To fight against this age: on fascism and humanism

Writer, cultural philosopher, and pubic intellectual Riemen finds humanity in spiritual crisis. His book The Fight Against This Age follows his 2010 essay “The Eternal Return of Fascism.” First up is his essay of the same title, which treats fascism and its weaknesses, followed by a story, or fable, about European humanism, entitled The Return of Europa: Her Tears, Deeds, and Dreams, about three, sometimes misunderstood words--democracy, freedom, and civilization. Quoting Kierkegaard, he finds the world at a time when “the whole age is simultaneously comic and tragic, tragic because it is perishing, comic because it continues. Riemen is on common ground with Arnold Toynbee, who argued that civilizations would fall, not because it was inevitable, but because governing elites would not respond adequately to changing circumstances, or because they would focus only on their own interests. Another reason for the return of fascism and the loss of the democratic spirit is the mindset around the Enlightenment’s “articles of faith”—human progress, the natural goodness of man, rationality, institutions, and political and social values as the main pillars of a just society—which always make it difficult to recognize the impact the will to power, lust, desire, and self-interest has on the human condition. Humans are capable of being equally irrational and rational, with fascism representing the political cultivation of their worst irrational sentiments: resentment, hatred, xenophobia, lust for power, and fear. More than seventy years ago, Thomas Mann said “if ever fascism should come to America, it will come in the name of freedom”, emphasizing that words and their meanings matter more than ever as we are confronted with the art of lying and the twisting of words, both part of the nature of fascism. Riemen offers hope: the return of fascism is always possible, but never inevitable, and it is the power of human freedom to go against the current and change the zeitgeist. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)