[Pants-of-dog]

This is exactly why talking to you is impossible. If a fascist government does give free rein to its engineers - you claim it has "opened up" and is no longer fascist.

What Franco did in order to not have a completely fucked country was to replace the Falangist economic policy makers with those whom you call technocrats.

Can we agree on this?

[Fasces]

Irrelevant. Your initial claim was that fascists could not provide environments conductive to invention or development. Can we say that the technocrats disprove this theory?

[Rei Murasame]

Park Chung-Hee

But he wasn't targeting them because they were intellectuals, was he? You can't claim that they are targeting intellectuals every time they happen to take aim at someone who happens to have held a position at some educational institution at some point. Otherwise I suppose you could say that all countries 'target intellectuals'.

Taiwan had its White Terror period.

Which was not specifically targeting intellectuals either, was it?

What do you mean by Singapore, exactly?

You don't see Singapore as being in this category?

[Pants-of-dog]

Irrelevant. Your initial claim was that fascists could not provide environments conductive to invention or development. Can we say that the technocrats disprove this theory?

I never claimed that. I suggest rereading my posts carefully in order to determine what I am actually claiming. Thank you.

Technocrats, by the way, are not fascists. Can we agree on that?

But he wasn't targeting them because they were intellectuals, was he? You can't claim that they are targeting intellectuals every time they happen to take aim at someone who happens to have held a position at some educational institution at some point. Otherwise I suppose you could say that all countries 'target intellectuals'.

Which was not specifically targeting intellectuals either, was it?

Intellectuals were definitely within that group as intellectuals are well positioned to threaten the power of the fascist state.

You don't see Singapore as being in this category?

No, I do not.

[Rei Murasame]

Intellectuals were definitely within that group as intellectuals are well positioned to threaten the power of the fascist state.

What, and every other regime that ever existed?

No, I do not.

Why not?

You know the history of Singapore, right?

The Empire of Japan was a monarchy that replaced another more or less autocratic form of rule.

I missed this comment before, but I should have said: the Empire of Japan was holding elections before and during Fascism. Intellectuals who actually dissented were at worst told to 'stop being a nuisance'. There was no incident where intellectuals were put up against walls.

[Pants-of-dog]

What, and every other regime that ever existed?

No. Liberal democracies have no motivation to kill these people. Quite the opposite, as these are the people who are most helpful in resolving complex socio-political issues.

Why not?

You know the history of Singapore, right?

I think it is a stretch to define it as fascist.

I missed this comment before, but I should have said: the Empire of Japan was holding elections before and during Fascism. Intellectuals who actually dissented were at worst told to 'stop being a nuisance'. There was no incident where intellectuals were put up against walls.

Did the Japanese Fascist state replace a democracy?

[Fasces]

Your claim is about transitional states - yes, states in transition, whether from democracy to fascism, fascism to democracy, monarchy to communism, communism to fascism, etc have abysmal human rights records. This is because they are attempting to solidify their institutional legitimacy against competing actors in an attempt to build a monopoly of violence. The system does not matter, as it is the systemic transition responsible for the abuses. Democracy, ironically, is the worst of the bunch in unstable environments due to the legitimization of pluralism.

This is called the 'More Murder in the Middle Theory". http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals ... 1fein.html

It has nothing to do with fascism itself, or indeed, any political philosophy, and empirical statistical studies prove this.

[Pants-of-dog]

Your claim is about transitional states - yes, states in transition, whether from democracy to fascism, fascism to democracy, monarchy to communism, communism to fascism, etc have abysmal human rights records.

Not all of them. I can't think of a single country that went from fascism to democracy that killed anyone except for the ruling fascists.

But even if they did, how does that make it okay for fascists? It's allright to be murderous of every one else is doing it?

This is called the 'More Murder in the Middle Theory". http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals ... 1fein.html

It does not support your claim. You claim that the killings are done by the new fledgling government when this is not so. The article simply states that there is a lot of violence during the transition. It does not claim that the new state is always responsible for the violence, as you would wish us to believe.

[Fasces]

The article does support my claim, which is that transitional states are violent due to a plurality of power. If you read more than the abstract, you would realize that.

I can't think of a single country that went from fascism to democracy that killed anyone except for the ruling fascists.

There are many democratic countries in Asia and Africa who are far from peaceful - not to mention the Atlantic Revolutions themselves.

But they didn't go from 'fascism' to democracy. Never mind that military occupation and support for and the creation of certain institutions in Europe post-war undermines your claim through environmental context, and cannot be seriously argued from an academic standpoint. There is no reason to believe that the violence you cite in fascist states is due to fascism and not the general trend of institutional transition. Why not prove that claim, Pants-of-Dog? After all, how violent was Mussolini's reign, domestically, in the 1930s? Franco's in the 50's or 60's? Vargas' in the late 30's or 40's? Hell, Hitler's in the early 1930's, prior to Crystalnacht?

It's allright to be murderous of every one else is doing it?

It is not an issue with fascism you are citing, but institutional failure and replacement, which is violence as the monopoly on violence is lost.

[Rei Murasame]

I think it is a stretch to define it as fascist.

Then I don't know what we're talking about anymore, since if Singapore isn't in the fascist spectrum then what is?

Did the Japanese Fascist state replace a democracy?

Why does it matter if it did?

No. Liberal democracies have no motivation to kill these people. Quite the opposite, as these are the people who are most helpful in resolving complex socio-political issues.

That still doesn't address the fact that Park Chung-hee did not specifically target intellectuals.

[Pants-of-dog]

Then I don't know what we're talking about anymore, since if Singapore isn't in the fascist spectrum then what is?

How about you define what fascism is? To me, Singapore seems partly despotic, but not quite authoritarian for fascism.

Why does it matter if it did?

Because if they went from one unaccountable government to another, there is no need to make any purges of critics.

That still doesn't address the fact that Park Chung-hee did not specifically target intellectuals.

He did. He also specifically targeted others as well. He specifically targeted those who were a threat. Intellectuals are a threat.

The article does support my claim, which is that transitional states are violent due to a plurality of power. If you read more than the abstract, you would realize that.

Then link the whole article and I will read it.

There are many democratic countries in Asia and Africa who are far from peaceful - not to mention the Atlantic Revolutions themselves.

....

It is not an issue with fascism you are citing, but institutional failure and replacement, which is violence as the monopoly on violence is lost.

That was vague. Can you be more specific?

As to my evidence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intel ... sm#Fascism

Related to this, is the confrontation between the Spanish franquist General, Millán Astray, and the writer Miguel de Unamuno during the Dia de la Raza celebration at the University of Salamanca, in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War. The General exclaimed: ¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte! ("Death to intelligence! Long live death!"); the Falangists applauded. Sensing personal danger, the franquist writer José María Pemán, modified the anti-intellectual proclamation with: ¡No! ¡Viva la inteligencia! ¡Mueran los malos intelectuales! ("No! Long live intelligence! Death to the bad intellectuals!").

[Fasces]

Then link the whole article and I will read it.

The whole article is available. One would think a learned individual would have access to scholarly databases. No, I will not purchase you a subscription. The article is also available on JSTOR, if you have access. No, I will not purchase you a subscription there, either.

That was vague. Can you be more specific?

What was vague? In transitional environments, such as establishing democracy in a previously authoritarian country, or vice versa, human rights violations go up. The countries with the fewest human rights violations, empirically (with human rights violations being only physical integrity rights, and not those rights associated with political or economic freedoms that may, in certain cases, go directly against the definition of the regime, such as a right to vote) are well-established autocracies and well-establish democracies (EG: Sweden (Democratic) and Vietnam (Authoritarian) have fewer physical integrity violations than Nigeria (Authoritarian->Democratic Transitional) or 1959 Iran (Democratic->Authoritarian Transitional)).

This is because of the loss on the monopoly of violence usually held by established governments. Some governments never establish it, and these are usually marked by high degrees of chronic sectarian struggle, or quick but bloody series of coups between dictators.

This happens whether one is transitioning from an authoritarian government to a democratic one (Reign of Terror in early Republican France), or from a democratic one to an authoritarian one (Gleichschaltung in early Nazi Germany). This happens regardless of the ideology of the new regime. An exception occurs if the monopoly of power is not contested in transition. This occurs in societies with institutional processes for the transfer of power (such as Bush to Obama or Khatami Ahmadeinjad) or if the monopoly on violence is retained by an authority without significant protest (Nazi Germany to West Germany, through Allied military force). You cannot use the post-fascist transitions to democracy, at which time a significant Allied military presence gave new governments the monopoly of force, to claim that the previous fascist transitions (where no such presence was available) were somehow marked by high degrees of violence due to the lack of a complete monopoly over violence in those states by the new government, even if in some cases there was an institutional transfer (Hitler, Mussolini), and especially in cases where there was not (Franco). It is worth noting that Hitler and Mussolini's own programs of violence did not begin until they began replacing the institutions that put them in power (The Wiemar Republic or Italian liberal democracy) with their own. In states, furthermore, where a monopoly of violence was supported by fascist military strength, such as the later democratic transition, there is no associated clamp-down of political terror (Vichy France).

Your argument that fascism is associated with high degrees of political violence on the intelligent class, relies on statistics gathered during periods of government transition which do not necessarily translate to established regimes. The power of various members of the professional/intelligence class during the established parts of these reigns, such as the mid-to-late Estado Novo, late Franco Spain, or Vichy France, suggest that any clamp down on these during the early years were for reasons associated with political establishment.

Fascism combats . . . not intelligence, but intellectualism . . . which is . . . a sickness of the intellect . . . not a consequence of its abuse, because the intellect cannot be used too much . . . it derives from the false belief that one can segregate oneself from life. . . .

I have no problems with attacking a useless academic apparatus that does not contribute to national development or well being, but pretends to have authority over the body politic as a result of abstract intelligence.

Engineering is, by definition, an intelligence associated with praxis, undermining your claim that engineers would be attacked in fascist societies. Perhaps subversive literature professors, or Marxist scholars would be, and frankly, I could care less, and it has little to do with the theme of the thread.

That being said, while I realize your focus is on fascist attacking of intellectuals (to which I have already said is irrelevant as most would classify engineers as professionals specifically because they do non-academic work), that you highlight a few paragraphs in an article thousands of words long as proof of fascists specifically being unable to tolerate an engineer class is ridiculous.

[Pants-of-dog]

The whole article is available. One would think a learned individual would have access to scholarly databases. No, I will not purchase you a subscription. The article is also available on JSTOR, if you have access. No, I will not purchase you a subscription there, either.

Then please do not say you have presented evidence if you have not. You have presented an abstract which does not support your claim. If you wish to support your claim, please provide a link to a text that actually supports your claim. Thank you.

What was vague?

The specific claims you made. You seem to be discussing vague generalisations about political science that may or may not be true.

You seem to be alluding to works that show that human rights abuses occur most in transitional states. You provide no evidence for this claim, and what I can remember it is terrorism that occurs most in transitional states, not human rights abuses, but I may be wrong. If you could provide actual examples from history, i would appreciate it.

You mention a lot of countries, but without links, I have no way of knowing if you are correct. Nor do I believe it is my job to look up every possible country you allude to and disprove it.

Your argument that fascism is associated with high degrees of political violence on the intelligent class, relies on statistics gathered during periods of government transition which do not necessarily translate to established regimes.

So, when Nazism was spreading across Europe and the Jews and the Communists and the dissidents were being shovelled into ovens, it was only due to the "transitional nature" of the "change in government"? That is some odd semantics for invading a country and throwing large numbers of people into death camps.

I have no problems with attacking a useless academic apparatus that does not contribute to national development or well being, but pretends to have authority over the body politic as a result of abstract intelligence.

Engineering is, by definition, an intelligence associated with praxis, undermining your claim that engineers would be attacked in fascist societies. Perhaps subversive literature professors, or Marxist scholars would be, and frankly, I could care less, and it has little to do with the theme of the thread.

That being said, while I realize your focus is on fascist attacking of intellectuals (to which I have already said is irrelevant as most would classify engineers as professionals specifically because they do non-academic work), that you highlight a few paragraphs in an article thousands of words long as proof of fascists specifically being unable to tolerate an engineer class is ridiculous.

Like I said, they will not kill all the engineers. Just the disobedient ones. The ones that are the most free in their thinking. If Iran had not cracked down on intellectuals all those years ago and instigated a flight of educated people, they probably would have had nuclear power by now.

[Fasces]

Then please do not say you have presented evidence if you have not. You have presented an abstract which does not support your claim. If you wish to support your claim, please provide a link to a text that actually supports your claim. Thank you.

I have presented evidence. I am sorry that most journals are not freely available, but that is beyond my control. My words are no less true simply because academic journals depends on a subscription model to do their work.

You seem to be alluding to works that show that human rights abuses occur most in transitional states. You provide no evidence for this claim, and what I can remember it is terrorism that occurs most in transitional states, not human rights abuses, but I may be wrong. If you could provide actual examples from history, i would appreciate it.

Helen Fein presents has presented physical integrity violations for 145 different countries over several years in her study. I agree with her results.

You mention a lot of countries, but without links, I have no way of knowing if you are correct. Nor do I believe it is my job to look up every possible country you allude to and disprove it.

This is precisely why discussing things with you is such an unrewarding and pointless endeavor. You approach my claims as something which must be disproved. You will never admit fault, and argue positions that simply do not hold well past the point of futility.

So, when Nazism was spreading across Europe and the Jews and the Communists and the dissidents were being shovelled into ovens, it was only due to the "transitional nature" of the "change in government"? That is some odd semantics for invading a country and throwing large numbers of people into death camps.

I am talking about political terror in fascism. Nazism's racist programs were unique to that element of fascism, and cannot be generalized as a case for the whole ideology. Furthermore, the political repression of dissident movements [from previously independent institutions into the broader Nazi state] is very much a product of transition. Unfortunately, the Nazi regime collapsed prior to establishing a monopoly of violence, and hence we have no post-transitional data to compare. However, political violence within Germany did subside during World War II, compared to the 1930's, indicating that as the Nazi regime solidified, violence levels were declining, and would have continued to do so.

Like I said, they will not kill all the engineers. Just the disobedient ones. The ones that are the most free in their thinking. If Iran had not cracked down on intellectuals all those years ago and instigated a flight of educated people, they probably would have had nuclear power by now.

Iran's nuclear difficulties are due to international sanctions on vital materials they need and which they cannot produce domestically, and is of unique design. Iran's research arm has been working with Russian scientists for some time. I hope you are not claiming that Russian scientists are also unfamiliar with nuclear designs.

Please present evidence that free-thinking engineers are more competent than any other engineer.

Please present evidence that brain drain phenomenon are restricted to politically authoritarian states at Iran's development levels.

[Pants-of-dog]

I have presented evidence. I am sorry that most journals are not freely available, but that is beyond my control. My words are no less true simply because academic journals depends on a subscription model to do their work.

No. You presented a link to a paper that might corroborate your argument, but we have no way of knowing.

Helen Fein presents has presented physical integrity violations for 145 different countries over several years in her study. I agree with her results.

So no actual examples from history unless I do a lengthy search of this person's works (i.e. putting your argument together for you). Okay.

This is precisely why discussing things with you is such an unrewarding and pointless endeavor. You approach my claims as something which must be disproved. You will never admit fault, and argue positions that simply do not hold well past the point of futility.

I am so sorry that you are unable to convince me that fascists and other authoritarians will allow creative intellectuals to live and work freely if they pose a threat to the power structure.

I am talking about political terror in fascism. Nazism's racist programs were unique to that element of fascism, and cannot be generalized as a case for the whole ideology. Furthermore, the political repression of dissident movements [from previously independent institutions into the broader Nazi state] is very much a product of transition. Unfortunately, the Nazi regime collapsed prior to establishing a monopoly of violence, and hence we have no post-transitional data to compare. However, political violence within Germany did subside during World War II, compared to the 1930's, indicating that as the Nazi regime solidified, violence levels were declining, and would have continued to do so.

Dude. They were rounding up whole swathes of the population and putting them in death camps. You can make incredible claims about how "violence levels were declining", but that was because they were running out of Jews.

Iran's nuclear difficulties are due to international sanctions on vital materials they need and which they cannot produce domestically, and is of unique design. Iran's research arm has been working with Russian scientists for some time. I hope you are not claiming that Russian scientists are also unfamiliar with nuclear designs.

And a creative and intelligent engineer would be more likely to find a way around these problems.

Please present evidence that free-thinking engineers are more competent than any other engineer.

You mean, other than the self-evident fact that they are more creative, can use lateral thinking skills, and can look at a problem from many different perspectives?

Please present evidence that brain drain phenomenon are restricted to politically authoritarian states at Iran's development levels.

No. I never claimed that brain drain is due solely to that. Would you like me to clarify exactly what my claim is?

[Fasces]

No. You presented a link to a paper that might corroborate your argument, but we have no way of knowing.

You have no way of knowing.

o no actual examples from history unless I do a lengthy search of this person's works (i.e. putting your argument together for you). Okay.

I gave you examples from history. You said you didn't want to Google them. I told you Fein has empirical tables in her work. You don't have access to scholarly databases. At some point, PoD, it ceases to be my fault.

I am so sorry that you are unable to convince me that fascists and other authoritarians will allow creative intellectuals to live and work freely if they pose a threat to the power structure.

You don't want to be convinced. You made your assertion, and you will stand by it, come hell or high water. What I am doing is writing down my argument for anyone else who may be interested, not attempt to convince you.

Dude. They were rounding up whole swathes of the population and putting them in death camps. You can make incredible claims about how "violence levels were declining", but that was because they were running out of Jews.

This terror was not associated with establishing political hegemony but fulfilling ideological planks. Pol Pot's assault of intellectuals was also not to solidify his reign, but due to ideology. They are beyond the scope of the discussion.

And a creative and intelligent engineer would be more likely to find a way around these problems.

I like unfalsifiable assertions used as evidence in an argument, don't you?

You mean, other than the self-evident fact that they are more creative, can use lateral thinking skills, and can look at a problem from many different perspectives?

Please provide evidence for this, and for the fact that engineers in authoritarian environments have no such skills.

Would you like me to clarify exactly what my claim is?

Sure, PoD. What is it this time?

[Pants-of-dog]

You have no way of knowing.

So you understand the problem and why your link does not count as evidence. Glad we could discuss it.

I gave you examples from history. You said you didn't want to Google them. I told you Fein has empirical tables in her work. You don't have access to scholarly databases. At some point, PoD, it ceases to be my fault.

No, you made some vague mention of several groups and alluded to some Fein person. You provided no links, no specific events that I could look up easily, and assumed a significant amount of shared knowledge that may or may not be true.

You don't want to be convinced. You made your assertion, and you will stand by it, come hell or high water. What I am doing is writing down my argument for anyone else who may be interested, not attempt to convince you.

Of course we are both playing to the readers. Now, back to the discussion:

This terror was not associated with establishing political hegemony but fulfilling ideological planks. Pol Pot's assault of intellectuals was also not to solidify his reign, but due to ideology. They are beyond the scope of the discussion.

And when the Nazis closed the Bauhaus down, what ideological plank was being fulfilled? Does Fascism have an ideological problem with multi-disciplinary approaches to modern architecture?

I like unfalsifiable assertions used as evidence in an argument, don't you?

Okay. Do you think that Iran's strict social mores that hinder social and scientific research are partly the cause of Iran's brain drain? Yes or no?

Please provide evidence for this, and for the fact that engineers in authoritarian environments have no such skills.

It is the very definition of creative intelligence. I am sure that some engineers in authoritarian states have such skills. They are simply fewer in number and less able to work with the rest of the international scientific community.

Sure, PoD. What is it this time?

My claim is this: authoritarian governments will have less technological development due to their tendency to kill and imprison the intellectuals and intelligensia, who pose a threat to the power structure.

Now, check this out: I am going to provide specific examples of this happening in history, and provide a link, so you can understand the context. This is called supporting your argument.

World War II was unprecedented in the fillip it delivered to science and technology and the maturation of planned research and development (R and D). What Churchill called "the wizard war" between scientists to devise new weapons and electronic countermeasures for air and sea combat began before 1939 in the R and D laboratories of German and British firms and institutes. The Soviet Union had since 1919 made the "scientific pursuit of science" a pillar of the regime, and the 1,650,000,000 rubles budgeted for R and D in 1941 was far and away the largest effort in the world. The Fascist regimes also made a fetish of technological progress. Mussolini established a National Council of Research in 1936 under the famed radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi. Hitler took for granted the preeminence of German science, and showed a lively interest in new weapons technology. But the totalitarian regimes' insistence on "communist science" or "Fascist science," their secrecy, persecutions, and suppression of intellectual freedom meant that their R and D investment yielded less than that of the liberal states. Stalin's fear that technical experts might turn to political opposition led him to consign thousands of scientists and engineers to the gulag, where they worked under the eye of the secret police. Nazi persecution chased dozens of brilliant Jews and others (especially nuclear physicists) out of Europe, thereby enriching the brainpool of Britain and the United States. The dictators' personal interventions in matters of weapons research and deployment, while sometimes breaking bottlenecks and ending jurisdictional feuding, more often skewed the work of scientists in less productive or dead-end directions. In short, World War II made planned R and D a permanent and mighty tool of state power while demonstrating that too much state control or ideological content in research inevitably brought diminishing returns.

http://www.uv.es/EBRIT/macro/macro_5003_24_84.html

[noemon]

This is called supporting your argument.

This is called supporting your straw, NOT your argument. Just so you know.

Fasces has already made the distinction between ideology and policy in the previous post. You are clearly incapable to comprehend that NAZI policy against Jewish scientists or Italian for that matter sourced from their discriminatory policy(completely irrelevant to the present question) and not because these ideologies were anti-technological. As Fasces said you have made the assertion and you will stick by it because that is exactly what you do and for that you are quite famous in this community. It is always pointless discussing with you.

[Pants-of-dog]

The distinction between policy and ideology is arbitrary and irrelevant. It does not somehow change the fact that fascist states will kill or imprison people they see as a threat, including technologically capable intellectuals. Why they do it (i.e. for ideological reasons or policy reasons) does not matter nearly as much as the fact that they do it.

I do not think that fascist ideology is anti-technological. In fact, I believe that Fascist literature makes a point of mythologising technological progress as something in concert with Fascist ideology. But in reality, the authoritarian nature of Fascism creates a situation where the best and brightest flee the country to avoid persecution, and those who refuse to submit get sent to gulags or the firing line.

To answer the question of the OP, I believe that fascists can identify with technology, but technologists rarely agree with fascism.

[telluro]

I think "technologists" agree or disagree with Fascism at the same rate that anyone agrees or disagrees with Fascism. Making your whole point moot.

ALL regimes persecute individuals whom they see as a threat. Just take a look at what happens to scientists who speak in any way outside the limits of political correctness about race or historians about Jews in liberal regimes. They're not killed, but they're shunned, they're fired from their place of work, and possibly lose any means of working ever again. Which has the same result. The rest of the scientists fall in line with the politically correct model of science, and claim that this is the correct science while there is ideological motivation to do so.

A documentary you should watch relevant to the above is Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192335/) See what happens to someone with some authority and a "technologist" who flouts political correctness.