Quotes about ideology
page 4

Ilana Mercer photo

“Nations whose institutions promote cultural relativism and hate of the dominant culture have no business importing the sort of immigrant who'll be quick to act on an ideology of hate—be it the self-hate of the host, or the hate in Jihad.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The Manchester Massacre was Murder By Muslim Immigrant," http://www.unz.com/imercer/manchester-massacre-was-murder-by-muslim-immigrant/ The Unz Review, May 25, 2017.
2010s, 2017

“Existentialism is bourgeois ideology in the hour of its defeat.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 63

Fredric Jameson photo
Koenraad Elst photo

“Conversely, banning this book would send a signal that the present establishment will do what it can to prevent Hinduism from rising up, from regaining self-confidence, from facing the challenge of hostile ideologies.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

In Freedom of expression - Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy (1998, edited by Sita Ram Goel) ISBN 81-85990-55-7
1990s

Ilana Mercer photo

“Violent Jihad is not an ideology, as our Moderate Muslim friends keep calling it. Jihad is a pillar of a faith. That faith is Islam.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

A Muslim Ban Won't Kill Americans -- Accepting Them Might http://www.unz.com/imercer/a-muslim-ban-is-logical-moral-even-libertarian/," The Unz Review, November 2, 2017.
2010s, 2017

Chris Hedges photo
Herbert Marcuse photo

“…today everything is commercialized--politics, religion, education, ideology, belief, the armed services. …Everything has its price.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Camille Paglia photo
Enoch Powell photo
Richard Pipes photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“As Hamas's charter makes clear, Hamas's immediate goal is to destroy Israel. But Hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That’s why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered on 9/11. And that's why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior.So when it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas. And what they share in common, all militant Islamists share in common. Boko Haram in Nigeria; Ash-Shabab in Somalia; Hezbollah in Lebanon; An-Nusrah in Syria; The Mahdi Army in Iraq; And the Al-Qaeda branches in Yemen, Libya, the Philippines, India and elsewhere. Some are radical Sunnis, some are radical Shi'ites. Some want to restore a pre-medieval caliphate from the 7th century. Others want to trigger the apocalyptic return of an imam from the 9th century. They operate in different lands, they target different victims and they even kill each other in their quest for supremacy. But they all share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance – Where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice: convert or die. For them, anyone can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims. Ladies and Gentlemen, Militant Islam's ambition to dominate the world seems mad. But so too did the global ambitions of another fanatic ideology that swept to power eight decades ago. The Nazis believed in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith. They just disagree about who among them will be the master… of the master faith. That's what they truly disagree about. Therefore, the question before us is whether militant Islam will have the power to realize its unbridled ambitions.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Speech at the United Nations General Assembly (September 2014), New York City, New York.
As quoted in The Jerusalem Post https://web.archive.org/save/http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Full-text-of-Prime-Minister-Netanyahus-UN-speech-376626.
2010s, 2014

Sebastian Gorka photo
Pat Condell photo

“It's often claimed that many people in the West are converting to Islam, and it's true that some are, but it's also true that many Muslims in the West are leaving Islam, but you don't hear so much about them for obvious reasons. Some of them have been brave enough to make themselves known, and reach out to help other Muslims who want to escape the tyranny of their religion, and, like them, it's the religion I have a problem with, not the people. So no, I don't hate Muslims — thanks for asking — I wish them well. Even the fanatics who stand at the roadside with their dopey little banners and bulging eyeballs, calling for death to the West — I even wish those boneheads well, in that I wish them good mental health, if that isn't too wildly optimistic. And of course I know that there are lots of moderate, peaceful Muslims. Indeed, many of them are so moderate and peaceful, they're invisible and silent, and that is part of the problem. And just because there are lots of peaceful Muslims, it doesn't mean the religion itself is not an aggressive, fascist ideology that threatens all our freedoms, nor does it mean that western governments aren't falling over themselves to make excuses for it, pretending that Islam has nothing to do with the violence inspired and sanctioned by its scripture, and repeatedly carried out in its name.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

The Enemy Within http://youtube.com/watch?v=NUiysSau8Qk (18 July 2010)]
2010

Ilana Mercer photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Subramanian Swamy photo

“It has a very small life span. It is a party led by people committed to naxal ideology. They are not improving the society, but rather disrupting it.”

Subramanian Swamy (1939) Indian politician

On Aam Aadmi Party, as quoted in "AAP is led by people committed to naxal ideology, alleges Subramanian Swamy" http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/aap-is-led-by-people-committed-to-naxal-ideology-alleges-subramanian-swamy/1/331149.html, India Today (13 December 2013)
2011-2014

Geert Wilders photo

“Islam is not just a religion, as many Americans believe, but primarily a political ideology in the guise of a religion.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Source: 2010s, Marked for Death (2012), Ch. 2, p. 25

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Krafft Arnold Ehricke photo
Joseph Massad photo
Leszek Kolakowski photo
Joe Biden photo
David Cameron photo
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Melanie Phillips photo

“The original Marxist notion of ideology was conveniently forgotten because it inconveniently did not exempt common sense and empiricism from the charge of ideology.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), pp. 6-7

John Desmond Bernal photo
Julius Malema photo

“I am not for reconciliation, I am for justice. There is no reconciliation without justice and justice is the return of land. […] AfriForum is a boeremag. It’s a group of Afrikaners who still wish for apartheid. They will never see it. Afrikaner boys, die poppe sal dans. The EFF is coming for you boys. Afrikaner boys, the ANC has made you to think this thing is still Orange Free State. This thing is not Orange Free State. This is Free State. When we take over power, Afrikaner males, you will know your place. Just pray, pray to [your] ancestors, pray to Malan, pray to Verwoerd, pray and ask them for EFF not to come into power. Because [if] we come into power, Afrikaner men, this side! This is where you belong, this is how you are going to behave. They must know, these Afrikaner males, they must know, we are not scared of them ideologically, politically and otherwise. We can take each other toe to toe.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

To EFF supporters after appearing in the Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court for allegedly contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act, 14 November 2016, Watch: “When we take over power, Afrikaner males, you will know your place.” Malema [video http://www.thesouthafrican.com/watch-when-we-take-over-power-afrikaner-males-you-will-know-your-place-malema-video/], Ezra Claymore, The South African, 14 November 2016. See also: http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1344722/afrikaner-boys-die-poppe-sal-dans-malema/, http://sandtonchronicle.co.za/lnn/226059/afrikaner-boys-die-poppe-sal-dans-malema, http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/de-klerk-must-suffer-malema-20161114

“[T]hose who haven’t yet grasped the ideological realities of the [Korean] peninsula probably never will.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Portrait of the Ally as an Intermediary (March 2018)

Melanie Joy photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
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Dorothy Thompson photo

“For it is no longer possible to regard Fascism as the friend of Christianity. And in making a cultural treaty with Hitler, Franco has laid Spain wide open to the penetration of Nazi ideology, which has been repeatedly denounced by the Pope himself as anti-Christian.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, p. 287 (newspaper column: “Spain and the Catholics,” January 27, 1939)

Kim Jong-il photo
Robert N. Proctor photo
Clarence Thomas photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“Cuba has probably been the target of more international terrorism than the rest of the world combined and, therefore, in the American ideological system it is regarded as the source of international terrorism, exactly as Orwell would have predicted.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "American Foreign Policy" at Harvard University, March 19, 1985; Republished at chomsky.info/talks http://www.chomsky.info/talks/19850319.htm, accessed May 23, 2014.
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s

George W. Bush photo
Reuven Rivlin photo

“We miss [Rehavam Ze'evi's] clear, ideological voice, his leadership, his larger than life presence.”

Reuven Rivlin (1939) Israeli politician, 10th President of Israel

Israel national news http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/160988#.U5g1Uvl_uci, 16 October 2012

David Orrell photo

“To balance the economy, we need first to balance our priorities, and abandon rigid ideologies.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 10, Good Versus Evil, p. 313

“Lysenkoism is held up by bourgeois commentators as the supreme demonstration that conscious ideology cannot inform scientific practice and that "ideology has no place in science." On the other hand, some writers are even now maintaining a Lysenkoist position because they believe that the principles of dialectical materialism contradict the claims of genetics. Both of these claims stem from a vulgarisation of Marxist philosophy through deliberate hostility, in the first case, or ignorance, in the second. Nothing in Marx, Lenin or Mao contradicts the particular physical facts and processes of a particular set of natural phenomena in the objective world, because what they wrote about nature was at a high level of abstraction. The error of the Lysenkoist claim arises from attempting to apply a dialectical analysis of physical problems from the wrong end. Dialectical materialism is not, and has never been, a programmatic method for solving particular physical problems. Rather, dialectical analysis provides an overview and a set of warning signs against particular forms of dogmatism and narrowness of thought. It tells us, "Remember that history may leave an important trace. Remember that being and becoming are dual aspects of nature. Remember that conditions change and that the conditions necessary to the initiation of some process may be destroyed by the process itself. Remember to pay attention to real objects in space and time and not lose them utterly in idealized abstractions. Remember that qualitative effects of context and interaction may be lost when phenomena are isolated."”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

And above all else, "Remember that all the other caveats are only reminders and warning signs whose application to different circumstances of the real world is contingent."
"The Problem of Lysenkoism" by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins, in Hilary and Steven Rose (eds.), The Radicalisation of Science, Macmillan, 1976, p. 58.

“Money and generous benefits can easily alter a person’s political outlook. Ideology follows the money.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 301

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Melanie Phillips photo
Imelda Marcos photo
David Cameron photo

“Countering the extremist ideology by standing up and promoting our shared British values. Taking on extremism in all its forms – both violent and non-violent.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on extremism (20 July 2015)
Context: This is how I believe we can win the struggle of our generation. Countering the extremist ideology by standing up and promoting our shared British values. Taking on extremism in all its forms – both violent and non-violent.

John B. Cobb photo
Nayef Al-Rodhan photo

“People should be educated about the links between education, ideology, and politics as a way to promote the virtue of humility.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: The Role of Education in Global Security (2007), p.106

“The scientific point of view is that such claims of postmodernism are a travesty that comes from mixing ideology and politics with science.”

Mordechai Ben-Ari (1948) Israeli computer scientist

Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 7, “Postmodernist Critiques of Science: Is Science Universal?” (p. 128)

Robert A. Dahl photo

“Actual practices in the advanced democratic countries are, then, far too diverse and complex to be captured by ideologies.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 3 : Democracy and Markets

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero photo

“You can be completely opposed to an ideological position, and I'm certainly not close to Aznar's ideas, however he was elected by the Spanish people and I demand that respect.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

To Hugo Chavez, who had accused Aznar of being a racist and a fascist in the 17th Iberoamerican Summit.
As President, 2007
Source: El Mundo: El Rey se enfrenta a gritos con Chávez en defensa de Aznar: ¿Por qué no te callas? http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/11/10/internacional/1194711476.html (Spanish)

Louis Althusser photo
Michel Foucault photo
Mahesh Sharma photo

“We discussed education and culture and how we can inculcate values. The other issue was pollution of ideology, national ideology…Some people alleged that we are doing saffronisation. If at all saffronisation has been done, it has been done by the public of India. We accept the mandate of the people.”

Mahesh Sharma (1959) Indian politician

On saffronisation, as quoted in " 'Saffronisation' Done by Public When They Gave Mandate to BJP: Mahesh Sharma http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/saffronisation-done-by-public-when-they-gave-mandate-to-bjp-mahesh-sharma/912013" Outlook (7 September 2015)

Ilana Mercer photo
Pat Condell photo

“When people are afraid of the truth they've got nowhere to turn. All they have at their disposal is censorship and denial. And Swedish politicians are so deep in denial you can only feel pity for them, because you know that in some dark chamber of their subconscious these wretched people know what a terrible thing they're doing, and they know that history is going to revile them and their entire generation for it. But they just can't face up to it. Psychologically, they are simply not big enough as people to acknowledge, let alone confront, the enormity of their mistake. They've backed themselves into an ideological corner where their only option now is to double down on the insanity and brazen it out until the bitter end, while criminalising anyone who draws attention to it. Whatever social upheaval it may cause, and whatever the cost to Sweden's women, mass Islamic immigration must continue. Any restriction would be an admission that there's a problem, and that would fatally undermine everything they're so desperately pretending to believe in… If you say there's a problem, you'll be treated as a criminal – which means that there are now two problems. One: the Swedish people have an aggressive social cancer growing in their midst; and two: they're not allowed to talk about it.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Sweden Goes Insane" (19 May 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_znVnOizU8
2014

George Soros photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo

“Cynicism is enlightened false consciousness. It is that modernized, unhappy consciousness, on which enlightenment has labored both successfully and in vain. It has learned its lessons in enlightenment, but it has not, and probably was not able to, put them into practice. Well-off and miserable at the same time, this consciousness no longer feels affected by any critique of ideology; its falseness is already reflexively buffered.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Zynismus ist das aufgeklärte falsche Bewußtsein, an dem Aufklärung zugleich erfolgreich und vergeblich gearbeitet hat. Es hat seine Aufklärungselektion gelernt, aber nicht vollzogen und wohl nicht vollziehen können. Gutsituiert und miserabel zugleich fühlt sich dieses Bewußtsein von keiner Ideologiekritik mehr betroffen; seine Falschheit ist bereits reflexiv gefedert.
Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), pp. 5-6

Kurt Schuschnigg photo
John Derbyshire photo
Barney Frank photo

“There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who would vote with us when it doesn't make any difference. It's the most rigid ideological party since before the Civil War. […] The bumper sticker I'm going to have printed up for Democrats this year is, "We're not perfect, but they're nuts."”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

From his keynote speech at the Maine People's Alliance 30th anniversary Rising Tide awards dinner, June 9, 2012, held at Woodford's Congregational Church in Portland.
Quoted in [Koenig, Seth, June 10, 2012, http://bangordailynews.com/2012/06/10/politics/barney-frank-tackles-gay-marriage-defense-spending-in-portland-speech/, "Barney Frank tackles gay marriage, defense spending in Portland speech", Bangor Daily News, 2012-06-11]

David Cameron photo
Amartya Sen photo
Éric Pichet photo
Jeremy Rifkin photo
Joseph Massad photo
Luciano Berio photo

“Alas, this industrialized twelve-tone horse, dull on the outside and empty inside, constantly being perfected and dragged to a new Troy in shadow of an ideological war long since fought and won by responsible minds like Schoenberg, with neither systems nor scholarship for armor!”

Luciano Berio (1925–2003) Italian composer

"The Composer on His Work : Meditation on a Twelve-Tone Horse", in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music : A Continuing Symposium (1996) edited by Richard Kostelanetz and Joseph Darby

“The long-range trend toward federal regulation, which found its beginnings in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Act of 1890, which was quickened by a large number of measures in the Progressive era, and which has found its consummation in our time, was thus at first the response of a predominantly individualistic public to the uncontrolled and starkly original collectivism of big business. In America the growth of the national state and its regulative power has never been accepted with complacency by any large part of the middle-class public, which has not relaxed its suspicion of authority, and which even now gives repeated evidence of its intense dislike of statism. In our time this growth has been possible only under the stress of great national emergencies, domestic or military, and even then only in the face of continuous resistance from a substantial part of the public. In the Progressive era it was possible only because of widespread and urgent fear of business consolidation and private business authority. Since it has become common in recent years for ideologists of the extreme right to portray the growth of statism as the result of a sinister conspiracy of collectivists inspired by foreign ideologies, it is perhaps worth emphasizing that the first important steps toward the modern organization of society were taken by arch-individualists — the tycoons of the Gilded Age — and that the primitive beginning of modern statism was largely the work of men who were trying to save what they could of the eminently native Yankee values of individualism and enterprise.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter VI, part II, p. 233

“For the modernist, in contrast, the past is largely irrelevant. The nation is a modern phenomenon, the product of nationalist ideologies, which themselves are the expression of modern, industrial society. The nationalist is free to use ethnic heritages, but nation-building can proceed without the aid of an ethnic past. Hence, nations are phenomena of a particular stage of history, and embedded in purely modern conditions.”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

As cited by Eric G.E. Zuelow " Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and the Reconstruction of Nations http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/smith1.htm" on nationalismproject.org. 1999-2007.
Gastronomy or Geology? The Role of Nationalism in the Reconstruction of Nations. (1994)

“The story of business leaders enlisting clergymen in their war against the New Deal is one that has been largely obscured by the very ideology that resulted from it.”

Kevin M. Kruse (1972) American historian

Source: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (2015), p. 292

Boris Johnson photo

“He's lost the plot, people tell me. He's drifting rudderless in the wide Sargasso Sea of New Labour's ideological vacuum.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"Blair dead in the water? No such luck", Daily Telegraph, 29 April 2004, p. 24.
On Tony Blair.
2000s, 2004

Theodore Dalrymple photo
Nick Griffin photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
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Choi Jang-jip photo

“Democracy has failed to dampen the right/left ideological schism, which is historically rooted in the early years of separate state creation. And neither the right nor the left is fully able to provide a convincing alternative vision of how democracy in Korean society can robustly develop and thereby enhance its quality. The rightists/conservatives, who continue to retain their predominant power and influence over the state and civil society, still cling to an old-fashioned, outmoded black-and-white ideology derived from the Cold War period. That ideology can no longer provide a political vision and values and norms pertinent to the post-Cold War era as well as a democratized, highly modernized and globalized social environment. Thereby they have failed to play a leading role in enhancing autonomy of civil society vis-à-vis the state, respecting rule of law, and contributing to bringing social integration and inclusiveness.
On the other hand, the leftists have disappointed many people who expected that the entirely new generations which appeared on the political center stage in the course of democratization could play a decisive role in changing Korean politics. In recent years we have witnessed a growing disillusionment with the radical discourses and ideas as well as with their inability to develop a new type of party politics, deal with the socio-economic problems and provide a certain substantive model for ethical life.”

Choi Jang-jip (1943) South Korean political scientist

"The Fragility of Liberalism and its Political Consequences in Democratized Korea" (2009)

Leszek Kolakowski photo
Naomi Klein photo
Jerry Coyne photo

“The truth is the truth, regardless of whether it fits your ideological biases.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" In an article on race and medicine, New York Times does its best to ignore and denigrate race https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/in-an-article-on-race-and-medicine-new-york-times-does-its-best-to-ignore-and-denigrate-race/" December 11, 2017

Friedrich Kellner photo
Geert Wilders photo
Mao Zedong photo

“What should our policy be towards non-Marxist ideas? As far as unmistakable counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs of the socialist cause are concerned, the matter is easy, we simply deprive them of their freedom of speech. But incorrect ideas among the people are quite a different matter. Will it do to ban such ideas and deny them any opportunity for expression? Certainly not. It is not only futile but very harmful to use crude methods in dealing with ideological questions among the people, with questions about man's mental world. You may ban the expression of wrong ideas, but the ideas will still be there. On the other hand, if correct ideas are pampered in hothouses and never exposed to the elements and immunized against disease, they will not win out against erroneous ones. Therefore, it is only by employing the method of discussion, criticism and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas and overcome wrong ones, and that we can really settle issues.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

" VIII. ON "LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOSSOM LET A HUNDRED SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT CONTEND" AND "LONG-TERM COEXISTENCE AND MUTUAL SUPERVISION" "
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 对于非马克思主义的思想,应该采取什么方针呢?对于明显的反革命分子,破坏社会主义事业的分子,事情好办,剥夺他们的言论自由就行了。对于人民内部的错误思想,情形就不相同。禁止这些思想,不允许这些思想有任何发表的机会,行不行呢?当然不行。对待人民内部的思想问题,对待精神世界的问题,用简单的方法去处理,不但不会收效,而且非常有害。不让发表错误意见,结果错误意见还是存在着。而正确的意见如果是在温室里培养出来的,如果没有见过风雨,没有取得免疫力,遇到错误意见就不能打胜仗。因此,只有采取讨论的方法,批评的方法,说理的方法,才能真正发展正确的意见,克服错误的意见,才能真正解决问题。

Geert Wilders photo
Thomas Sowell photo

“What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people—like themselves—need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

"Socialist or Fascist?" http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell061212.php3#.XEZfbc2E6Mp, Jewish World Review (June 12, 2012)
2010s
Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.