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Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy
On January 20th, 2017, during an interview on the streets of Washington D.C., white nationalist Richard Spencer was punched by an anonymous antifascist. The moment was caught on video and quickly went viral, and soon “punching Nazis” was a topic of heated public debate. How might this kind of militant action be conceived of, or justified, philosophically? Can we find a deep commitment to antifascism in the history of philosophy?Through the existentialism of Simone de Beauvoir, with some reference to Fanon and Sartre, this book identifies the philosophical reasons for the political action being enacted by contemporary antifascists. In addition, using the work of Jacques Rancière, it argues that the alt-right and the far right aren’t a kind of politics at all, but rather forms of parapolitical and paramilitary mobilization aimed at re-entrenching the power of the state and capital.Devin Shaw argues that in order to resist fascist mobilization, contemporary movements find a diversity of tactics more useful than principled nonviolence. Antifascism must focus on the systemic causes of the re-emergence of fascism, and thus must fight capital accumulation and the underlying white supremacism. Providing new, incisive interpretations of Beauvoir, existentialism, and Rancière, he makes the case for organizing a broader militant movement against fascism.
206 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 11, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 18, 2020
I had the privilege of blurbing this book. This was my blurb on the back:
"For too long mainstream philosophy has been content to imagine itself a neutral observer, acting as if it is the voice of reason by demanding tolerance, rational debate, and passivity in the face of the most abhorrent excesses of capitalism and colonialism. In response to such liberal accommodationism, endemic to philosophy departments and their gendarmes, Devin Zane Shaw’s A Philosophy of Antifascism is refreshing in its call to renew the tradition of philosophical militancy. Through his rigorous engagement with De Beauvoir, Sartre, Fanon, Rancière, Du Bois, and many others including movement scholars, Shaw provides us with a taxonomy of fascism and anti-fascism demarcated from liberalism. In doing so he demonstrates that philosophy does not have to resemble the snooty “give them an argument” attitude that leads to philosophers sharing platforms with reactionaries under the misapprehension that they can debate away monstrous political and ethical commitments. Rather, Shaw returns us to that radical tradition of philosophy that has no problem with isolating, marginalizing, and deplatforming those who would seek to annihilate thought itself. A Philosophy of Antifascism thus joins a growing body of literature produced by a new generation of philosophers that refuse to accept the way in which the mainstream representatives of their discipline have collaborated with reaction."
"For too long mainstream philosophy has been content to imagine itself a neutral observer, acting as if it is the voice of reason by demanding tolerance, rational debate, and passivity in the face of the most abhorrent excesses of capitalism and colonialism. In response to such liberal accommodationism, endemic to philosophy departments and their gendarmes, Devin Zane Shaw’s A Philosophy of Antifascism is refreshing in its call to renew the tradition of philosophical militancy. Through his rigorous engagement with De Beauvoir, Sartre, Fanon, Rancière, Du Bois, and many others including movement scholars, Shaw provides us with a taxonomy of fascism and anti-fascism demarcated from liberalism. In doing so he demonstrates that philosophy does not have to resemble the snooty “give them an argument” attitude that leads to philosophers sharing platforms with reactionaries under the misapprehension that they can debate away monstrous political and ethical commitments. Rather, Shaw returns us to that radical tradition of philosophy that has no problem with isolating, marginalizing, and deplatforming those who would seek to annihilate thought itself. A Philosophy of Antifascism thus joins a growing body of literature produced by a new generation of philosophers that refuse to accept the way in which the mainstream representatives of their discipline have collaborated with reaction."
August 15, 2020
The coalition-building analysis of violence and oppression that the left needs today, this book brings together existentialist, feminist, Marxist, post-structuralist, decolonial, and black radical thought to address the problem of fascist movements today and point us towards a future without white supremacy. The book engages with the theories and realities around violence, oppression, and self-defense to argue for a diversity of tactics over principled pacifism. Very well written and well cited with a long bibliography of further reading.
August 16, 2020
Devin Zane Shaw has written a surprisingly accessible book. Grounding anti-fascism in long philosophical lineage--Fanon, de Beauvoir, Sarte and Ranciere could have resulted in a literary train wreck. Instead, he delivers a remarkably concise, well-argued rigorous work. He combines ideas that directly came out of street mobilizations with those coming from the academy.
June 5, 2021
It's not that I bear any opposition, either philosophically or pragmatically, to punching nazis. Quite the contrary, I endorse it very strongly. But the analysis presented here by Mr. Shaw presupposes a set of ontological and metaphysical commitments--namely those of French existentialist "philosophy"--that I cannot endorse. I simply do not have time for any system of thinking rooted in the misunderstanding of a single word--the transitive verb "to be"--and the dangerous contempt for reason it yields.
June 12, 2023
I'm breaking this rating in two because I ended up definitely not being the target audience. Four stars is my objective rating for what the book is and set out to be: a rigorous philosophical inquiry into the ethics of antifascism. I think Shaw accomplishes his goal, although I'm subtracting a star because I remain unconvinced as to the absolute utility of this goal beyond the important elucidation of his "Three-Way Fight" paradigm. In this model Antifascism, Liberalism and Fascism exist not on a spectrum but on a triangle, with each pair linked by a common feature yet nonetheless diametrically opposed in a fundamental way. The book is useful for this model alone.
Subjectively for my own interest/enjoyment I give it two stars, because I have long since stopped caring much for philosophy, and this entry does not convince me to start caring again. In my older years I have so little patience for it, partly because my attention-span has distressingly deteriorated but also because it just feels so navel-gazy. It's virtually inconceivable to me that works like these -- disputing the subtle semantic mistakes of modern interpretations of famous French philosophers, all in order to explain why punching Nazis is okay -- have a significant impact on society. In order to meet the goal of convincing people that punching Nazis is okay, imo a social history meant for a broader audience would be much more useful (something like This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed or In Defense of Looting).
When I added this book to my list it was as a result of hearing a podcast interview with the author (on the vital Rev Left Radio), and as a result I was expecting a more practically-minded book. This book is not that. I did appreciate learning a little more about Beauvoir's and Sartre's analysis of violence, but on a philosophical level I'm disappointed that Shaw so easily dismissed Camus (whose The Rebel would seem to be at least worth considering even if tangentially).
Overall I would recommend this book to antifascist theory-heads, philosophy lovers, and fans of Beauvoir and Sartre. For the laypeople like myself you can probably just try to be content with the above interview and a couple related articles on the Three-Way Fight.
Not Bad Reviews
pointblaek
Subjectively for my own interest/enjoyment I give it two stars, because I have long since stopped caring much for philosophy, and this entry does not convince me to start caring again. In my older years I have so little patience for it, partly because my attention-span has distressingly deteriorated but also because it just feels so navel-gazy. It's virtually inconceivable to me that works like these -- disputing the subtle semantic mistakes of modern interpretations of famous French philosophers, all in order to explain why punching Nazis is okay -- have a significant impact on society. In order to meet the goal of convincing people that punching Nazis is okay, imo a social history meant for a broader audience would be much more useful (something like This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed or In Defense of Looting).
When I added this book to my list it was as a result of hearing a podcast interview with the author (on the vital Rev Left Radio), and as a result I was expecting a more practically-minded book. This book is not that. I did appreciate learning a little more about Beauvoir's and Sartre's analysis of violence, but on a philosophical level I'm disappointed that Shaw so easily dismissed Camus (whose The Rebel would seem to be at least worth considering even if tangentially).
Overall I would recommend this book to antifascist theory-heads, philosophy lovers, and fans of Beauvoir and Sartre. For the laypeople like myself you can probably just try to be content with the above interview and a couple related articles on the Three-Way Fight.
Not Bad Reviews
pointblaek
May 9, 2021
In book club news, I decided to get in on the Lucy Parson Center’s study group for Devin Zane Shaw’s Philosophy of Antifascism, which meets tonight in advance of the webinar with Shaw that they’re hosting in two weeks. Having successfully driven demand for the book up, it took me a bit to be able to get down to the LPC and acquire a copy, but I did.
I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish the book by tonight’s book club because, while it is not very long, it is a real proper philosophy book and therefore a bit dense. Rather than focusing on Marxist or anarchist theory, Shaw’s focus is on French Existentialism, a school of thought I know absolutely jack about, although which it appears has a lot to say about fascism and antifascism due to all its most famous writers living through the Nazi occupation of France. One of my main takeaways from this book is definitely “I should read Simone de Beauvoir one of these days,” but another one was definitely “I am too dumb for existentialism.”
There are a lot of concepts that are somewhat easier to grasp, like the three-way fight model, which here is explicated along slightly more ideological lines than the way I’d always heard it, but in a way that makes it easier to think about ideas and ideological contradictions, so that was actually quite nice. Other bits are much harder. What is an “antinomy” and, upon Googling it, is it just a fancy word for “contradiction” or does it have additional nuances? What do philosophers means when they talk about “policing” and “bad faith” and “politics,” because they seem just different enough from the everyday usages of these terms to make me really confused?
Fighting my way through the earlier chapters about the nuances of French existentialist philosophy definitely paid off, though, as in the later chapters we get to some more concrete discussion of modern antifascist organizing, and how these various arguments can inform strategic and tactical choices in confronting the modern Far Right and navigating the relations between the modern Far Right and the “mainstream” racist violence of settler-colonialism.
I wish I had more intelligent stuff to say in this review but I used up all my thoughts on the book club and I will have to come up with yet more thoughts for the webinar, so I’m taking pity on my poor dumb BA in English brain and wrapping up now.
Originally posted at Antinomies and lace.
I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish the book by tonight’s book club because, while it is not very long, it is a real proper philosophy book and therefore a bit dense. Rather than focusing on Marxist or anarchist theory, Shaw’s focus is on French Existentialism, a school of thought I know absolutely jack about, although which it appears has a lot to say about fascism and antifascism due to all its most famous writers living through the Nazi occupation of France. One of my main takeaways from this book is definitely “I should read Simone de Beauvoir one of these days,” but another one was definitely “I am too dumb for existentialism.”
There are a lot of concepts that are somewhat easier to grasp, like the three-way fight model, which here is explicated along slightly more ideological lines than the way I’d always heard it, but in a way that makes it easier to think about ideas and ideological contradictions, so that was actually quite nice. Other bits are much harder. What is an “antinomy” and, upon Googling it, is it just a fancy word for “contradiction” or does it have additional nuances? What do philosophers means when they talk about “policing” and “bad faith” and “politics,” because they seem just different enough from the everyday usages of these terms to make me really confused?
Fighting my way through the earlier chapters about the nuances of French existentialist philosophy definitely paid off, though, as in the later chapters we get to some more concrete discussion of modern antifascist organizing, and how these various arguments can inform strategic and tactical choices in confronting the modern Far Right and navigating the relations between the modern Far Right and the “mainstream” racist violence of settler-colonialism.
I wish I had more intelligent stuff to say in this review but I used up all my thoughts on the book club and I will have to come up with yet more thoughts for the webinar, so I’m taking pity on my poor dumb BA in English brain and wrapping up now.
Originally posted at Antinomies and lace.
March 7, 2025
Struggled a bit with the philosophical nature of this book. It was an interesting to see the philosophical lineage of antifascism within French existentialism but I am ultimately too unfamiliar with philosophy and philosophical terms to have absorbed enough of this book and its message. However I did particularly like the chapter on Beaufort, I found that one the most accessible
February 2, 2025
fairly academic but not inaccessible. Articulates the concept of the three-way fight quite well
September 1, 2023
I saw this in the library and I think it probably went a bit over my head. Would probably have benefitted greatly from reading more on this topic and other people's work before.
At the most basic of basic levels; I do understand and accept the reasoning for punching facists and white supremacists.
They tend to have more of a grip on the violent aspect of grouping together, and if we try and demonstrate peacefully they will know that we won't act against it. Their whole schtick as well is founded upon the oppression of others and the oppressed have every right to fight against that using at least "punches". They try to exert control over people as well as see the people they oppress as lesser.
We give people the chance to learn, reform and change their ways. But if they get violent then we also need some self defence to punch them.
Facists should not be comfortable ever.
At the most basic of basic levels; I do understand and accept the reasoning for punching facists and white supremacists.
They tend to have more of a grip on the violent aspect of grouping together, and if we try and demonstrate peacefully they will know that we won't act against it. Their whole schtick as well is founded upon the oppression of others and the oppressed have every right to fight against that using at least "punches". They try to exert control over people as well as see the people they oppress as lesser.
We give people the chance to learn, reform and change their ways. But if they get violent then we also need some self defence to punch them.
Facists should not be comfortable ever.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews