Robert Paxton (b 1932) is an American historian specializing in Vichy France and Europe during the World War II era. Paxton is best known for his 1972 book "Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944," in which he argued that Vichy collaboration with Germany was a voluntary program entered into by the Vichy government, not forced upon it by German pressure. This book is considered one of the pathbreaking works on France during the World War II Vichy era, whose thesis has earned respect amongst both American and French modern historians. He was called in for the trial of Maurice Papon (1910-2007), who was convicted for crimes against humanity in 1998.
Additionally, Paxton has put forward a non-traditional definition of fascism: "Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."[1]
Paxton was born in Lexington, Virginia and educated at Washington and Lee University before earning his M.A. at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University. Paxton taught at the University of California, Berkeley and State University of New York at Stony Brook before joining the faculty of Columbia University in New York, where he is now emeritus professor of history.
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References and notes
- ^ Thoughts about Fascism. 2006-09-01. The New Republic. Accessed 2007-09-23.
Bibliography
- Robert O. Paxton, “Parades and Politics at Vichy,” 1966.
- Robert O. Paxton, “Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944,” 1972.
- Robert O. Paxton and Michael Marrus, "Vichy France and the Jews," 1981.
- Robert O. Paxton, "French Peasant Fascism: Henry Dorgeres' Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929-1939"," 1997.
- Robert O. Paxton, "Anatomy of Fascism,” 2004.
External links
See also
- Maurice Rajsfus, historian of French police
Freedom or Fascism 3 - clip 12 of 13
Definitions and scope of the word fascism Many diverse regimes have identified themselves as fascist, and many regimes have been labeled as fascist even though they did not self-identify as such. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton. Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism: Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. Since Mussolini, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term fascism. Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that: Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." Paxton further defines fascism's essence as: ...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief ones group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination." Stanley Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism; anti-conservatism. Semiotician Umberto Eco attempts to identify the characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of tradition, rejection of modernism, cult of action for action's sake, life is lived for struggle, fear of difference, rejection of disagreement, contempt for the weak, cult of masculinity and machismo, qualitative populism, appeal to a frustrated majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy enemies, education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and ethnic people. Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power. For example, Nazism began as a socio-political movement that promoted a radical form of National Socialism, but altered its character once Adolf Hitler was handed state power in Germany. Economists like Ludwig Von Mises argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that of the Soviet Union.
Author: mrchrismcphail
Keywords: David Icke Freedom Fascism NWO Banks Economy War Slavery RFID Evil Bohemian Grove Alex Jones
Added: November 6, 2008
Freedom or Fascism 2 - clip 12 of 16
Definitions and scope of the word fascism Many diverse regimes have identified themselves as fascist, and many regimes have been labeled as fascist even though they did not self-identify as such. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton. Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism: Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. Since Mussolini, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term fascism. Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that: Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." Paxton further defines fascism's essence as: ...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief ones group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination." Stanley Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism; anti-conservatism. Semiotician Umberto Eco attempts to identify the characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of tradition, rejection of modernism, cult of action for action's sake, life is lived for struggle, fear of difference, rejection of disagreement, contempt for the weak, cult of masculinity and machismo, qualitative populism, appeal to a frustrated majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy enemies, education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and ethnic people. Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power. For example, Nazism began as a socio-political movement that promoted a radical form of National Socialism, but altered its character once Adolf Hitler was handed state power in Germany. Economists like Ludwig Von Mises argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that of the Soviet Union.
Author: mrchrismcphail
Keywords: David Icke Freedom Fascism NWO Banks Economy War Slavery RFID Evil Bohemian Grove Alex Jones
Added: November 5, 2008
Freedom or Fascism 1 - clip 12 of 16
Definitions and scope of the word fascism Many diverse regimes have identified themselves as fascist, and many regimes have been labeled as fascist even though they did not self-identify as such. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton. Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism: Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. Since Mussolini, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term fascism. Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that: Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." Paxton further defines fascism's essence as: ...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief ones group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination." Stanley Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism; anti-conservatism. Semiotician Umberto Eco attempts to identify the characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of tradition, rejection of modernism, cult of action for action's sake, life is lived for struggle, fear of difference, rejection of disagreement, contempt for the weak, cult of masculinity and machismo, qualitative populism, appeal to a frustrated majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy enemies, education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and ethnic people. Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power. For example, Nazism began as a socio-political movement that promoted a radical form of National Socialism, but altered its character once Adolf Hitler was handed state power in Germany. Economists like Ludwig Von Mises argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that of the Soviet Union.
Author: mrchrismcphail
Keywords: David Icke Freedom Fascism NWO Banks Economy War Slavery RFID Evil Bohemian Grove Alex Jones
Added: November 5, 2008
Streets Of Fire(1984)
"Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young." The Theatrical Trailer For Streets Of Fire Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Willem Dafoe, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Richard Lawson, Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton, Lee Ving, Stoney Jackson, Grand L. Bush, Robert Townsend, Mykelti Williamson, And Elizabeth Daily. Directed By Walter Hill.
Author: Ocp0003
Keywords: Streets Of Fire Michael Paré Diane Lane Rick Moranis Amy Madigan Willem Dafoe Deborah Van Valkenburgh
Added: November 4, 2008
Streets Of Fire Home Video Trailer
The Home Video Trailer For Streets Of Fire Starring Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Willem Dafoe, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Richard Lawson, Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton, Lee Ving, Stoney Jackson, Grand L. Bush, Robert Townsend, Mykelti Williamson, And Elizabeth Daily. Directed By Walter Hill. I Actually Own The Original VHS Advertised In This Video..And The Best Thing About It Is,I Got It For Free..
Author: Ocp0003
Keywords: Streets Of Fire Michael Paré Diane Lane Rick Moranis Amy Madigan Willem Dafoe Deborah Van Valkenburgh
Added: November 4, 2008