On Microfascism: Gender, Death, and War

by Jack Z. Bratich

Fascist and reactionary populist forces have undeniably swelled in the US in recent years. When we look at fascism we tend to focus on how its politics are institutionalized and systematized, but to effectively counter fascist movement we need to understand it beyond its most visible and public expressions. To understand fascism, Jack Bratich believes, we must understand the way fascists see the world. To do this, we must look to the culture of fascism. There, we will find “microfascism,” or the ways in which a fascist way of understanding the world is generated from the hatreds that suffuse our everyday life.

Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, Bratich investigates a political ontology of fascist subjectivity. Before there is a fascist movement, he notes, there is a fascist body that can move or be moved. By highlighting the misogyny at fascism’s core and “becoming-man” as a key process of subjectivation we are able to observe the formation of a fascist body enacted through everyday sexism as well as feminicide. This body is also formed through appeals to recover the subjects created by earlier foundational wars. By focusing on the variety of ways the resurgent fascist tendency tarries with its own destruction (and thereby the destruction of others) we can trace how fascism refines and expands the necropolitics that underpin capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal systems.

The implications of On Microfascism are unsettling. The seeds of the fascist worldview, it suggests, may be more widespread than we think. Still, Bratich insists, the new fascism is not as powerful as its adherents wish us to believe. To combat it, we must develop and defend a “micro-antifascism” rooted in the ethics of aid and care in the everyday. Rooted in an understanding of how the fascist body is constructed, we can develop the collective power to dismember it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Theory

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2022

Reviews

[Takin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting ideas; BUT the book is organized in such an difficult (even insulting, at times) manner... The reading experience is more about crawling through a swamp of unnecessary jargon and neologisms and a poorly paced and organized flow of arguments.

The last chapter is the most interesting. However, it's a shame that because of the ridiculous vocabulary that the author sets up, you need to read the entirety of the book to have access to the final~30-or-so pages that have any substancial value.

If the superfluous was shaved off, this could have been an interesting <30pp. essay or pamphlet. As a book, it is too disrespectful to the reader to merit a higher grade.

The most unforgivable crime this book commits is to drop very specific neologisms/jargon on the reader, only to explain what those terms meant later in the book (think 20, 30, 40 pages later). I had to routinely go back and re-read sections because I was finally given a definition for a key term much later in the book. For a book that advocates for forms of praxis, it is quite embarassing and ironic for the text itself to be so antagonistic to the reader.

Other books on antifascism and feminism will probably be more informative, better organized, and less frustrating to read than this.

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've never seen such an interesting and important concept so thoroughly ruined over an authors complete inability to communicate their idea.

[Coral Opal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid three-star book. Someone brought it up in my book club and I was really interested in the way that he discussed it. I'm glad to have read it and I think it's really interesting and important to consider fascism apart from state formations. How does fascism manifest on a sociomolecular level?

Despite the interesting topic, I don't particularly enjoy the way that Bratich writes. There are certainly important points and good quotes here, but by the end it just felt like he was either quoting someone else or trying to hit me with a quick academic one-liner he thought was slick. Ya know the feel???

Anyways, interesting read that I was bored of by the end.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

On Microfascism unpacks the deeply disturbing gender narratives that underskirt our societies and create an insurgent cruelty that corrodes our human relationships. This is an incredible intervention in the crisis we are living through and calls for us to collectively look deeper when responding to the growth of misogynist, white supremacist movements.

[Fiona McLary · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5

Unfortunately I fear this book was a bit too technical for me. If terms like mimesis, subjectivation, and the social production of desire are new to you, you will likely find this an extremely dense and challenging read. However, I felt that overall the author presented a compelling and convincing deconstruction of the concept and realization of microfascism, ending on a hopeful note with suggestions for micro-antifascism. And despite all the jargon, there were many moments where clear and powerful meaning shone through and stayed with me emotionally and intellectually. The first chapter in particular, on autogenetic sovereignty, has given me a new frame with which to understand what draws people to fascist ideologies and practices and keeps them there.

I think this book could have benefitted from more explicit inclusion of trans identities/realities, especially since that is a major battlefield of gendered (micro)fascism in the 2020s. However, if the author felt that was outside his scope, then I respect that and I still think he has created a solid thesis. (A treatise? While I was reading this book I kept wanting to call it a treatise.)

[HeyDon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really appreciated this look at fascism at the micro day-to-day level, whether it be in memes, online culture, misogyny, glorification of past failed white supremacist projects like the Confederacy and the Nazis. Fascism may appear all-powerful and inevitable, but that appearance is a mere facade. It’s more vulnerable than ever, which is why solidarity, collectivism, and caring for one another will defeat its mission. Really good read!

[James M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to give this book 4 stars. It is *often* very heavy with academic jargon that, to its detriment and therefore the detriment of us all, make it difficult to digest and would prevent a wide reading. However, the ideas it shares and the rigorous research that went into tying everything together are deserving of 5 stars. More antifascists need to read this book ASAP.

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a clearly written and excellent book. If you want to understand the ubiquity of fascism today, read this book!

[Gabby Roncone · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many interesting ideas in this book that unfortunately were lost by meandering definitions or asides