Thing is though, it would be more useful to have such an intellectual actually take apart Mosely's views. For posterity. For all of those people who haven't properly thought things through (which is, I would say, most people)

Thinking completely outside of our post-WWI bubble, history has been far more brutal in the past. This is the anomaly. Taken as a whole, human history has been full of genocide, slavery, brutality.

When somebody misrepresents "survival of the fittest" in the way that the 20th century fascists did, and embark on mass extermination "for the good of the world" (in their warped view), citing the fairly recent Darwinian view of evolution, isn't it better to tackle these views head on, for the benefit of those who haven't the inclination or the ability to think it through themselves?

What I see nowadays is a complete lack of curiosity. Nobody wants to try to understand why people "go bad", they just want to put them in the bin. That only works if those "bad" people are a minority.

Also, when the "good" people stop engaging in debate with the "bad" people, there's a danger of creating a dogmatic society. Looking at Christianity in the middle ages, and extremely confident sense of your own rightness can lead to atrocities too.

Sorry, probably nonsense, boarding a flight, not paying full attention to my post

You're right, but I believe the problem is that populists use arguments and ways of speaking that are deceiving and very hard to counter even if absolutely wrong. This makes a public debate a bad platform for engaging them.

For example, with the idea of "survival of the fittest" claiming that some genes are better than others and we should prioritise them sounds simple enough to some poeple, but explaining all the ways in which that's not only wrong but dangerous to the human race is nuanced and by then people stopped listening. Then the populist claims you're an elitist and the debate is over.

But I understand your concern it's a difficult topic to tackle.

There's little point in trying to debate philosophies/politics that deny others the right to participate fully. It's related to the paradox of intolerance in that fascists are breaking the usual rules of society and debate and so there is no requirement to socialise or debate with them. We already learnt this from WWII whereby there is no way to placate them and even the most watertight logical argument will be useless in stopping them.

> Thing is though, it would be more useful to have such an intellectual actually take apart Mosely's views. For posterity. For all of those people who haven't properly thought things through (which is, I would say, most people)

I agree. Celebrating a dressed up "I don't want to talk to you" note is a bit silly.

You can dismantle them from the outside, like Arendt, but "debating" them gives them a platform to Gish gallop their views to an accepting audience.

Fascism sounds great. It has terrific marketing. It's like cigarettes, awesome product apart from the bit where it kills people. Including people who never consumed the product.

You raise a very important point. Which is why i'm so dismayed by the complete unwillingness of anyone on the left to substantially debate populist talking points. There's a limit to how much you can dismiss trump as a fascist when he's so clearly popular with so many people.

Ironically this letter is the opposite of that idea. BR is opposed to fascism on such a fundamental level that he sees no point in engaging with it's chief proponent, Mosley, at all.

Intellectual laziness. Easier to capture your ideological opponent in a box of dismissal than to tackle the points head-on.

> What I see nowadays is a complete lack of curiosity. Nobody wants to try to understand why people "go bad", they just want to put them in the bin. That only works if those "bad" people are a minority.

It's simple. If I'm good (and I am), and if you disagree with me, you're bad. What's to talk about? Stop yapping.