Many countries include ‘Democratic’ or ‘People’s’ in their names, even though they are not democratic and do not serve their people. Examples: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Lao People’s Democratic Republic People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Democratic Republic of the Congo And German Democratic Republic (East Side) in 1949–1990. None of these states are democratic, power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling elite. Who are they fooling with these names?
Fascists, and by extension authoritarians, hate education and vocabulary, so they use the language to lie as much as they can.
Think that’s a bit reductive, and an ironically manipulative use of language. It’s important to remember that many of the countries which exemplify this pattern also emerged out of struggles against colonialism, and therefore contended with both the popularism of liberty and indepdence (democracy) and the inevitable response from external, imperialist powers.
So, there’s some good explanations for why polities that are militaristic, itself conducive to authoritarianism, are that way since EuroAmerican imperialists don’t just allow actually challenging resistance to appear in the periphery with impunity. Then, there’s the fact that “post-” colonial states rarely exist over preexisting, unified cultural or ethnic spaces with a common material interest, and also must be organized into a specific, hierarchal structure to gain recognition from the EuroAmerican global imperialist order and participate in its economy. Inevitably, the political incompatibility of groups within those states leads to irreconcilable conflict, and therefore the need for any state established to defend itself from both external and internal pressures.
The reason why the US and Europe so often support authoritarian dictatorships in response to socialist – or honestly, even liberal evolutions if they aren’t favourable enough – is because these conditions are so conducive to this form of state building, and they benefit from it even if they fail to topple a supposedly threatening government. In the same vain, the fact that you used “fascist” to decribe this, and not something that more clearly references the hegemonically liberal capitalist, EuroAmerican nature of this form of politics itself emblemizes how the production of knowledge under this system creates language that occludes the relationship between these kinds of authoritarian states and the historical processes that lead to them.
Fascists do indeed love to lie, though saying that they do so exceptionally is itself a lie. Most people under liberal capitalists systems don’t even know what fascism is for that very same reason, and often construct it as synonymous with any kind of authoritarianism, or just the word you use when an authoritarian system loses its purported moral virtue. You’ll notice that another commenter here made the typical mistake of associating this same behaviour with socialism or communism, which happens, but hardly happens in the same ways and for the same reasons.
And Leftists too.
Virtually every leftist project anywhere in the world has made literacy an incredibly high priority. Cuba’s literacy rate went from around 70% under capitalism to 99.8% under socialism. Here’s a fucking NYT article from 1976 titled, “North Vietnam Puts the Emphasis on Literacy,” which says, “Since 1958 the North Vietnamese have been stressing complementary education, a fundamental expansion of the literacy campaign. . . Complementary education remains an integral part of North Vietnam’s educational system.” Vietnam went from sub 20% literacy under capitalism to 96% under socialism. For reference, US literacy is at 79%.
Trying to pass off leftist projects as unconcerned with literacy of all thing is one of the wildest and most bizzarely delusional claims I’ve ever seen anyone make on here, which is a high bar considering how many people just spew out whatever BS sounds good knowing they can dismiss anyone who fact checks them as a “tankie.”
If anything, the fact that so-called “authoritarian” leftist projects were so concerned with massive education campaigns, even while dirt poor and even in the midst of fighting for survival should at least give y’all pause regarding the typical, “red fascist” bullshit. It won’t, because you can just choose to ignore that pesky reality in favor of your ideological preconceptions, but who knows, maybe the NYT and Miami University are just communist propaganda.
Authoritarianism is just when the executive branch does things, it shouldn’t have a moral judgement
That’s not how anyone uses it at all.
I mean yes, people love to scream about “authoritarianism” whenever a government they dislike does stuff, but there is absolutely a moral component to that accusation.
Are these leftists in the room with us right now?