Forgotten monsters

In a blog post about gothic Marxism The LitCritGuy says the following.

At the end of the horror movie, the monster is fought, confronted and defeated.

They retreat to their castle, to the crypt or their lair and life goes on.

Maybe some years pass.

The castle falls into disrepair and its easy for the monster to be forgotten. But they are still there. The crises may be over, but the task is to name the monster that remains, normalized and ostensibly tamed…

The LitCritGuy is naming capitalism as the monster, but I want to suggest that the same thing has happened with a type of barbaric nationalism. I argue that barbaric nationalism (i.e. fascism) is a monster humanity believed it had defeated at the end of WW II. However, the monster of barbaric nationalism was not killed, it’s just been hiding out in an old abandoned castle slowly getting its strength back. This monster was ignored for a long time, and then we had Brixit and Trump. Now it should be clear that the monster has recovered.

In a different blog post on Fragile Keys titled Patterns of Fascism lays out 16 points about fascism. Point 13 is a good description of the way the monster of barbaric nationalism can be seen in rallies, protest, and other forms of collective jouissance being put on full display.

The fascist orator redeems the masses’ inarticulateness. This redemptive act requires the RITUAL of rallies, ceremonies, public statements, and so on. These reveal to the masses the identity they want to have but cannot express, and sanction emotions they would have otherwise concealed. (At the center of the ritual is often the symbolic murder/sacrifice of the chosen foe.)