Man in Box

Man in Box

Monday, October 16, 2006

Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in America
by Stan Goff

Stan Goff has written this interesting essay on militarism, fascism, and masculinity -- Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in America.

An excerpt:

The film genre that most closely corresponds to a fascist mind-set is the male revenge fantasy, wherein after some offense is given that signifies the breakdown of order (usually resulting in the death or mortal imperilment of idealized wives or children) in which Enlightenment social conventions prove inadequate, and the release of irrational male violence is required to set the world straight again. Any reader can list these fantasies without a cue. It is one of the most common film genres in American society.
R. W. Connell wrote in Masculinities (University of California Press, 1995):

In gender terms, fascism was the naked reassertion of male supremacy in societies that had been moving toward equality for women. To accomplish this, fascism promoted new images of hegemonic masculinity, glorifying irrationality ("the triumph of the will”, thinking with “the blood") and the unrestrained violence of the frontline soldier.