possm reviewed Normalisierung von rechts by Udo Sierck
Excellent book about fascist ideology
5 stars
I did not expect this tiny book from the 1990s to be as good as it is. The book is about the continuity of fascist ideology in German scientific discourse and general society. It shows extremely well how biologizing societal issues lies at the core of far right ideology. The book's central argument is about ableism (which the author calls "social racism" because it was the 90s). This is ableism understood not only as othering and violence against the disabled, but as a general ethics of ability/usefulness as a virtue: the ableist violence of the Nazi state was directed at the disabled but also the homeless, the unemployed, drug addicts, queers, etc. Ableism, the author argues, is as essential to fascism as racism and antisemitism, but most people including antifascists don't recognize it as such because they would have to confront the ableism baked into their own worldview. I think …
I did not expect this tiny book from the 1990s to be as good as it is. The book is about the continuity of fascist ideology in German scientific discourse and general society. It shows extremely well how biologizing societal issues lies at the core of far right ideology. The book's central argument is about ableism (which the author calls "social racism" because it was the 90s). This is ableism understood not only as othering and violence against the disabled, but as a general ethics of ability/usefulness as a virtue: the ableist violence of the Nazi state was directed at the disabled but also the homeless, the unemployed, drug addicts, queers, etc. Ableism, the author argues, is as essential to fascism as racism and antisemitism, but most people including antifascists don't recognize it as such because they would have to confront the ableism baked into their own worldview. I think that is at least as correct now as it was 40 years ago. This book is extremely thought provoking and feels way ahead of its time - in my narrow view at least. I can't wait to reread it in a few months.