[lit-ideas] Tea with Mussolini

In a message dated 2/28/2009 3:53:47 P.M.  Eastern Standard Time, atlas@e
arthlink.net writes:
On the old Phil-Lit there  was a brief discussion of "fascist" and "fascism". 
I argued then that I  considered "fascism" moral authoritarianism enforced by 
the state.  I  now think the term has just about lost of it's meaning 
====  

Well, yes, it's meaning has always fascinated historians.
 
[L. fascs (sing. fascis bundle) in same sense.] 
 
    1. A bundle of rods bound up with an axe in the middle  and its blade 
projecting. These rods were carried by lictors before the superior  magistrates 
at Rome as an emblem of their power. 
 
1598 R. GRENEWEY Tacitus' Ann. I. iii. (1622) 5 The fasces or knitch of  
rods. 1713 SWIFT The Faggot, In history we never found The consuls' fasces were 
 
unbound. 1879 FROUDE Cæsar xxiii. 401 The consular fasces, the emblem of the  
hated Roman authority.
 
JLS

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