Conference Program

We are living in a historical moment characterized by the hegemony of social control by elites who wield socio-political and, above all, economic and financial power.

Those who deviate from the standards deemed convenient and productive, in light of the logic that these same elites consider to be in their interests and in the maintenance of their hegemony, are paying the price.

Thus, in a civil society increasingly prey to a collective sense of learned helplessness, we are witnessing a structural redefinition of DEIA policies, not only in the United States, to international endorsement of genocidal actions (e.g., against the Palestinian people), to the glorification of war as a security measure to defend one's identity borders, and to the consequent arms race.

The ableist glorification of the MAGA model, exported around the world, is a derivative of the presence of Ur-Fascism, a concept developed by Umberto Eco in 1995. According to Eco, the archetypes of Ur-Fascism are: 1) cult of tradition and syncretism; 2) rejection of modernism; 3) cult of action; 4) disagreement as betrayal; 5) fear of difference; 6) individual or social frustration; 7) obsession with conspiracy theories; 8) glorification of the enemy; 9) permanent war and opposition to pacifism; 10) popular elitism and contempt for the weak; 11) cult of heroism and death; 12) machismo; 13) qualitative populism; 14) newspeak.

In order for Ur-Fascism – now embodied by MAGA supremacism in the US and nazi-fascist movements throughout Europe – to take hold, it must find fertile ground. This is generally composed of those who profit from the growth of right-wing extremism (which has always been used as an armed wing to impose a certain world order) and the most vulnerable sections of the population, who are most exposed to identity and security rhetoric and fascinated by false promises of an imminent new golden age.

The strategy of affirmation relies on the manipulation and distortion of communication, on toxic narratives that distort the truth, on the delegitimization of the opponent (the enemy), and on the discrediting of scientific knowledge and intellectual thought, which are branded as anti-popular. Noam Chomsky analyzed this phenomenon by developing the ten laws of power or the ten rules of social control and media power: 1) strategy of distraction; 2) introduce a false problem to provide a demagogic response; 3) gradualize political decisions; 4) present an unpopular decision as painful but necessary; 5) infantilize communication; 6) appeal to emotion; 7) promote widespread functional illiteracy; 8) encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity; 9) induce guilt; 10) know individuals better than they know themselves.

Based on these premises, the results of an exploratory survey on the perception of the presence and incidence in the contexts of life (work and beyond) of the sample investigated of ableist, ur-fascist, media-social control, and pseudo-inclusive practices will be presented.

This survey is fueled by the need, as suggested by Eco, to unmask its new forms of Ur-Fascism active today in Italy and around the world.