• kilternkafuffle [any]
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    4 years ago

    I'd like to see more of the context, or maybe don't know enough Italian history, but if this is listing all the reasons for the rise of fascism (and this is reason #5), that's a fair reading of history IMO. The ruling classes of Italy/Germany/etc. did not really want to give power to a modernist totalitarian movement like fascism, but the threat of leftists/revolutionaries made them turn to it. Fascism preserved many aspects of the status quo, but it also shifted control from old elites to new ones, threatened religious and aristocratic authorities, and had some populist imagery considered unsavory by the elites.

    Lumping Anarchists, Communists, and Social Democrats under Socialists is more annoying to me. It's a very lazy generalization for a history textbook - unless it's for 1st graders or something.

    Also "Peasants took away the land from landlords" - is very reactionary framing. Why not, "Peasants overthrew the parasites feeding off their labor"? Or more neutrally, "Peasants refused to give a cut off the products of the land they worked to the legal owners of the land/distributed land ownership in a manner they considered more equitable, angering rich landlords." "Communists inflamed the atmosphere" is likewise biased.

    • RNAi [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 years ago

      I get your point, but even that is victim blaming:

      Cop: "I had to break her teeth cuz she was looking at other guys"

      "In recent news: an Amazon center was imploded with all the workers inside because they were thinking about unionizing"

      • kilternkafuffle [any]
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        edit-2
        4 years ago

        It's "victim blaming" when expressed in polemics, but not in history. Explaining that Rome crushed Gauls/Greeks/etc. because the latter were disunited and had attacked Rome in the past is accurate. It's not a justification, but it is an explanation. (Or at least a part of one - it shouldn't be reason #1, but reason #5 is fair.)

        • RNAi [he/him]
          hexagon
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          4 years ago

          Yes, but in this case kids probably need to be taught "the powerful capitalists choose a genocide instead of helping people, the genocides were caused first because of greed and then because of racism".

          • kilternkafuffle [any]
            ·
            4 years ago

            If you read the tail end of (presumably) point #4 in OP's image, you can tell the socioeconomic causes for the rise of fascism are discussed earlier. (We can't tell more without more context.)

            Even in a Marxist history, if you're talking through the rise of Mussolini in detail you still have to mention - 'certain Italians were incensed by the very idea of social equality/redistribution preached by the left.'