Fascist (epithet)
From Freepedia
The word "fascist" ( or "fascism") is sometimes used to denigrate persons, institutions or groups that would not describe themselves as fascist and that do not fall within the formal definition of the word. As a political epithet it has been applied to persons and groups on the extreme left, the extreme right and most points in between. It has also been applied to persons of many religious faiths, particularly fundamentalist groups, and it has been used to label a broad range of persons and institutions. Its use as an epithet generally serves to imply that the supposed "fascist" is unreasonably authoritarian. At best, it is considered mildly offensive, although many persons find it highly offensive and inappropriate.
By 1944, the term had already become so widely and loosely employed, that British essayist and novelist George Orwell was moved to write " ... the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox hunting, bullfighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else."
During the late 1960s and 1970s, it was popular for many leftists to describe a wide range of governments and public institutions as fascist. In the 80's the term was used by leftist critics to describe the Ronald Reagan administration and recently George W. Bush's. In her 1982 book "Beyond Mere Obedience" radical activist and theologian Dorothy Soelles, coined the term "Christofascist" to describe fundamentalist Christians and following the September 11, 2001 attacks a number of right wing commentators, particularly in the United States, began using the term "Islamofascism" to describe Militant Islam.
Other usage of the term
In hacker slang, "fascist" is used to describe computer systems with excessive or intrusive security measures. This is especially applied to security theater that greatly restricts users' ability to get work done but doesn't actually improve security.
The word is applied similarly to programming languages which place (perceived) excessive syntactic restrictions on the programmer, such as insisting on one space (and no more) between parameters in a command line. The motif of authoritarianism is frequently applied to restrictive computer environments, as in the similar expression "bondage-and-discipline language". [1]
Quote
- "Fascism -- unlike Communism, socialism, capitalism or conservatism -- is a smear word more often used to brand one's foes than it is a descriptor used to shed light on them." [2] Samantha Power, lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
