In certain traditional cultures, it was believed that invoking the name of a god or demon could serve as a means of gaining power over it. Perhaps something like this also applies in metapolitics.
Consider, for example, the power that the Left has gained by using the name “fascism” against its enemies, in spite of the fact that this name was tenuous enough as a description of the wartime Axis powers and is used even more inaccurately now. Typically, when the name “fascism” is invoked upon a political group, something close to the results of a black spell are produced: the public is induced to see violence and defeat in the targeted group, and within the group itself, some are induced to disown their comrades in acts of “self-purification” while others are mesmerised into embracing the name as a suicide embraces the noose.
Consider, for example, the power that the Left has gained by using the name “fascism” against its enemies, in spite of the fact that this name was tenuous enough as a description of the wartime Axis powers and is used even more inaccurately now. Typically, when the name “fascism” is invoked upon a political group, something close to the results of a black spell are produced: the public is induced to see violence and defeat in the targeted group, and within the group itself, some are induced to disown their comrades in acts of “self-purification” while others are mesmerised into embracing the name as a suicide embraces the noose.
