old and new fascisms

"There is no doubt (it is evident from the results) that the television is more authoritarian and repressive than any other means of communication in the world. In this respect, the fascist newspaper and the fascist slogans written on the walls of farms make us laugh as does the plough (sadly) when compared to the tractor. Fascism, I want to state it again, has not been actually able to even scratch the soul of the Italian folks: the new fascism, through the new means of communication and information (in particular, television), has not only scratched it, but it has ripped it apart, it has violated it and contaminated it for ever..."

1973

"I believe, I do believe, that the real fascism is the one sociologists have too cheerfully named "consumer society". A definition which appears harmless, purely representative. And yet it is not. If one takes a careful look at reality, and is especially good at reading around things, the landscape, urbanities and, above all, human beings, it is possible to see that the results of this perky consumer society are the results of a dictatorship, of a real and actual fascism.

(...)
Fascism had actually turned them into clowns, slaves, it may even have convinced them, but it didn't really touch them deep in their souls, in their own way of being. This new fascism, this consumer society, instead, has deeply transformed young people, touching them intimately, providing them with different feelings, life styles, ideas, cultural models. (...) It all means, in the end, that this "consumer society" is a dictatorial one. If the word fascism stands for the arrogance of power, then the "consumer society" has well accomplished fascism.

(...)
In my opinion, the issue is very complicated but also extremely clear: the true fascism, I've said it and I repeat it, is the one of the consumer society (...)
In my opinion, Italy these days is witnessing analogous processes to those happening in Germany at the dawn of nazism. Also in Italy nowadays one observes those phenomena of homologation and abandonment of the old rural, traditional values, typical of each particular region; such phenomena were the humus onto which the nazi Germany grew. (...) And Italy is exposed to this exact same danger."

1974

translated form P.P. Pasolini, Scritti corsari

(gosh, I've wanted to post these thoughts for almost a year now. sadly enough, they never get old - they actually get more and more true by the day)

moving on... seriously?!