fascism is relationships without Desire

lessons in intellectual emancipation from sitting across a eugenicist Nazi

i deleted earlier post about my date with a fascist, i wrote it haphazardly and although it was helpful to metabolize the bizarre experience sitting across from a moron trying to seriously make an argument for eugenics using the analogy of weeding a garden (!!!), i felt like the piece overall did not convey what i wanted to.

it was a surreal experience, and since i do not and will never “debate” fascists, simply because a conversation must be grounded in the shared understanding of the equality of ideas which does not exit when the idiot in front of you thinks that there can ever be any reason or justification for mass murder; i simply made sure to make her feel extremely uncomfortable while i finished my food and left.

on my way back home and after releasing a few regulating screams into the wind and all the way to now, the next morning, i am still thinking about this experience and what we could potentially observe and learn from it , particularly in the context of our recent mutual explorations about the equality of intelligence:

we have observed that there’s no hierarchy of intelligence, only difference of will. we resist the reactionary moralizing of intellectual ability because we can trace its origins to racism, those who are of the aristocratic class the “pure and high mind”, and everyone else. now where do we put fascists into this thesis of the equality of intelligence?

right now, there’s something happening here between you and i; there are thoughts that appear in my body, there’s a will, a desire to translate them and communicate them with you, there’s you, reading these words and the will, the desire to learn, to understand me, to touch and be touched by each other’s intelligence.

when i was sitting across from this person, there was no of that will, that desire to translate, to listen and understand. there’s was two bodies existing in the place, two intelligence (each are its own multiplicity of course) breathing the same air. fascism is relationship without Desire.

this person has the very same transversal intelligence that exist in my body, they have the ability and capacity to understand that their “arguments” and “worldviews” and “opinions” are objectively the definition of insanity, are harmful and moronic. what they are missing is the desire to learn, to understand, to think, to translate thought into communicable language and to listen. the imagery that comes to mind is Hitler screaming towards a crowd, writing in a void of nothingness. i imagine Ayn Rand and her moronic “philosophy” and how it is so clearly a result of never actually engaging with any of the philosophers she “critiqued” or having any desire to connect to other living beings and their lived experience.

without Desire, fascism permeates effortlessly like a diseased scum into people’s minds, hearts and bodies because they are defenseless. they have not developed or worked on developing their own method of discernment through which they can methodically see which ideas are aligned with the affirmation of life. they just accept all information they bump against as one mush of “opinions” and either accept or reject them based on vibes and feeling of attraction and repulsion alone. fascism is this very desire-less relational dynamic. in other words: fascism is not an ideology, it is not a “worldview” that is competing or opposing to that which is life affirming, it is the very absence of developing a worldview, of feeling any Desire to learn and to understand and to think, just spasms of pleasure and displeasure floating about.

and i am saying that fascism is relationship without Desire while being fully aware that there’s nothing but Desire in the production of the Real of Matter. as we have observed, what makes people choose fascism (and any form of self and other’s subjugation) is not ideology and ideas, not brainwashing or trickery, but the regulation of Desire towards domination, consumption, supremacy thought the social machine. in other words, subjects, subjectivity, are products of material conditions not vice versa.

so in her, and any other fascist, there’s an absence of Desire, this peculiar and mysterious will that we can only observe its effects but never actually see it in itself, but simultaneously there’s a Desire invested in the little pleasures of fascism. to sit across from someone (me) who just told you where they are from so you know they have Jewish ancestry and committed their life to resist any and all genocide, and say “what’s up with the Jews” take more than stupidity, it take unconscious, embodies investment in the aesthetics of racism that gives them physical pleasure.

absolutely unaware of course, because again, an absence of will, she is for lack of any clearer way to say this; sexually attracted to fascism. to the yummy little pleasures that talking about eugenics, people of inferior genetics that need to be weeded out like evasive species from a garden.

after seeing how visibly enraged i am, she started backpedaling: “i don’t really think genocide is good”, gaslighting: “i didn’t say Hitler was right i was just wondering what was his reason,” and trying to maintain innocence: “i am just asking questions i don’t know much about the subject,” it became clearer and clearer to me that i am sitting across from a human being who is equally intelligent, that have all the same bodily faculties of intuition, feeling, sensing and relating, but have as close to zero as possible of their own Desire and will to apply this intelligence.

“i did not mean to abset you” she said after telling a Jewish person that Jews control the world and tried to make an argument for their annihilation (alongside the queers, transgenders and Palestinians that in her mind are not oppressed because “they are very visible these days” go fucking figure). this was not a case of maliciousness. i think that the most evil of actions are done with the best intentions. this is why intention is entirely meaningless. we judge ideas and actions not based on and references to some ideal and universal “truth” but on the basis of what they generate. intelligence is relational. the way to now if a will is present is by looking at words and their meaning, their logics, premises, genealogy and conclusions and discern what realities they create, to who and for who.

there’s no need to appeal to morality to know that mass murder is unacceptable, all that’s needed is a will to relate an to apply intelligence between people.

if we understand Fascism as this; relationships without Desire. than all anti fascist work comes down to:

• the liberation of Desire from all representations of domination, power and supremacy in all forms in all the ways.

• the meaningful shifting of material conditions that let Desire be invested in new ways.

• the empowering of people’s will to learn, the Desire to understand, and to apply their intelligence.

this is not only about people who say outwardly moronic bigoted and horrific nonsense, this is the work of anyone whom their life circumstances brought to this realization and that has ever a shred of care for others and the world they inhabit. this is out task, to excavate and eradicate all the little fascism in us all. those places in us where we get lazy, are absent minded, have neglected the application of our own intelligence.

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