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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 11/4/23: The (literal) roots of fascism [1]
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Date: 2023-11-04
We hear the word “fascism” tossed about quite a bit these days, but most people are unaware of the literal meaning of the word, and even more specifically that it derives from a physical object, namely a bunch of sticks bound together around an axe, called a fasces. It was initially intended to be wielded and displayed as a symbol of authoritarian discipline and power.
In a fascinating piece titled “Authoritarianism’s Emblem,” written for the New York Review of Books, author James Romm explores the history of the fasces, a history that dates back literally thousands of years. His source is a recent exploration of the the object’s origin by Classics professor T. Corey Brennan, of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Romm introduces the concept in his article reviewing Brennan’s new book:
Greco-Roman symbols and slogans are often invested today with political meaning, especially by those on the right, to whom they connote authoritarian power. The January 6 insurrection featured a wide array of these ancient talismans: Spartan crested helmets and hoplite shields, Roman eagles, and banners proclaiming ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ, “Come and take [them],” words supposedly spoken by the Spartan king Leonidas to the Persian monarch who demanded he surrender his arms. Also seen in the rioting crowd, on the T-shirt of one of the Proud Boys, was an image of the fasces, a bundle of bound wooden rods surrounding an axe, which beginning as early as the sixth century BCE served as a sign of the power of high Roman officials.
For those who are unclear on that description, travel writer Rick Steves displays a fasces in this brief clip from one of his European tour segments that focused on fascist history:
Romm points out that the fasces symbol is well represented in our own nation’s history and its monuments as well, including the statue on the top of the U.S. Capitol, in bas-relief settings within the chamber of the House of Representatives, and inside the Capitol Rotunda. However, their symbolism in this country deviates somewhat from original intended purpose.
As Romm explains, the fasces were originally used, likely by the Etruscans, as a “portable kit for flogging and decapitation” beginning at least as early as the 7th century BC. The Romans incorporated them as a symbol as a way to project their authority and power, displaying them in parades as a reminder of that power and their willingness to use it. The “axe” portion of the fasces display was usually omitted from inclusion within the city itself (where presumably the happy population would have no need of such a menacing warning), but incorporated by officials when heading out of the city to wage military campaigns. The number of sticks within the bundled fasces themselves also denoted the degree of power any given official possessed, and could range from six (for lower level officials) to as many as twenty-four, afforded to the dictator. As Romm notes, Julius Caesar purportedly awarded himself seventy-two sticks. carried by officially designated “fasces-bearing” officials known as lictors.
These bundled fasces weren’t purely symbolic for the Romans, either. They were actually taken apart when necessary for the administration of punishment, almost a precursor to the modern day police baton, used to crush dissent or protest.
As Romm notes:
An initial step was the detaching of the virga, a single four- or five-foot birch or elm rod kept outside the thongs girding the bundle, for easy access; this could be wielded with the right hand, while the rest of the bundle was supported with the left hand and shoulder, as seen in a tomb fresco discovered in the nineteenth century, now mostly lost but preserved in an excavator’s drawing. For crowd control purposes, a few well-placed blows usually sufficed; a more severe flogging with rods could be administered to a single troublemaker, though Roman citizens had a right of appeal that could put a stop to the beating.
In this country the display of fasces in our national adornments was (at least initially) presented as symbolic of unity, an interpretation that (as Romm notes) conflates their original Roman intent. Interestingly, one of those who objected to this usage was Jefferson Davis, the nation’s Sec. of War in 1854 and later president of the Confederacy. Davis (correctly) understood their history as a symbol of Roman power and intimidation. In fact, as Romm notes, Italy had regarded the symbol as one signifying national unity in the late 1800’s, when public organizations such as trade unions and political groups began adopting the term fascio to emphasize their reliance on “collective action and mutual loyalty.”
Its punitive interpretation, however was restored by Mussolini, beginning in the early 20th century.
As Romm observes:
By late 1919 members of the Fascio led by Mussolini, radicalized by the war and its economic devastation, had begun to refer to themselves as Fascisti, and the term stuck. Mussolini’s newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia, added historical weight and expanded levels of meaning to the new name with a banner headline on October 25, 1919: “The fascist emblem signifies unity, force, and justice!” As Brennan astutely notes, the depiction of the Roman fasces below those words shows the bundle’s leather thong undone at one end, undermining the idea of unity and implying instead that beatings were not far off: “The clear implication is that the kit is in the process of being readied for punitive use.”
As Romm notes (quoting Brennan’s book), Mussolini declared that the fasces represented “unity by
means of authority,” thus transforming its symbolic meaning, and turning any benign interpretation of it — such as the American one — on its head. Still, iconic American monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial (the arms of the chair Lincoln sits in are carved to resemble fasces) continue to display the fasces as a symbol of “unity and good governance.”
Brennan hopes that this benign interpretation can withstand the right-wing political extremism currently ascendant in the United States and seemingly everywhere else:
In his epilogue Brennan describes the fasces as a largely dormant signifier, but one in danger of being reawakened and again put to political use. Indeed its very unfamiliarity and the confusion over its meaning may make it more attractive to “right-wing extremists searching for a symbol that is potent, but not widely provocative at first glance.” Fasces, that is, can be worn on T-shirts without causing alarm, unlike swastikas. By making the fasces more recognizable and less ambiguous, Brennan’s book aims to prevent its return as a banner for authoritarianism.
I’ll be out tonight and probably won’t be back until after this is published. Everyone have a great weekend!
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