• OurToothbrush@lemmy.mlM
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    5 months ago

    “Authoritarian” is connected to horseshoe theory which has holocaust trivialization history, please avoid using it

    • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      What would you say if I characterized the third reich as authoritarian? Would that make me a Holocaust trivializer?

        • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          It’s a square-rectangle situation in my view. All fascists are authoritarian bit not all authoritarians are fascist

          • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mlM
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            5 months ago

            Okay but bow is authoritarian useful? Can you find a definition that applies to Vietnam, Cuba, China, etc, that doesn’t also apply to the governments of NATO countries like the US, France, England, etc?

            • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I think Juan Linz created a decent criteria. It’s useful as a descriptor of how much personal liberty a person residing in a particular state can assert and how easily a person can petition their government without fear of reprisal.

                • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago
                  • Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.
                  • Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat “easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency”.
                  • Minimal political mobilization, and suppression of anti-regime activities.
                  • Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.

                  He wrote this in the 1960’s, mainly in reference to Spanish Fascism but not exclusively.

    • GulbuddinHekmatyar@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      That was a stretch but do you mean that the theory of totalitarianism was used to conflate Nazi Germany and USSR, and to an extent, justify double genocide theory…?

      That being said, I don’t see how it relates?