Debatte

  • En
  • De

    • Tag: fascization

    • The interesting pleasure to accuse others of taking pleasure in accusing fascists

      The interesting pleasure to accuse others of taking pleasure in accusing fascists

      A cosy German corner; photo: private

      But of all things, an article that seeks to completely ignore these debates is now setting the tone in German press media. Jan Phillip Reemtsma claimed in his FAZ article in early May that the question of whether what we are currently experiencing is already fascism reflects a desire to create a sense of belonging. Not only that it remains unclear who is the subject or target of his accusation. He also reduces the complexity of existing analyses to a matter of belonging. With a stroke of the pen, he dismisses the fact that for those affected by violence, a sense of belonging can be essential for survival, and that for academics who are already feeling the effects of restrictions on academic freedom, the assurance of a space where certain things can be said can have existential significance. According to Reemtsma, the search for an answer to the question of whether this violence and these infringements on communicative rights already constitute fascism is not driven by the gravity of the situation, but merely by the desire to feel morally superior in the cozy corner of like-minded people.

      At any rate, the article is indeed revealing regarding the detachment from the world expressed in its terms such as “affective togetherness.” It acts as if, in today’s fragmented public sphere of digital communication, a group driven by a desire for morality could still come together in such a way that a sense of belonging emerges. And affect is set in opposition to epistemology as well as the political, as if 30 years of queer-feminist affect and media theory had never taken place. The recent reflections under the term “fascization” are also deliberately ignored. That “fascization” has analytical potential has already been made clear by Robin Celikates and Rahel Jaeggi in their response to Reemtsma. To realize this potential, however, we need the aforementioned theories of affect, which are often entirely absent from public debate. I therefore begin my reflections on fascism/fascistization with the concepts of pleasure and desire. However, my approach is less in the vein of Deleuze/Guattari; rather, I am concerned with a concept of fascism following Black, queer-feminist theory.

      Robin Celikates/Rahel Jaeggi as well as Alex Demorivić, Carolin Amlinger/Oliver Nachtwey and Ivo Eichhorn, in their contributions to the “fascism debate” hyped up by media engineering, refer to fascization as a primarily temporal concept: as a concept of a phase (Demorivić), of a process (Amlinger/Nachtwey, Eichhorn), of a form of progression (Celikates/Jaeggi). These authors use images of movement and mobility to counter the analogies between historical fascism and contemporary forms of authoritarianism that so disturb Reemtsma, even as he himself reproduces them in his article. The concept of fascization suggests that difference is produced in repetition and that the incompleteness of fascism projected from the past onto the present is revealed in this difference.

      Implicitly, and perhaps obscured by the numerous references to Horkheimer/Adorno in the replies, the concept of “fascization” is also linked to the affective concept of desire according to Deleuze. Fascization as a process also points to an energy that “assembles the social field” (Deleuze 1996, 29, transl. kk), which affects us as desire and connects us on a micropolitical level with the formations of power that spread throughout the assemblage of desire (ibid., 21). Paul Morten (2025) has already outlined this; Simon Strick’s forthcoming book suggests it. Fascism, therefore, is no longer to be viewed solely from the molar instance of the state, the military, or the police, but from the micro-conditions of an “individuality of a day” (Deleuze 1996, 31. transl. kk), whose connections constitute the moment of the conjuncture. The current conjuncture of fascism arises—one might conclude—from the relations of micropolitical events in the minutiae of post-digital reactionary cultures, which unify for a specific moment. Fascization as a desire is therefore never merely a lust for destruction attributable to a situation of scarcity, as Amlinger/Nachtwey (2025) suggest, nor is it a natural given of an authoritarian, destructive character or a lustful urge for harshness, as it flashes through here and there in the work of Eva von Redecker (2026). Rather, fascization appears, particularly against the backdrop of fragmented, algorithmized publics, as a heterogeneous structure that is increasingly composed of the relations within digital reactionary culture (such as comments, likes, and reposts). No leader figures can be discerned in this structure anymore; strictly speaking, not even the authority of gender remains (Deleuze 1996, 23). Rather, it presents itself as a quagmire in which one gets stuck, as von Redecker puts it. Paul explores the extent to which, with such an understanding of desire, one can conceive of fascization as something that gets under one’s skin—not as a consequence of the feeling of being part of a mass movement, but as a consequence of digital media’s affective “microtargeting” (2025, 4). I myself have attempted, in the lecture series “Prompting Fascism,” to conceptualize it as the effect of a need generated by AI technologies and rhetoric—no longer to seek, discover, or generate output, but rather to command it through input.

      Without claiming that such a concept of fascization can explain everything, it becomes clear to what extent affect does not stand in opposition to analysis. On the contrary: with the concept of desire as a concept of affect, epistemologies of conjunction move to the center of attention. By referring to connection, we learn to direct our gaze no longer toward the poles of state and subject, violence and desire, tech and bros, but toward the relations—the “intersectional” (Crenshaw), “intra-active” (Barad), and “infra-active” (Ferreira da Silva) relationships. Black, queer-feminist bodies of knowledge are coming to the fore, bodies of knowledge that have been rendered nearly unrecognizable in current analyses of fascism. Instead of the accusation of a “lust” for the accusation of fascism, as Reemtsma has made, it is my aim to highlight these bodies of knowledge because they recognize the significance that affects hold for the analysis of fascism. They are also important, however, because they make it possible to address the anthropocentric narrowings of the discussion through their focus on relations and connections.

      In this regard, Denise Ferreira da Silva’s (2022) concept of relation can be particularly helpful. Drawing on the figure of refraction, she adds to Deleuze and Guattari’s eternally mobile field of immanence of desire the negativity required for an understanding of the differential effects of fascization. What is meant here is a conception of relation that arises from the brutal scene of colonial-racist subjugation and, at the moment of the questioning (negativization) of the status of the human that accompanies this violence, makes fascization comprehensible as a dynamic of annihilation that is never directed solely against racialized people and groups of people. It allows us to understand fascization as something that, at the moment of the persecution and extermination of these groups of people, is always also directed against the annihilation of land that is, in a sense, racialized—for example, in the form of the extraction of raw materials. Conversely, this means that the extraction of land can always also be viewed as fascist in the sense that it functions in a way that is directed against certain people.

      Samir Gandesha (2020) consequently speaks in this context of a “posthuman fascism”. Since the pandemic and through automation and AI—according to Gandesha—fascism has focused, on the fringes of a massive process of de-skilling the workforce, on intensifying the extraction of raw materials. This extraction goes hand in hand with the prospective obsolescence of humanity and the destruction of the world, which Gandesha, drawing on Achille Mbembe, describes as the “Becoming Black of the World.”

      At the risk of overgeneralizing, this seems to me to be precisely the crux of the matter. Meanwhile, the desire to accuse others of taking pleasure in the accusation of fascism only generates effects that distract us from the important debates.

    • Surplus Fascism

      Daniel Loick, Vanessa E. Thompson (2026). Surplus fascism: Reflections on current tendencies of abandonment in Germany and beyond. New German Critique, 53(1), 203–223. 

      In this essay, Daniel Loick and Vanessa E. Thompson develop the thesis that current authoritarian and fascist developments worldwide should not be understood as political exceptions or mere reactions to short-term crises. Rather, they were structural responses to profound changes in modern capitalist societies and emerged from them, particularly the increasing production of so-called “surplus” population groups. For the grave structural inequalities of the global political economy can no longer be simply contained through consensual mechanisms. Here, fascism does not appear as a contrast to the existing system, but as an intensification of its internal logics and a deepening of existing power relations.

      The starting point of the analysis is the observation that right-wing and authoritarian movements construct very similar enemy images internationally. Migrants, refugees, poor or unemployed people, feminists and queer individuals, as well as political opponents, are portrayed as a threat to a supposedly natural social order. These commonalities suggest that such political developments cannot be explained primarily in national terms, but rather stem from global social and economic dynamics. Crucial to this is the notion that certain groups are “too many” or socially superfluous.

      For a theoretical explanation, we draw on Karl Marx’s concept of “relative overpopulation.” Accordingly, capitalist modes of production necessarily generate people whose labor is no longer needed. Technological development, economic competition, and structural inequalities lead to growing segments of the population being permanently excluded from social participation. These people are not only economically marginalized but are increasingly constructed and perceived as a social burden or threat. The promise of fascist politics lies in eliminating these superfluous groups through deportation, criminalization, organized neglect, or even physical extermination.

      Currently, several crisis processes are intersecting: a crisis of capitalist overaccumulation, a crisis of nation-state integration, the transformation of traditional gender orders, and the ongoing ecological crisis. Fascism emerges as an affective and political reaction to a situation in which more and more people see themselves threatened by the danger of becoming superfluous themselves. Drawing on Marxist and critical theory, psychoanalytic approaches, and radical Black and anti-colonial critiques, we argue that authoritarian subjects repress their own fears of real or symbolic loss of status by marking other groups as “abject” or reprehensible. The punishment of these groups generates a sense of moral superiority and control. Violence and exclusion thus function not only as political strategies but also as emotionally gratifying practices that stabilize a threatened self-image.

      Politically, this dynamic is particularly evident in the expansion of state punitive and control mechanisms. Tighter migration policies, intensified policing, the criminalization of protest movements, or the increasing control of public spaces are forms of a carceral politics aimed at managing, isolating, or displacing surplus populations. Examples in the German context include the repression of the Palestine solidarity movement and the intensifying racist expulsion of refugees and migrants.

      If we understand fascism not as the opposite but an extreme form of the liberal-capitalist status quo—one that, through state and economic practices, repeatedly prepares people for their disposability—then it cannot be combated by merely defending existing political institutions. Since the production of “surplus” is inherent in the capitalist system itself, anti-fascist politics cannot rely solely on integration or reform. Instead, we propose an abolitionist perspective that abolishes the capitalist social system, fundamentally rebuilds social institutions, and is guided by the experiences and struggles of marginalized groups. Such a politics aims to create social conditions in which no one is superfluous anymore.

      ↗ https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-12158867

    • We are once again being fascisized

      Patrick Eiden-Offe, Was ist Faschisierung? Einige theorie- und begriffshistorische Überlegungen [What is fascization? Some theoretical and conceptual historical considerations], Merkur, 922/80, March 2026.

      The article explores how far we can go in our current political situation with a replacement or shift in terminology recently proposed by French philosopher Pierre Zaoui: “If we cannot talk of fascism as such, we can at least talk of fascization and being fascisized, as we do of racialization and being racialized.”

      The idea is to no longer understand fascism as a system that can be defined on the basis of a catalog of characteristics, but rather to think of it in the progressive form, as an open and always contingent process. Fascization takes place in the bundling (Latin: fasces/fascis) of strategies, through interlocking, complementing, and mutually reinforcing each other, whereby contradictions, opposites, and temporary relaxations are always possible.

      In the analysis of contemporary political phenomena, the concept of fascization primarily addresses subjective and intersubjective processes that take place in the sphere of affects, desires, and language: in the use of “exterminatory signifiers” (Zaoui), the pleasure of violence, excess, and exclusion, not only but especially on social media. The process category helps us to address and analyze these spheres theoretically without having to dismiss individual subjects or groups as fascists in toto. Fascization literally takes place subcutaneously, in bodies and desires—and that is where it can also be resisted.

      With regard to historical analyses, the process concept of fascization allows us to consider large spatial and temporal dimensions. Fascization thus becomes tangible as a global and historical longue durée phenomenon that asserts itself in the history of colonialism and capitalism: With Suzanne and Aimée Césaire, we can conceive of a colonial fascism before and after (European) fascism, whose violent and dehumanizing continuity can be conceptually captured. With Karl Polanyi’s concept of a “fascist virus,” fascization can be traced back to the establishment of the capitalist property order—as a latent threat of violence and destruction that accompanies and ultimately secures this property order. Today, on the one hand, the (post)colonial order of the world is once again being called into question. On the other hand, global capitalism is reconfiguring itself in a way that can be brought into conceptual proximity with processes of “primitive accumulation” (data mining, virtual enclosures, digital extractivism). The concept of fascization can help us to relate our present to the colonial capitalist history of violence. This history continues today—or is interrupted. The question of counterstrategies, the question of anti- or non-fascist de-bundling, remains open in the article.

      ↗ https://www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/artikel/was-ist-faschisierung-a-mr-80-3-5

    • The President of the German Association of University Presidents warns

      Nicola Kuhrt, Markus Weisskopf: Interview with Walter Rosenthal: “The science system is facing its greatest test since reunification,” Research.Table, February 4, 2026.

      Rosenthal’s interventions in this interview can be read as a warning based on institutional theory: In his role as president of the German Rectors’ Conference, he does not talk about science as a pure idea, but as infrastructure, as a structure of legal norms, financial flows, procedures, and self-governing bodies. His statement, “We must secure science in such a way that it can withstand illiberal times,” is programmatic and marks a shift: freedom does not appear here as a normative postulate, but as a construction task.

      When Rosenthal speaks of the “greatest stress test since reunification,” he is not referring to a singular conflict, but to the simultaneity of structural tensions: geopolitical shifts, growing authoritarian movements, and a growing discourse of mistrust toward expertise. In such a constellation, science is not only criticized but also politically instrumentalized. Its autonomy is not a matter of course but a contested status.

      Rosenthal’s reference to structural vulnerability is central. Academic freedom depends on concrete arrangements. Where funding is fragmented on a project basis, where planning horizons are shortened, where responsibilities remain diffuse, political dependence arises. Autonomy is then formally asserted, but materially relativized. In this sense, the demand for reliable basic funding is not a detailed budgetary issue, but a condition of epistemic sovereignty.

      At the same time, Rosenthal does not understand resilience as isolation. Science should not retreat into the role of a misunderstood collective of experts. It must explain itself, prove its ability to engage in discourse, and not allow itself to be reduced to populism. Trust is not created by gestures of authority, but by transparent procedures and comprehensible communication. This is precisely where the tension lies: science depends on the public, but must not become dependent on it.

      Essentially, Rosenthal advocates conscious institutional precaution. If illiberal dynamics operate not through abrupt breaks but through gradual shifts, then science does not need hectic alarmist rhetoric, but robust structures. In this context, safeguarding means a clear distribution of competences between the federal and state governments, strong self-administration, long-term financing, and international networking as a counterweight to national narrow-mindedness.

      Rosenthal’s position could therefore be read as a reaffirmation of democratic politics: Science does not stand outside society, but is part of the political order – and for this very reason it depends on specific protective mechanisms. In this understanding, freedom is not a state that is achieved once and then preserved. It is an ongoing institutional process. In a nutshell: science remains free only if its freedom is produced organizationally and desired politically – even and especially when political majorities change.

      ↗ https://table.media/research/analyse/walter-rosenthal-im-interview-wissenschaftssystem-steht-vor-groesster-belastungsprobe-seit-der-wende

    • Fascism – normality, not exception

      Alberto Toscano: Late Fascism. Race, Capitalism, and the Politics of Crisis, New York (Verso) 2023.

      That Alberto Toscano has struck a nerve with his book, which was recently translated into German, was evident at the end of June at the Volksbühne in Berlin. The book launch, a conversation between Toscano and prominent guests (Bafta Sarbor, Lama el Khatib, and Quinn Slobodian), took place in the large auditorium, which was nearly sold out. Toscano does not offer a diagnosis of the present à la “this is fascism now”, and he strictly rejects any definition of the term based on a checklist of core characteristics. As a reader seeking orientation, this approach can be frustrating. But you are rewarded for reading on: above all with an invitation to think of fascism not as something spectacular, as a state of emergency, as the radical opposite of freedom and democracy, but as a potential and a process that thrives especially within liberal democracies and is experienced very differently by groups with different positionalities—along lines of race, gender, and sexuality.

      The book is divided into seven chapters, which build on and refer to each other, but can also be read individually depending on your interests. All chapters have in common that Toscano gives the authors who inspired him ample voice and often relates them to each other in surprising ways. I would like to briefly introduce two chapters that I consider particularly important: Chapter 2: “Racial Fascism” and Chapter 3: “Fascist Freedom.” In Chapter 2, drawing on anti-colonial thinkers and scholars/activists of the American Black Radical Tradition of the 1970s, Toscano turns the conventional historical classification of fascism on its head. Following Aimé Césaire, W.E.B. DuBois, and others, he argues that already the brutal colonial rule and the exploitation and violence-based as well as violence-generating capitalist divisions of the US Reconstruction period (1861-1877) should be understood as early forms of fascism. These, he argues, paved the way for and helped shape the regimes of the interwar period in Italy, Germany, Croatia, and elsewhere, which are now regarded as “historical fascism.” In a second step, Toscano takes up the insight that fascism did not end with “historical fascism” and its capitulation in the 1940s—at least not for those who were and are subjected to brutal disenfranchisement and violence even in democracies. He quotes, among others, from the prison writings of Angela Davies and George Jackson and states:

      “Jackson and Davis are profoundly aware of the disanalogies between present forms of domination and historical fascism, but they both assert the epistemologically privileged vantage point provided by the view from within a carceral-judicial system that could fairly be described as a racial state of terror. In distinct ways, they can be seen to relay and recode that foundational gesture of anti-racist and Black radical anti-fascism crystallized in Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism. As the Martinican poet and politician tells it: ‘And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific boomerang effect: the Gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss.’” (Toscano 2023, 32)

      Fascism and fascist processes are persistent and yet often invisible to those who have the privilege of not being directly exposed to the violence and the terror. In the chapter on “Fascist Freedom,” Toscano seeks to clarify the relationship between fascism and neoliberalism. I find this chapter particularly important because the terms fascism and neoliberalism are frustratingly unclear today, while being at the center of diagnoses of the present that see them as competing rather than consider them together. People ask: is this (still) neoliberalism or (already) fascism? For Toscano, this is the wrong question. He shows that the conventional idea that neoliberalism is fundamentally critical of the state, while fascism abolishes all forms of freedom in favor of state power, is neither theoretically nor historically accurate. He quotes from the writings of Mussolini, Reinhard Höhn, Ludwig von Mises, and others to prove that neoliberalism is indeed pro-state, but pro a very specific type of state, namely one that unleashes market forces and defends private property. Fascism, on the other hand, is indeed pro-freedom, but only for very specific freedoms enjoyed by privileged groups. In the Third Reich, too, the regime’s supporters and executors were granted considerable freedoms. According to Toscano, it is a mistake to overlook and dismiss the “spontaneities and enjoyments that fascism offers to its managers, militants or minions” (Toscano 2023, 61). Those who read on to the end are rewarded with tentative attempts at a definition in the short concluding chapter. Toscano identifies “four interlocking dimensions of the history and experience of fascism” (Toscano 2023, 156) that he wants to make his readers aware of. In a nutshell, these are: 1) that fascism existed before “historical fascism” and that it has survived it, 2) that fascism is by no means experienced in the same way by everyone, 3) that fascism can be understood as a mode of preventive counter-violence in response to epochal panics (such as the panic of the “Great Replacement”), and 4) that fascism not only demands submission from its supporters and perpetrators, but also offers them certain forms of freedom—such as the freedom to exercise violence and enjoy doing so.

      ↗ www.versobooks.com/products/2627-late-fascism