Fascist egalitarianism is repressive, not liberating

Evidence

This is the line pursued by the agitators’ standard ‘unity trick’. They emphasize their being different from the outsider but play down such differences within their own group and tend to level out distinctive qualities among themselves with the exception of the hierarchical one. ‘We are all in the same boat’; nobody should be better off - the snob, the intellectual, the pleasure seeker are always attacked. The undercurrent of malicious egalitarianism, of the brotherhood of allcompromising humiliation, is a component of fascist propaganda and fascism itself. It found its symbol in Hitler’s notorious command of the Eintopfgericht. The less they want the inherent social structure changed, the more they prate about social justice, meaning that no member of the ‘community of the people’ should indulge in individual pleasures. Repressive egalitarianism instead of realization of true equality through the abolition of repression is part and parcel of the fascist mentality and reflected in the agitators’ ‘if-you-only-knew’ device which promises the vindictive revelation of all sorts of forbidden pleasures enjoyed by others. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 199

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: ‘Repressive egalitarianism instead of realization of true equality through the abolition of repression’ — a compact, paradigm-level distinction between fake leveling and genuine liberation that rewards sustained sitting-with.
• CANDY: Hitler’s Eintopfgericht — the one-pot stew designed to make everyone eat the same frugal meal — is a striking concrete symbol of enforced sameness.
• XREF: connects to: The cult of humanity leads to Comtean humanism and fascism — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 32; Fascist mass mobilization is repressive equality, not a reversion to barbarism.; Sixties egalitarian communes seeded postmodern authoritarian fundamentalisms — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 543 (+3 more)