazism and/or racism will never rise again because..." is also a paradigm, and could also be changed if people receive symbols telling them that it is the way to go. Ultimately, racism is not evil by nature - nothing that won't kill us is - just like being nice to your mother isn't good by nature: there's no laws in universe controlling these things, the perception of what is good or bad are just human inventions - which also means they could change. Today we think robbery is bad, tomorrow - if the we receive enough symbols that incidate it - we could think robbery is good. "We'll never turn into nazis again" is a promise as strong as "We'll never lose our faith in a Christian God". It is easy to say, but there's nothing that supports those takes other than the current paradigm. The unfortunate reality is that our brains are merely computers made out of meat, and could be programmed with symbols/information.

Unfortunately, the new symbol exchange system (the Internet) stood and weighed for years between becoming a free symbol exchange, which would have been pretty cool, or mainly an exchange between what I call "superindividuals" (governments, religions and corporations) which do not behave as humans nor necessarily wants us to thrive, and as things turned out the latter model is winning, meaning we as individuals have a very low level of impact (comparable to when only priests could read and write) as the amount of symbols received from superindividuals (which are not rarely contradicting each other, creating a further crisis in the creation of new paradigms) exceeds the exchange of symbols between human individuals. What finally will be is not really in the hands of the many - for "good" or "bad", I suppose.

We'll land into... something... sooner or later. But for now it is a bumpy ride and people want to go back to when it wasn't all that bumpy.

What’s that bit about people not wearing as many hats ?

 

[Swansman]

A lot of assumptions there. If Germany wishes to go and join the fight, they are welcome to. NATO is the relevant factor here. Not the EU. Although, the EU wouldn't support a Germany Vs Russia war and quite rightly so. The EU was formed to prevent a World War happening again.

Your theory rests on Germany not having the resolve to hold their temper. I think you're wrong.

I hope I'm wrong. I just don't trust previously fed, warm people with the best functioning society in Europe that turn into hungry, cold people with non-functional infrastructure would hold their temper very long. But we'll see.

Hopefully it turns out to be a non-question.

 

[A1X]

[tweet]1574770263945891840[/tweet]

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

[tweet]1574770263945891840[/tweet]

Not that I agree with this, but this is a religious stand point, from a right wing leader, also this idea is shared by many world leaders from all around the world, most notably in the Middle East, it’s nothing new. I guess the real is issue is this old outdated opinion has resurfaced in troubling times, here in the “west” when people are asking what’s going wrong with our little world, and they resort to type.

 

[Randy McNob]

Italy may have lurched right but they didn't elect an idiot as a leader who destroyed the economy within a week of being in office

whatever other nations do the UK is the laughing stock of the world politically

 

[Bakero]

You are using Musolinni's definition, under that one the US Democrats would be Super-facist but the Italian leader isn't. She is anti-corperate. Speaking to Italians they say she isn't far right unless you consider being pro God, Family and borders as far right. The problem here as well as generally on the internet at the moment is definition creep. This achieves nothing but confusion and hostility.

Look at Umberto Eco's fascism checklist. Meloni ticks a lot of boxes. https://www.openculture.com/2016/11...ist-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html

 

[Weststander]

Italy’s far right government have got one inherent advantage, there can’t be a run on the Lira.

 

[Swansman]

Look at Umberto Eco's fascism checklist. Meloni ticks a lot of boxes. https://www.openculture.com/2016/11...ist-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html

The list is a bit fortune teller-ish. Could be applied on most leaders and countries:

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
England: God save the Queen!
Sweden: Why are we not living in a 1940s Astrid Lindgren novel?

The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

England: Oh we got robbed into poverty, too bad, lets go get two jobs so that our feudal overlords can chill out in peace
Sweden: shirrrley our own scientific genres based on lose belief should rule the world

The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
England: Lets all queue up for 14 hours to watch a casket with some dead old lady in it
Sweden: Lets take a day off and protest the coal power... which we don't have

Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
England: You're just saying we starved 20 million Indians because you're a Putin-funded England-hater
Sweden: Your notion that such a thing as "women" and "men" exist means we unfortunately have to throw you out of university

Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
England: I don't like immigrants because I dunno really
Sweden: I agree

Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
England: Listen people, we're on the brink of destructions and we up here are eating your money and want more so what if you divide into two sides and fight about this Brexit thing I just pulled out of my arse
Sweden: I dunno mate I just hate immigrants

The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
England: We've not done anything wrong - it was Vladimir Putin who elected our last halfdozen PMs, took all their political decisions and drank wine at the job.
Sweden: The Social Democrats are up to sumsinsumsin, those evil ********... collaborating with the evil immigrants

The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
England: Vladimir Putin is truly crazy and incompetent, a real loser. And he's also single-handedly running our country without putting a foot in it.
Sweden: The immigrants are a threat and planning to take control over our country, and they're also too dumb to read write or think.

Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
England: I'm bored and the only honourable and sensible thing is to find yet another war to go kill some poor arabs in
Sweden: Stop trying to solve the immigrant issues with "cookies and milk"... we need bigger guns

Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
England: I'm a 64 year old scientist and I have you on ignore because of your poor grammar and working class set of opinions. Did I say I'm 64 year old scientist?
Sweden: I'm going to spend several hours a day doing satire on people in a struggling and less affluent country, right in front of them preferably

Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
England: I'm going to boo everyone not living up to my expectations because in reality I would do everything better as the hero I am
Sweden: We're a humanitarian superpower comfortably watching you die in those gas chambers

Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
England: Football is a game for men. Everything else is also for men. Except cooking.
Sweden: Don't look at us we have no genders

Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
England: Well if there was one single intelligent charismatic person out there, we'd make him our Voice of the People in no time.
Sweden: Heil Jimmie Åkesson.

Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
England: The books said we were very very very very very very very good and I also happen to think we were very very very very very very very good
Sweden: There was a revolution in Russia and one in France but other than nothing really happened outside or inside Sweden

 

[B-right-on]

Italy may have lurched right but they didn't elect an idiot as a leader who destroyed the economy within a week of being in office

whatever other nations do the UK is the laughing stock of the world politically

If you look at the shitshow most of the EU countries are right now, the last thing they're doing is pointing at us. My sister in law is Italian and my ex (mother of my eldest daughter) is French. I can guarantee that they don't give a shit what's going on here. They're too wrapped up in the compete fvckfest their own Govts are making of their own countries. Incompetent and moronic Govt is not just restricted to the UK.

 

[Gwylan]

I My sister in law is Italian and my ex (mother of my eldest daughter) is French. I can guarantee that they don't give a shit what's going on here. They're too wrapped up in the compete fvckfest their own Govts are making of their own countries.

Italy maybe but the French re-elected their own president with nearly 60% of the vote just six months ago. It doesn't sound like too many people are unhappy with their government

 

[Swansman]

Italy maybe but the French re-elected their own president with nearly 60% of the vote just six months ago. It doesn't sound like too many people are unhappy with their government

Against Le Pen...

Its as if Kermit Stremer would be in a presidential election against Nigel Farage and get 60% of the votes... you can see it as "yes, he won, we're all happy" or "that Farage managed to get 40% indicates people might not be entirely happy with how things are going".

 

[Gwylan]

Against Le Pen...

Its as if Kermit Stremer would be in a presidential election against Nigel Farage and get 60% of the votes... you can see it as "yes, he won, we're all happy" or "that Farage managed to get 40% indicates people might not be entirely happy with how things are going".

I'm not quite why it's relevant that it was against Le Pen. In the past month, Italy and Sweden have both voted in large numbers for parties on the same wavelength as National Rally so it's not as if she's an outlier.

There's no comparison with Farage - a guy who's never been an MP, whose party has never had an elected MP and who was once beaten by a man dressed as a dolphin.

If the French were heavily dissatisfied with their government, they'd have voted for an alternative as Italy and Sweden did ... but they aren't, so they didn't

 

[um bongo molongo]

A view

https://unherd.com/2022/09/giorgia-meloni-is-no-radical/

Glad someone posted something like this. She’s really not Far Right at all. Centre right at best. You could make a strong case our current UK government is more far right.

 

[Swansman]

I'm not quite why it's relevant that it was against Le Pen. In the past month, Italy and Sweden have both voted in large numbers for parties on the same wavelength as National Rally so it's not as if she's an outlier.

There's no comparison with Farage - a guy who's never been an MP, whose party has never had an elected MP and who was once beaten by a man dressed as a dolphin.

If the French were heavily dissatisfied with their government, they'd have voted for an alternative as Italy and Sweden did ... but they aren't, so they didn't

Of course it plays a part: if Macron had an opponent in the presidential election that wasn't completely unelectable to the majority, he would have been thrown out.

If we had presidential elections in Sweden - Jimmie Åkesson (from far-right Sweden Democrats) would have lost to both Ulf Kristersson (leader of the right-wing moderates) as well as Magdalena Andersson (leader of the Social Democrats).

If the French were satisified with their government, Macron wouldn't have a 60% disapproval rating in pretty much every poll. His party also wouldn't have lost 100 seats in the general election.

Far-right wing parties got a total of 22.92% of the votes in the French election, in Sweden they got 20.5% and in Italy 26%.

I'd say it really doesn't come down to the French being more satisfied than the Swedes or the Italians - the difference in outcome really comes down to different political systems.

 

[Swansman]

Glad someone posted something like this. She’s really not Far Right at all. Centre right at best. You could make a strong case our current UK government is more far right.

There's no clear definition of what "far-right" is. Today, any party that doesn't like immigrants and/or abortion will be labelled far-right. Likewise, any party that doesn't like selling everything publicly owned to China and the US and/or anyone who believes the rich should pay taxes will be labelled far-left.

Are these definitions wrong? No. Are these definitions right? No. They're just definitions.

The concept of left and right are floating and changes over time. The original definitions from 1789 are dead as death.

 

[carlzeiss]

Stating the obvious these day's is unfortunately for many considered to be "Far Right " therefor for those Giorgia Meloni is "Far Right " . Her quotation from G.K. Chesterton hit the nail on the head

". Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face "

 

[sydney]

Sure, they will. With no right IMO, as we Europeans (and our buddies in the US and Saudi/Israel) are the main reasons the countries of these immigrants are borderline uninhabitable. Bomb the shit out of countries, arm terrorists and cults in them, steal their resources... yeah no shit they're going to flee from it.

Pawns in the game.

 

[Weststander]

Against Le Pen...

Its as if Kermit Stremer would be in a presidential election against Nigel Farage and get 60% of the votes... you can see it as "yes, he won, we're all happy" or "that Farage managed to get 40% indicates people might not be entirely happy with how things are going".

 

[Crawley Dingo]

Look at Umberto Eco's fascism checklist. Meloni ticks a lot of boxes. https://www.openculture.com/2016/11...ist-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html

That list is to put it blunt is pure drivel.Take..

The cult of tradition.

Cult? Jargon. That covers most parties on the right and some on the left with tradition, to what? Economic, political or social? I think the one stating doing things for the sake of it was new Labour under Tony Blair's mission statement.


14Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

Oh dear, I think you need to read Orwells 1984.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I can't be bothered to start correcting you, we'll be here all day. However, I will ask that you stop trying to stir shit between myself and other posters. I happen to like Shingle and his posts, while we don't always see eye to eye we can have a sensible discussion and have a respect, or I think we do. I was trying to establish why he was framing it as an EU issue and not a wider one.

So please, with the most respect I can muster, keep your trolling and shit stirring for your mad conspiracy sites and don't attempt to drag me into the sphere of your dope addled agenda. Stick to your interesting and often insightful posts, which you do well. It's a much nicer side of you.

He's a lot of fun but he can be an arse.