recommendation from a Canadian anthropologist to “become a fascist” | EUROtoday

Book. Canadian anthropologist Mark Fortier gravely concedes: “Progressives don’t have the wrath it takes to win. » Faced with this grim observation, he prefers to join the opposite camp, the one that would have the wind in its sails, the extreme right. The little essay he offers, Become a fascist. My conversion therapy (Lux, 2025), is, as we will have understood, satire to show how an era mired in its comfort allows the extreme right to impose its themes and convert minds.

Mark Fortier therefore plays the role of a “slipper” confronted with a twilight world. He notes, for instance, that in France, throughout the legislative elections of June 2024, “liberal elite” most well-liked to reject the National Rally (RN) as a lot because the New Popular Front. Then Emmanuel Macron entered right into a non-aggression pact with the RN to have the ability to appoint Michel Barnier to Matignon. At the identical time, within the United States, capitalism accepts and anticipates the whims of Donald Trump transferring in the direction of authoritarianism.

Faced with such a state of affairs, Mark Fortier ” sign [son] personal armistice »the time no longer being “dispute, but collaboration”. In one’s “conversion” to fascism, one must go through a first stage: letting go or, more precisely, letting fear act within oneself, “abandon oneself to cowardice and opportune compromises”. Then we must turn our backs on the ideals we professed yesterday.

Humiliation

Mark Fortier portrays this movement in his daily life, notably imagining his disagreements with his daughter, who has not embraced the new doxa. But what interests him above all is to understand how this dynamic affects the different actors in the public debate: columnists, political leaders, representatives of state authority, etc. And how our institutions are gradually deteriorating.

The essayist mirrors their behavior with that adopted by different characters from the past. He cites, for example, the journalist Sebastian Haffner, who, in 1939, chronicled the establishment of Nazism in Story of a German. Memories (1914-1933)published in France by Actes Sud in 2002. The German notably recounts the first time he surprised himself doing the “Sieg Heil”, the Hitler salute, and the humiliation he felt when he understood how commonplace this gesture of hatred had become.

You have 17.2% of this text left to learn. The relaxation is reserved for subscribers.