The Emptiness of Fascism

As she hurried across campus towards Professor Clark's office, Sarah came to a troubling realization. Due to overconsumption by so-called progressives the label 'fascist' has entered a nebulous realm. In the post-postmodern age, it's as if Joseph McCarthy has formed an improbable alliance with Baudrillard and Derrida. Fascists are both everywhere and nowhere. Anyone could be a fascist, and thus no one can be. It is a mockery of history. Therein the danger is found, because you can only cry wolf so many times. One day the lords of death will truly return, and we will be powerless to stop them.

Her Holocaust Studies instructor had just been placed on academic leave in a formal announcement made by the university's Human Rights Advisory Department (HRAD). According to the HR Liaison that announced the verdict, 'one or several students had complained,' after Clark subjected them to a disturbing video without preemptively denouncing its contents. Sarah knew the video in question. It was an interview with John Peterman, a Holocaust skeptic, who had recently become famous solely based on his ability to generate controversy.

As always, nothing that Peterman said in the video was insightful, but the professor had wanted to challenge his students by presenting viewpoints that differed from their own. Perhaps the otherwise adroit professor was stuck in a nostalgic past, whereby he erroneously assumed that his role as an educator was to develop the critical thinking skills of his students. That is not to say that he was a disciple of Allan Bloom, but Clark didn't see how shielding his students from the real world would allow pupils to excel in the long-term. Preparation, not protection was his primary goal.

The professor had long been under fire from the 'campus left' because he was permitted to teach Holocaust Studies despite being a gentile. Although Clark had been instructing the course for over thirty years, and had a PHD in the subject to go along with his MA in Philosophy, several of Sarah's friends told her that she was more qualified to teach the class because she happened to be Jewish.

While Sarah supported initiatives to increase minority representation, she did not believe that selecting professors based on those who could literally embody their subject was a reasonable idea. Sarah was Jewish, but she did not believe that this aspect of her identity provided a divine perspective on the topic. It was always a pleasure to be lectured by her identity-prioritizing friends. Despite not considering herself a Jew, Sarah was nonetheless, because she belonged to the 'Jewish race.' The epitome of irony is being told by a self-described anti-fascist that 'a Jew is what I say it is.'

Instead Sarah preferred to treat individuals as individuals, as opposed to a member of some group. What labels negates and tends to lead to incommensurable world views. Humans realize that their divisions are socially constructed and then rush to replace them with new ones. It was all a bit of a head-scratcher. The species was always incapable of handling any difference, preferring to hate first and ask questions later.

The only element that Sarah appreciated about being 'Jewish' was that it gave her street cred whenever she was involved in a debate over a controversial political matter. At least being a member of an oppressed minority got her through the door. It didn't have the same allure as other persecuted groups, but it was nice to have a joker up her sleeve that at least granted a chance at the podium in the Oppression Olympics. The only downside was belonging to a minority which complained so much that its grievances were taken less seriously.

Otherwise she only admired Judaism for its selectiveness. As opposed to other religions, you didn't see Jews knocking on doors and asking people if they had heard the 'good news' about Moses. There is something charming about being the only group in town to refrain from recruitment. Instead of sending out missionaries to save souls from eternal damnation the slogan is something along the lines of 'Fuck off – you're not wanted.' In any case the Jews have suffered sufficiently that it would be a tough sell if they were to try spreading their own version of the good news.