Critical Mass, Overton Windows & The Ethics of Punching Fascists

String theory is kind of dead. Not in that there's nothing to be extracted from it, or that the theory itself needs to be urgently abandoned, but in that falsifying this theory doesn't look to be feasible within the lifetime of several generations of physicists. Now, to actively pursue string theory could seem very risky, to the point where it can be argued, that it probably shouldn't be funded with any priority. This is, because if it turns out to be wrong - as it statistically, likely will - then most of the work done on the topic now needs adjustments. At the same time, if it happens to be correct (or mostly correct), all the work that people working on string theory, compactification, M-theory etc. are doing, will have saved the community years of work, simply by front-loading it. This defines a good example for an "Overton Window": A spectrum of opinions on a topic that are viewed as valid within an ecosystem of ideas. It should be a roughly familiar concept to most readers of political writing, but it's often a somewhat undercooked concept that is used and abused to justify frankly looney setups for debate. While it's a useful tool for describing a political climate over a large group of people, the way it's deployed for analysis is often lacking in several significant ways, which in turn has effects on the way the broader public organizes, engages with ideas, and perceives narratives.

On a very primitive level, the Overton Window suffers from the same deficiency that plagues both the understanding of right/left wing politics, the political compass, or multiple other such representations for ideological spectra. It's of course easier to paint ideas along a one- or two-dimensional spectrum, but the framing of doing so is already highly suggestive. The further one gets away from the edges of the graph - be it a compass, a window, or a line - the safer it is suggested to be, because it's further away from fringe ideas, many of which are admittedly half-cooked. That centrist stances will never lead to any form of progress or improvement overall is difficult to read from such graphics. This is due to conservatism as a tendency to always hold a right-wing proportion regardless of the system it crops up in.

The conservative wing within the Soviet parliament would have been aware of the outstanding issues that Stalin had neglected to address (out of his own fault, or not is not relevant here). Some of these were outstanding questions about how to handle Kulaks, and those who had taken their place in their absence, primarily in formations that would soon develop into a black market economy, a rise in fascist nationalism and antisemitism in Soviet territories, attempts in developing art for the people, and the beginning calcification of the cadre. They chose to continue neglecting almost all of these, because the way things had been handled at the time, worked fine enough. Instead, the conservative wing of the party chose to focus on market reforms, because similarly - capitalist free markets worked fine enough.

This example only serves to demonstrate that even in political systems, where conservatives don't make eyes at the openly fascist - a proud capitalist tradition - the conservatives exhibit this tendency. A centrist stance, meaning the stance favoured by graphs such as the Overton Window, is almost automatically synonymous with conservative ideas. At the same time, these models are a gross simplification of a landscape of ideas. The idea between left/right wing politics is a remainder of the French revolution, but perhaps reveals why including a moderate position in such a spectrum is somewhat counter to the entire idea. Famously, in the French National Assembly, those who were advocating for abolition of royal privileges, most notably the right to veto, sat on the left while those in favour of retaining it sat on the right. Not only were there no "moderates" on the question of retention of royal privileges, but instead those that would have been read as moderates simply sat on the right. Sorting classical conservatives into the right-wing shouldn't be a question of simply historical happenstance though, but instead a product of the effects of their decisions. The departure of this simple model of left/right politics has become very apparent to the open sphere of discourse, at least where ideas like horseshoe-theory and political compasses have gained popularity, though they both keep the left/right axis, which in itself is problematic. The issue is as follows: Left-wing groups will necessarily have to push for some systemic change, if they want to have a solution that will survive the following legislations. Political systems are usually built so self-correct, even against minor systemic changes. This is why the civil rights movement, even after formally achieving several of their core demands has not arguably achieved the central concern of the movement (systemic racism). Jim Crow laws, redlining and the neglect of dealing with extra-judicial lynchings were forms of the system self-correcting, as were shifting some of the racist momentum harder toward South Americans. The moderate position - the one perhaps acknowledging the issues embedded in the system, but unwilling to apply changes beyond a metaphorical bandaid - will be even less equipped against such self-correction. Taking this position then directly opposes that of a left-wing drive to change, and since presumably not all political moderates are wet blankets, in a direct conflict between left and right politics, they will more likely side with the right wing. Right wing politics also has a drive for change, but the change they are working toward is rarely immediately systemic, and hence more palatable to large parts of the system they exist within. Charting left/right politics on an axis then can't really place moderates in the center when discussing a spectrum of solutions, but should correctly place them "right of center". Because this makes graphs confusing and wrong-looking, this axis is perhaps entirely meant to abandoned as a communication tool. This leaves one at the eternal issue that actual understanding of political tendencies is not so much about identifying their position on a graph, but understand their axioms and reasoning adopted by the majority of their followers, which in turn is of course also much more difficult than reading a graph.

The Overton Window is of course very malleable. Ideas can be normalized through exposure, shifting, or stretching the window, some keystone events may make specific ideas a social taboo, and the obscuration of information, either through censorship or omission, might even technically take chunks out of the middle of the window. Take anarcho-capitalism for example. While it's not an idea seriously discussed by most legislation, enough of the richest in European and US circles have tried dabbling in anarcho-capitalist projects, which comically seem to fail not due to the invalidity of anarcho-capitalism as an idea, but due to the fact that they refuse to heed the advice of designers and engineers. What this says about those interested parties, consisting themselves of designers and engineers is left to the imagination of the reader. Where an anarcho-capitalist might be comfortably laughed out of the room by anybody between actual anarchists to perhaps moderate progressives, they are not actually as widely shunned among many of the economics-first crowds. This includes a wide array of market-liberals and adjacent ideologies, many of which play a substantial role in the international financial, legal and advertising sectors. Without getting too far into the minutiae of the ideology, the abolition of most if not all inherent rights to replace them with owner-property relations should have a pretty fascist lean of its face. After all, what role are marital partners and children take? If property rights are the only thing codified, and inheritances are still a thing, is there an incentive for a child to "force the inheritance"? Differently abled, the elderly, infirm or those psychologically afflictions might not be able to accumulate wealth in the same capacity, depending on how the systems to do so are built. If accumulating wealth is a zero-sum game, are they expected to die of symptoms of poverty at higher rates than the rest? A newborn human is basically unable to make decisions for themselves until they reach perhaps an age of 2 years, at which point their decision-making process is still clearly unfinished. Are they meant to count as property up to the time, that they can be trusted to make decisions by themselves, and who determines when that is the case. How does this problem intersect with the status of differently abled persons? An ideology which answers most of these question with some variation of the Virgin/Chad meme is still more within the Overton Window, than other right-wing ideas, which while still not great, aren't quite as "equal opportunity inhumane".

Instead of the Overton Window, it's perhaps a little more helpful to view political tendencies through the lens of Critical Mass. The simple idea here is: How many people are willing to engage with the ideas embedded in a political tendency, and how many of those are willing to put them into practice. While this will never be able to offer a quick read of a political climate as a whole, it is much more actionable for those themselves trying to organize around an idea, and wondering which people to approach. Applying critical mass to ideas, rather than tendencies can reveal odd partnerships which can still be played to ones advantage.

The indictment of former (and perhaps future) US president Donald Trump has included at least one sepoena of his estate by the FBI. This has created an outcry among American conservatives to "defund the FBI", strengthened once again by the botched (and blandly uncreative, one might add) assassination attempt during his 2024 campaign trail.

The FBI has also had a long track record of assassinating civil rights leaders, among other uniquely fucked up subversion operations. As such, most left radicals would gladly welcome an initiative defunding the FBI.

While this is not a good reason to "collaborate", it would be prudent to seize the moment and perhaps push certain points further to the front of ones program. No political movement can expect to survive without "playing the game", as it were, perhaps with the exception of those movements angling primarily for the armed revolution. It's also more useful to set critical mass for ideas as a target, rather than shifting the Overton Window towards any side. Critical mass is an indicator of potential for a praxis. The Overton Window is a tool emerging from the population, but almost exclusively constraining the population. European Fascist politics have been operating at the far edges, and beyond the borders of the Overton Window for years now, and while there has been ample criticism, it hasn't really served to stop their accumulation of voters both in national and international elections. Much of the conversation on this development has been centered about how media coverage has made these parties palatable, which stands in sharp contrast with how left wing political parties barely get any coverage, and if they do, the people interviewed are often not at the center of the organizing work, and are not sufficiently equipped to speak on the theory. A fascist will of course always have an easier time playing the PR circus, seeing as they rarely propose systemic changes, so they don't need to know many things, purely because they don't seem to need to justify their reasoning in as much detail as a leftist needs to for mass appeal. Often it's sufficient for them to believe a few things that feel correct, due to ideas already suffused into the subconscious of the viewing public, because those are narratives that at least aspects of those systems are built on them. This can be the wealth built on the backs of slaves, freedom built on the backs of unpaid domestic labour, comfort built on the desperation of immigrants working towards a life where the basic human requirements are covered, all justified by the idea of inherent inequality of humans based on their connection to a landmass, the natural order of heteronormative and patriarchal families, and apparent regressive spirit of some nationalities and religions over others.

It would be naive to assume a system didn't have a drive to self-preservation, so calling political discourse "rigged" - while technically correct - is not useful. The moderate center, what in most cases is an "apolitical" majority, just needs to understand for themselves where to draw the line. The tragedy of the moderate is perhaps that they get blindsided by the fascists time and time again, and each time they promise themselves and the world the same "never again" that has so often been followed by the same practices exported to different corners of the world. Aime Cesare circumscribed fascism as imperialist oppression brought home. They have correctly identified the overlap in the praxis, once the fascists have power, though countries dealing with fascists have one key advantage over those dealing with imperialism: The fascists first have to live among the rest of us.

Antifascists have been a sort of bogeyman to large parts of the political establishment, caricatured as violent, but directionless vandals, antisocial, politically disillusioned and ultimately counterproductive even - or perhaps especially - when it comes to driving back fascist momentum. While this might be correct occasionally, I find this is largely untrue. Antifascist organizing goes far beyond destroying propaganda, mostly because nobody needs to organize to destroy some paper. Their genuine organizing efforts are often much more akin to social programs, though of course they have to pay for them out of pocket. Really, the insistence of the moderate that a fascist should remain unchallenged is likely what lends them the confidence to keep hanging up propaganda - and they do feel safe doing so, otherwise they'd have enough brains not to hang it on their own front lawn - speaking sometimes openly about the necessity to close down borders and roll back social programs. Every fascist European politician is essentially a public figure, occasionally even with a job that they are allowed to continue practicing, and apparently getting egged or milkshaked is rare enough of an occurrence that it can make the news when it happens. European antifascism has a proud history of proving that individual fascists are easy to disable from action simply by the threat of violence, and this tends to remain true to this day. Whenever the fascists feel that the numbers are on their side, they feel little need to hold back (see the first "unite the right" rally), but if they are even just outnumbered (we're not talking outgunned here), they retreat with their tails between their legs (hilariously, see the second "unite the right" rally). But really, working against the stream is not easy, and considering most parts of the fascist ideology are squishy enough that "defund the FBI" can become one their demands, it's not a surprise that they react so allergically to actual resistance. Not folding under verbal criticism is a quality that children are expected to learn as part of "self confidence". This is not an achievement in any sense of the word. A fascist will roll on the ground and empty an entire clip of their gun into an empty street when an acorn strikes a nearby car. "Never again", especially now, feels like an empty concession of the liberal centrists, only practiced by stonewalling more nuanced discourse on principle, than it does a commitment to building genuine a antifascist environment. Vandalism against fascist propaganda is nowadays much less effective than it used to be, just due to the material cost being barely noticeable to a party. However, something that feels like a fascist is taken a risk is going to drop the number of open fascists dramatically. Getting food items thrown in ones face is "merely inconvenient", and arguably not even humiliating anymore, seeing as they assume they'll be unpopular to a certain kind of person willing to buy a few extra eggs for this purpose. A kick in the groin though, feels more drastic. I've never seen a fascist coming back from that, especially if it happened in private. Obviously I can't give any sources on this, though the ones throwing punches have my respect, for what it's worth. Pretending to adopt a firm stance against fascism while not only insisting they remain unharmed and unchallenged in any way that matters, while tacitly favouring their talking points if only in order to not feel the need to change or be uncomfortable with the shortcomings of the system they inhabit, however, is arguably the very worst approach, if there is actually meant to be a commitment to improving on the current track record with fascism.

One could play the ethics game about the question of what to do with/about the fascists, of course. Let's indulge the moral philosophers, since they usually offer one of the more intellectual counters to the thesis that punching a fascist in the face is arguably the most moral thing to do. Let's approach this mathematically first: There is obviously an upper limit of what can be condoned as long as the fascists don't hold power. That limit scales upwards with how much political power the movement holds. Institutions that are fascist at their core and hold such power, might then do with more than just a punch. A brick, perhaps. A run of the mill "early adopter" of fascism though, will likely abandon their stance once they notice that carrying it will get them punched by passerbies, so this shall suffice. As history has shown, to most fascists, being one was very much a choice. We're looking to provide light convincing to make the better choice.

From a utilitarian perspective a fascist is likely to do a good amount of harm. A punch in the face, perhaps two or three is also a form of harm, though less than displacing a person, of which fascist will likely be responsible sooner rather than later. Point for punching.

Choosing the avoidance of violence as a premise for the categorical imperative is a usual approach and not an entirely bad one. In this case punching a fascist into social rehabilitation is still the better option. Any axiom for which that isn't the case requires the fascist have some special privileges beyond the inherent rights of the persons they will go on to oppress. While that is a possible construction for this approach, it is obviously some sort of supremacist, and hence disqualifies itself from most straight-forward moral philosophy. Mostly point for punching, but also point against Kantian moral philosophy, for it being only mostly. Let's say half a point for the tally.

The virtue approach will deduct points because the punching isn't strictly speaking virtuous. One might argue that it's a teachable moment, which is a good thing. Teaching is hard, and somebody taking their time to do it is a good thing. One just opted for the quickest method, which is not strictly speaking always the best. Then again, who has the time to always choose the best method. I'd argue in this case, it may be forgiven, if only for the sake of realistic efficiency. Assuming the teachable moment takes, then the fascist can continue their lives doing things that are unquestionably less "harmful to their soul" or however the philosopher might want to quantify the spiritual harm done by persecuting entire groups of people due to their identity. This would not only enable those not later persecuted to develop to a higher potential than if they were persecuted, but in a way, so does the fascist. Double points for punching.

Aristotle's approach is quickly addressed. Fascists rely on internalized supremacy. Their political program is deeply unjust in Aristotle's sense. Punching only fascists may seem unequal, though if one considers that everybody, who chooses to be a fascist can be punched in order for them to stop, then it's in a way equal opportunity punching. Point for punching.

Having approached ethics like a boxing match in a tasteless manner which the originators of these ideas would likely be horrified by, this is the tally.

Punching: 5.5

Pretending things are fine: 0

Roadmap pending.