How Fascism Stabilises — and How It Can Be Undone: 3 Normativity Under Siege

Once fear compresses a system and simplifies its distinctions, normativity follows almost inevitably. But this is not the moralised “ought” of ethics or law. In fascist coordination, normativity is emergent pressure: what must be done in order to maintain intelligibility under threat.

It is normativity under siege — simultaneously enforced and fragile.

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1. From Coordination to Obligation

In normal systems, norms emerge gradually from coordination: repeated patterns become expectations, expectations become standards, standards can be revised.

Under fascist pressure:

• repeated patterns harden into absolutes

• any deviation is experienced as existentially threatening

• obligations appear to come from necessity rather than consequence

The system does not require ideological justification — it produces the felt compulsion internally.

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2. Why Dissent Becomes Unintelligible

When normativity hardens:

• disagreement is not just wrong, it is unintelligible

• failure to comply signals betrayal, not difference

• participants internalise enforcement, policing themselves

In relational terms, dissent is not merely punished; it ceases to make sense within the system. Its intelligibility is suspended.

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3. Moral Language as Stabilisation

Once a pattern is enforced, moral or ideological language often appears retrospectively:

• Justifying exclusion

• Defending binary distinctions

• Explaining enforcement as necessity or virtue

Crucially, the language does not produce the normativity. It rationalises pressure already exerted by coordination under fear and constraint.

Normativity in fascist systems is thus experienced first, moralised second.

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4. Why Normativity Feels Inevitable

Inside the system, participants often feel no choice. This is why fascism is both self-reinforcing and seductive:

• What feels like moral clarity is actually structural pressure

• What feels like obligation is actually coordination under threat

• What feels like righteousness is actually survival under compressed intelligibility

Recognition of this does not justify or excuse the harm — but it clarifies why conventional appeals to morality or rationality often fail.

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5. Subversion Through Revisability

The relational insight is clear: to undo fascist coordination, one must restore revisability.

This involves:

• widening the field of intelligibility

• introducing distinctions that participants can take up gradually

• reducing existential pressure so that choices are intelligible, not threatening

Direct confrontation with norms rarely works. Norms are not just beliefs; they are structural effects of compressed coordination.

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Conclusion

Normativity under siege is the engine of fascism: what must be done to maintain order when fear and simplicity dominate. Resistance, from a relational perspective, requires subtle recalibration, not moral outrage.

In the next post, we will examine why traditional opposition often strengthens fascist systems, and why direct confrontation is rarely effective: Post 4 — Why Opposition Often Strengthens Fascism.