Hiding in plain sight: how the ‘alt-right’ is weaponizing irony to spread fascism | Technology | The Guardian
Author Alexander Reid Ross agrees that irony has been deployed by the far right in chipping away at whatever prohibitions have existed around publicly adopting far-right politics. His book, Against the Fascist Creep, published late last year, explores the long history of fascists attempting to mainstream their ideas, or even sell them to the left.
“Fascism is more or less a social taboo. It’s unacceptable in modern society,” Ross says. “Humour or irony is one of the ways that they can put forward their affective positions without having to fall back on any affirmative ideological positions.
”He adds: “They’re putting forward the anger, the sense of betrayal, the need for revenge, the resentment, the violence. They’re putting forward the male fantasies, the desire for a national community and a sense of unity and a rejection of Muslims. They’re doing all of that, but they’re not stating it.”
Says it all.
My Mazamet 
There is a feeling among some scholars that although we would naturally expect neo fascism and dictatorship inclinations from the right, that is not the case in present day US. It’s coming from the left. On college campuses and organizations they are rejecting republicans from speaking and seek to shut down the free expression of speech from the center and right. It is less about ideology I think and more about being anti yet all they have is anti and no ideas for programs and change. They are angry and becoming irrational and all this is anger about feeling victimized. These are not poor people that are unemployed and on welfare. They are elitist bourgeois and the least victimized yet claim to be oppressed. Marx himself would be baffled about this class.
The hippie anti war anti establishment during the Vietnam War made more sense but on the other hand they never realized that getting drunk, running around naked , indiscriminate sex and drugs were not going to end the war. Ironically the man they hated most, Nixon, is the one who wound down the war which led to its eventual end with US evacuation.
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So promoting inequality of rights and opposing it are equals?
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My problem with the article is that Mr. Ross is making irony sound more menacing than it possibly might deserve, and it doesn’t mention something that almost broke the hate community in 4chan. I’m familiar with some venues of Internet subculture ( the users of 4chan used to be laughed at in Internet gaming circles for various reasons). The ironic, vulgar humor that got promoted has always been there. One reason why I think it’s becoming a siren call for many people of different backgrounds (including unsavory ones like fascists) is because the humor is directed against something. It’s being against something that people are banding around. The reasoning is similar to the ice cream scene from “Thank You For Smoking”:
As to what damn near broke 4chan a few years back? Male fans (called bronies) of “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic” were posting memes dedicated to their love of the show. The people who preferred humor of the deplorable variety could not stand it. Thus, cartoon ponies and unicorns might just end up being the answer to all of this.
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Isn’t the point he’s making that it’s not real irony?
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Yes, but he acknowledges that the origin of it was in Internet subculture that used offensive language to keep people out. Those people weren’t using irony to actually spread ideas; they were trying to show how little they cared about social taboos. So the alt-right was able to get into a movement whose social rules included not caring about mainstream concerns.
The alt-right needed the humor to exist before they could use it. If they were denied an effective form of it, they would have to either remove the veneer of irony or go back into obscurity.
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According to Carl’s description, I’m a fascist then. I am all for shouting down the haters, don’t give them a platform. We are long, long, long past the time where ppl are given a platform to promote hate. They have the internet and their churches, let them go spread their anti gay, anti transgender, racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti semtic, anti muslim venum there. You know the American Nazi who stabbed those two men to death in oregon? I remember seeing his picture on twitter a while back, they reposted the pic & I remember it, he was giving the Nazi salute. Sure when him and ppl like him gather, shout him the HELL down, yell louder, don’t let his precious youtube video come out with his hate speech, yell louder.
The time for the “debate” of equal civil rights of sexual minorities is over, no platform anybody why wants to get up in a college auditorium and argue otherwise. Boo him/her, shout them off the stage. Ppl who would deny sexual minorities equal civil rights must be opposed wherever they open their mouth.
Most people don’t realize this, but in a similar vein there was a specific incident that changed corporate America. When Brendan Eich was forced under pressure to resign from Mozilla because he donated to Prop 8 corporate America stood up and took notice. The raising od thousands of voices against Eich being promoted to CEO did two things, it prevented an anti gay CEO from gaining the top leadership spot, and.it sent a message to every single CEO in America, don’t cross the gays. You may not remain silent, you need to be proactively pro gay. And corporate America listened, look at North Carolina with their anti gay & anti trans law, corporate America stood up and boycotted North Carolina, they did, they really did.
We stand on the shoulders of giants who came before us fought like hell for equal civil rights for sexual minorities. The Brendan Eich affair wasn’t that long ago, maybe 3 years, but it was a real watershed moment, corporate America was literally forced to pick a side, and right down the line almost all of them have chosen right.
To stand on a stage and have a polite debate on the merits of sexual minorities being afforded equal civil rights, no, just no, it’s been debated to death, anyone who still thinks ppl who are LGBT, DON’T deserve equal civil rights, they do not deserve a stage or a podium, and if they happen to getbone then shout them down, drown them out.
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*Implying the leftists aren’t creating their own breed of violence*. When groups like ANTIFA lash out and hurt normal people, they are creating more of what they hate. They hurt innocent civilians, animals, and think that shouting the loudest is the solution to the “problem”. News flash my friend, when you hurt people, they get pissed off.
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