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Proxy

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Alex London

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“Dictatorial regimes in Africa and Latin America that aided America or European interests (resource extraction, investment privileges, strategic support in the cold war) and were, in return, propped up by Western protectors have been called “client fascism,” “proxy fascism,” or “colonial fascism.” One thinks here of Chile under General Pinochet (1974–90) or Western protectorates in Africa like Seko-Seso Mobutu’s Congo (1965–97). These client states, however odious, cannot legitimately be called fascist, because they neither rested on popular acclaim nor were free to pursue expansionism. If they permitted the mobilization of public opinion, they risked seeing it turn against their foreign masters and themselves. They are best considered traditional dictatorships or tyrannies supported from outside.”

FascismProxyProxy Dictatorship
Book:The Anatomy of Fascism
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“Perhaps the extent of divinely sanctioned cruelty made it impossible to think of human cruelty as a distinct and unmitigated evil. Certainly those Christians who came to doubt the literal accounts of physical torment in hell also worried about the cruelty and vindictiveness ascribed to God. By the eighteenth century these were very common concerns, especially in England, where secular humanitarianism had begun its extraordinary career. It was never to be without its enemies. Religious rigor, the theory of the survival of the fittest, revolutionary radicalism, military atavism, masculine athleticism, and other causes hostile to humanitarianism never abated. Nevertheless, taking cruelty seriously became and remained an important part of Europe's accepted morality, even in the midst of unlimited massacres. Putting cruelty first is, however, a matter very different from mere humanness. To hate cruelty more than any other evil involves a radical rejection of both religious and political conventions. It dooms one to a life of skepticism, indecision, disgust, and often misanthropy. Putting cruelty first has therefore been tried only rarely, and it is not often discussed. It is too deep a threat to reason for most philosophers to contemplate it at all.”

ReligionPoliticsEthicsVicesCrueltyTortureHumanitarianismVirtue Ethics
Book:Ordinary Vices
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