A way out of totaliarianism

 One of most insightful pieces I read in 2024 was this review by Zadie Smith. Zadie Smith writes about a book that focused on ordinary people's dreams during Nazism. It sounds like this may be a fascinating book, which can help understand the historical period, the people that lived through it, and the mechanisms of totalitarianism. 

 Zadie Smith provides some great insights into the mechanisms of totalitarianism, drawing some links between Nazism and our era. From the outset, Smith rebukes criticism of those that argue the periods are very different: the contents and the forms of politics are very different, but some mechanisms are very similar. 

And the biggest similarity according to Smith lies in the ability to use technological tools for propaganda. Smith highlights how social media and their algorithms have perfected political propaganda. The algorithms have allowed to create the illusion of connecting to self-selected communities, whereas the selection process is driven by algorithms. These algorithmically-selected online communities are considered a viable and even desirable substitute for "geographic, localized, politically diverse, real-world communities", as Smith puts it. The result are the echo-chambers, polarisation, the constant caricaturing and demonisation of people with different views. The results is one key condition for totalitarianism: the destruction of plurality. 

 I agree with this analysis, but I also think that one reason why social media and their algorithm are contributing to the destruction of democracy lies in the consolidation of political systems that are based on selection processes that favour charismatic leaders. The "perfect storm" for democracy is the arrival of powerful, ever-present, easily accessible tools of propaganda in state organisations where the key institutional roles are selected through processes that favour charismatic individuals.

However, one of the key insights of Smith's article lies in identifying a possible way out of this. If the product of social media is ourselves and our monetised attention, in order to free ourselves we can start by looking away. Smith is well aware that simply turning our attention away from social media will not solve many problems,  but there is hope that by turning our attention away we may start to engage with the geographically localised, politically diverse, real world communities, and thus engage in debates that value plurality, understanding, compromise and consensus. 

This may seem utopian, but there are some good examples:in the Republic of Ireland the debate on  abortion could have degenerated into a clash between entrenched sides . Instead, the creation of a "Citizen Assembly" that recruited 99 citizen chosen at random was pivotal in driving a debate that was open to many voices. Since the members of the Citizen Assembly were drawn at random, they were representative of Irish society at large. The Citizen Assembly members listened to experts, and operated according to principles of transparency, equality, respect, and collegiality.  This process helped reaching consensus on a highly polarising issue: it provides an example of how a public debate can be run effectively in the era of algorithm-led polarisation. 

As for the problem with charismatic leadership, there are other alternatives there that can be sensibly and effectively implemented.  

I guess the point is that in times like these it is easy to despair or become fatalistic. And yet, there are reasons to keep trying to find alternative ways. 

Reviews out of time: Lussu's "March on Rome and Whereabouts"

 One of the books I have most enjoyed in 2024 was Emilio Lussu's March on Rome and Whereabouts. It's a shame this book has not been translated in English (yet).

As a fellow Sardinian this book had been on my horizon since school days. Furthermore, it used to be on the School curriculum (not sure it still is now...). And  yet, somehow I avoided reading it: mostly I thought I knew already enough already about how Fascism took power and I did not think I could learn anything new about the subject. 

Obviously, I was wrong. But Lussu's book is valuable beyond its subject, as I will highlight here. 

The book focuses on the events that led Mussolini to firstly be appointed Prime Minister in the Italian Constitutional Monarchy. Initially Mussolini retained democratic institutions and a semblance of continuity with parliamentarian democracy, but this finally gave way to the Fascist Regime and Mussolini's dictatorship. 

Emilio Lussu was a key witness of this process: he was a Member of the Italian Parliament (MP) in Rome. Lussu (in the picture below when he was conscripted in WWI) was one of the key representatives of the Sardinian Action Party: this was a party founded by many young Sardinians that, like Lussu, were sent to fight for Italy during World War I. Those who came back home were vocal in demanding Sardinian autonomy and devolution. In this endeavour, they were also helped by an increased awareness concerning the collective power of Sardinians and a new sense of solidarity that the traumatic war experiences had shaped. 

Therefore, the Sardinian Action Party was in principle opposed to the Fascist Party programme of centralised and authoritarian rule in Italy. Emilio Lussu was personally closer to moderate socialist values, although these were not universally shared within the Sardinian Action Party.

Even though the book describes the March on Rome and the drama that unfolded in Rome and the Italian Parliament, the focus of the book is on those "whereabouts". 

In particular, Lussu provides an account of events that is mostly focused on the periphery rather than the centre. Lussu spent much time in his Cagliari constituency and the south of Sardinia, rather than in Rome, or at least, the book focuses mostly on this supposedly remote corner of the Italian Kingdom. 

Despite this, or maybe rather, because of this perspective, Lussu is able to describe effectively the mechanisms that allowed Fascism to prevail and take power. Lussu is particularly insightful in describing the compromises  that turned key local actors (police officers, academics, lawyers, etc.) from adversaries of fascism into its facilitators, or even promoters of the dictatorship. 

This view from the periphery is very important to understand how Fascism won. The drama, debates, speeches and grand events that unfolded in the Parliament and Government in Rome are just one side of the story:  power grabbing required also the capillary changes of hearts and minds of key figures in the different corners of the Italian Kingdom. Lussu's book is very important in highlighting the hypocrisy, opportunism, as well as mistaken beliefs that made the democratic institutions simply cave in and opened up the road to dictatorship. 

In many regards Lussu's book is a precursor of key contributions by historians like Ian Kershaw and others, who demonstrated that the success of Nazism could not just be explained by the history of the great men and great events, but requires an understanding of how ordinary men and women, small actors in relatively lowly and peripheral roles, can give way and accept a new order, and even a new moral code. 

There is a further strength to Lussu's book: it focuses on events that centered around my home town, Cagliari, and its surroundings. Local people however are not described as just spectators of the Big History that was unfolding in front of them, somewhere else, but rather they are described as actors with agency, people that reflected, discussed, made choices, and played their part in history. In this way, the ordinary people of Cagliari, a small town in the periphery of the events, take centre stage. 

In the book, those "whereabouts" become vital to the narrative and our understanding of history. 

Furthermore, Lussu describes these events with a wry humor  that I could also recognise as being rooted in the way that Cagliari people still talk and tell stories. The title itself has this ironic slant and uses a phrase that to me sounds as it could only come from Cagliari. 

Overall, the book has the great quality of describing a key historical event, but it does so from the point of view, the mindset, and the language of the periphery made up of ordinary men and women. But, and this is the key strength of the book, those small men and women are treated with the dignity and importance they deserve. They were not simply the subjects of History, but had their own agency and made their own choices.