Umberto Eco wrote an essay on how to spot a fascist – a skill of which he had personal experience as a boy in the 1940s (Letters, 21 February). Eco lists 14 criteria, none of them to do with fancy dress or raised-arm salutes. Some of them are quite familiar: the “cult of tradition” and the belief that the world was better at some unspecified earlier time; a racist “fear of difference”; an obsession with conspiracies, leading to xenophobia; a scorn for the weak; the use of Orwellian newspeak to hinder complex and critical reasoning; and a cult of machismo, involving contempt for women and a condemnation of nonconformist sexual habits.
Other characteristics follow: the belief that all was known in an ideal past leads to a rejection of modernism; a conviction that learning cannot advance; and a suspicion of culture, science and intellect. Fascist rule appeals to frustrated people who are humiliated by wealth and power. Such people form a monolithic entity that is not consulted, but whose will is intuited by fascists. Donald Trump qualifies on all counts, with one exception, since he is a coward: the “cult of death”.
Philip Steadman
London
