The main reason I recommend everybody study at least a little history is that it really brings home that the past was just completely fucking awful
In seriousness, I think this is actually an underappreciated element of anti-fascism.
A core element of fascist ideology is the idea that there was once a perfect, ideal past, that we through our degeneracy let slip away. The fascist promises to bring us back to it by being a stern ruler who will punish us for our sins.
So it's important to help people understand that there was NEVER a perfect, ideal past. There was just people and their various screw-ups. And people now are fundamentally the same as people then. The clothes change, the rituals change, but people are people.
I think your toot explains why fundamentalism and fascism are so friendly. They both have this delusion at their heart and both lie about the past. Except that fundamentalism has a bigger incentive to believe the lie since they use it to explain why God created such an imperfect world.
@SnerkRabbledauber There is definitely a lot of overlap. Fundamentalists tend to believe in a stern god who punishes people when they don't follow his rules, so the idea of a human ruler made in that image feels right.
The smart fascists foster this connection explicitly. Franco, for instance, did quite well by positioning himself as a sort of Defender of the Faith.
@jalefkowit @SnerkRabbledauber sometimes it basically becomes its own institution... the patriarch of Moscow is, and has for decades, been basically a mouthpiece for legitimizing whoever's in the Kremlin
@jalefkowit @SnerkRabbledauber (i already deleted and redrafted this once, but i'll leave it as is and whoever comes in to correct me will have completed a textbook example of the OP)
