in the tiniest details.
In the excerpt, Fascism is depicted as a “fuzzy totalitarianism”, a combination of various ideas and contradictions. Eco states the prevalence of Fascism around us, sometimes in plain sight, but is commonly overlooked. The ability for the ideas of Fascism to exist in many spaces with vagueness depicts how Ur-Fascism probably exists in the world today whether people notice it or not.
It is the subtle ideas of Ur-Fascism existing in governments and countries which have the ability to grow into Fascism. A prime example is an argument about abortion from right-wing members and some pro-lifers. The ur-fascism principles are depicted as these people tend to hold a traditional perspective on life, reject modern views, and take disagreements as an attack. The right-leaning groups would deny a women’s ability to get an abortion because it would not be what “God wanted”. This can be considered a traditional perspective as they excessively base all of their reasoning only on religion, even though the biblical texts might not explicitly state what they are projecting. Their arguments are groundless, yet they reject any form of modern reasoning. Many people are open to the idea of women dictating what they want to do with their bodies, especially since women have taken a more independent role in modern times. The fact that most mothers take on the responsibilities of the child in the future, while some fathers are neglectful is another reason why mothers should make the call on abortion. However, these types of modern ideas are shut down by many pro-lifers and right-wing supporters, and many do not even question their ideas. They are automatically defensive towards any disagreement to their ideas and are quick to bring unsupported evidence to the conversation. They bring options like the ability to put the child up for adoption, but some do not even question whether they would adopt a child themselves. These are only some obvious ideas of Ur-Fascism that exist in debates about abortion, but as Eco states, it just takes one idea from the Ur-fascism principles to create a movement.
The fact that abortion can bring these ideas out of people that parallels fascism shows how easily identifiable it is in current society (yet people might not notice or think it’s important). This is just one idea out of many others that right-wing or pro-lifers have, so imagine other ideas other people may have and their attitudes towards it. The mindset and ideals of these groups can easily become something dangerous if not taken care of properly. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and this is not a post to state that abortion is bad, but to take notice of other perspectives too. The closed-mindedness of these people coupled with power can easily take the lives of the weak. Eco states it best as he quotes Roosevelt, that if the country does not seek to better life for every citizen, fascism will grow in strength.
Some information could be found at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/10/texas-law-abortion-drops-roe-v-wade
