William J. Macauley, Jr.
I just wanted to respond to Mark Green’s opinion piece. There are too many labels flying around without definition or substantiation, what Claude Lévi-Strauss called “floating signifiers” which are terms used for a number of purposes without any concrete definition.
That name-calling and lack of definition are nothing new, as Mr. Green has said. However, I think that Mr. Green has omitted two more than salient parts of this discussion (not opinions) that I won’t argue are justification for throwing around a term like fascism, but do go to his request for substantiation.
One such fact is one to which Mr. Green alluded—fascists use violence. We have seen firsthand and repeatedly—and increasingly—that violence based in hatred is becoming a common tool of many with strong political and social beliefs. The woman run over in Charlottesville because she dared to speak out against Unite the Right. The elbow to the face of a man being escorted out of a Trump rally, just because he disagreed and said so. A child stabbed because he was Muslim (or at least the adult perpetrator thought he ‘looked like he must be Muslim’). The young black man shot for ringing the wrong doorbell. Someone shot at for turning around in the wrong driveway. And let’s not forget the full frontal assault on the U.S. Capitol not so long ago.
People who take their kids to the library for children’s events are threatened with guns even here in northern Nevada.
Yes, there have been violent acts and property damage done in more left-leaning events. The difference is that, on the left, they are the exception rather than the rule. And they are not on the rise as they are on the more “MAGA” side of the equation. But I don’t want to label Mr. Green here—I allude only to context and facts that might inform why a term such as fascist might be coming up more now.
A second point I would make is that I see Mr. Green asking for fairer treatment of victims of being labeled fascists, who are often using the Bible and their Christian faith to explain aggressive and controlling actions. For what it’s worth, in my experience, gods come into play when there is no human justification for the actions taken.
The Christianity I was raised in said that I should do unto others as I would have them do unto me. Want to see the name-calling and labeling calm down? Start with cleaning your own house, as my mother would say. And that’s not just for my more right-leaning friends and neighbors. It applies to all of us.
But the complaint here is that the fascist label somehow stands out as particularly unfair and objectionable. I don’t like that we throw around terms like fascist, but neither do I like throwing around terms like communist, socialist, criminal, terrorist, un-American, groomer, infant cannibal, lizard people, Jewish lasers . . . Well, and boomer, too, for that matter!
So, the point is that I agree with Mr. Green that we should not blithely throw around labels like fascist. In fact, we should avoid labels altogether if we can. When we label others, they become less human and less accessible as our fellow humans.
Martin Buber said so clearly and concisely a hundred years ago: I-it interactions are strictly utilitarian, transactional. They involve no relationship. I-thou relationships require something of us because we are trying to know and be known by other human beings. That former doesn’t help anything—who wants to be treated like that?
That said, the current environment was not created by people calling some comparatively few others fascists; it was created by the ever-growing environment in which open hostility, aggression, vindictiveness, and violence are becoming the new normal. People support and encourage this kind of behavior.
Remember that when you point a finger, Mr. Green, there are three more pointing back at you. If you want to see less name-calling, stop supporting those who do it.
If you don’t like how others are labeling you, have a conversation about what that label means and does not. Not a reaction or a throw-down or a shouting match—a conversation where participants speak from their hearts and listen from that same place. Talk TO your neighbors rather than at them. It doesn’t have to be like this. We can and have been better than this. We just have to choose it and do the work.
Bill Macauley comes from a working-class family of immigrants and first-generation Americans. He teaches for a living.
Submitted opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of This Is Reno. Have something to say? Submit an opinion article or letter to the editor here.
