Bill Crouse
Christian Information Ministries
ETS Paper, 11/17/2005
Fascism: A Precursor to Postmodernism
I. Popular Definitions of Fascism
You hear the word fascism bandied about in the press and media quite a bit nowadays but
almost always as a pejorative describing one's enemy.1 Zeev Sternhell says, The label fascist
has become the term of abuse par excellence, conclusive and unanswerable.2 It is also the
ultimate way to insult an opponent though no one ever claims the label. Unfortunately, it's
increased usage today is not accompanied by a proper or historical understanding of the term.
When most people think of fascism today, they think of an egomaniacal fuehrer, or possibly an
ideology that was defeated in WWII, and more recently espoused by uneducated skinheads or
militants in northern Idaho. The most common, but largely false and simplistic answer given to
the question, What is Fascism? is: The extreme right wing of the political spectrum, i.e.,
conservatism, or, the polar opposite of Marxism. The term itself originates from the Latin;
fasces, literally meaning: the bundle of rods sporting an axe-head that symbolized the
unchallenged state authority of Rome. (You can see this symbol on the backside of a silver
Mercury dime, cir. 1916). Later it came to mean: high office or supreme power or command.
The first apparent use of the term: Fascist, was by Benito Mussolini when he formed the Fascist
Party of Italy in 1919.
The definition given in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: Any program for setting up and
centralizing an autocratic regime with severely authoritarian politics exercising regulation of
industry, commerce and finance, rigid censorship, and forcible oppression of opposition, I also
find unsatisfactory, in that it gives mostly the symptoms of fascism. It's not just a dictatorship.