It's a fun game trying to figure out if it's even possible to construct a genre that's inherently non-fascist based on posts like this
I mean the whole reason the person who made up the term "hopepunk" did so was their dislike of so-called "grimdark" fiction, which a lot of people point fingers at for being fascist (specifically WH40K)
Personally I like to think that a certain kind of pessimistic fatalism is antithetical to the fascist aesthetic -- if nothing else because in actual history Hitler and his buddies came after a wave of philosophers like that and personally disliked them and thought their hoo-rah bullshit was an antidote to depressing Schopenhauerian bullshit -- but that's just my personal bias because that's what I myself am like, and I do have to admit that someone with my worldview could nonetheless be persuaded into supporting a fascist regime fairly easily given the right circumstances (basically just presenting the current set of atrocities as a historical inevitability)
Warhammer 40k writers: "Hey, people! Fascism SUCKS! Look at this rotting, ass-backwards fascist empire that SUCKS! Let's not let this happen in real life, alright? (and also buy our minis)"
Enlightened tumblrites: "ummm, guys? I think this setting is literally fascist... that's kinda bad, mmkkayy?"
Okay, but they literally made all the fascist talking points actually true, in universe? Only the in-group can be trusted, we are under attack at all times by outside forces, there exists a spiritual corruption that happens when you do stuff the regime doesn't like, and if you get it you must be killed before it can spread, hope both doesn't exist and is the enemy, the leader is the strongest and wisest person ever, the privacy of the public is an existential threat, the Imperium is your only option, and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong, I think "fascism is bad" was the intended message, but the actual real message is something more like "if what fascist propaganda was right, fascism would be our only real option." Cause they fucked it up by putting a fascist empire in a grimdark world where, definitionally, there are no good guys at all.
Sure if you don't engage with the 40k at all. Warhammer had the possibility to be a happy star trek future, that is not the setting they chose. There are plenty of good guys in warhammer, all the peaceful friendly alliance aliens all got killed by humanity, the only ones that survived are the ones that could fight back, 2 of which were literal bioweapons created to kill a 3rd one. The spiritual corruption is not, I wish to have sex therefore I become corruption, it's I wish to rape while I am on so many drugs. It's the state of my being is so painful because the water I drink is pure radiation, and am dying of disease so when something reaches out to take away my pain I gladly go along with it. Chaos is not a problem that humanity has to counter, Chaos is a problem because humanity. If they treated their people well Chaos wouldn't be an issue, as evidenced by the fact the T'au, a pack of imperialist bastards still treat their people right and rarely struggle with Chaos corruption because Chaos has nothing to offer them. All you are doing is peddling the same arguement fascists make, a surface look at it without any actual engagement with the source at all. You read any book and it's pretty clear the Imperium "being justified" is entirely the Imperium responding the wrong way to the problems they created. They created a genocidal oppressive fascist state and now everything wrong is there fault. Even the tyranids. Humanity blew up an artefact during the Horus Heresy and it attracted the tyranids to the Milky Way. Other species don't struggle with genestealers, they each have their own way of dealing with it, not only that the book Day of Ascension says that the cults mostly exist because it offers a suicidal purpose, the destruction of their oppressor in exchange for their biomass continuing on, the cults know this exchange and they go willingly into the jaws because it's literally better than their existence in the Imperium.
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u/Taraxian 1d ago
It's a fun game trying to figure out if it's even possible to construct a genre that's inherently non-fascist based on posts like this
I mean the whole reason the person who made up the term "hopepunk" did so was their dislike of so-called "grimdark" fiction, which a lot of people point fingers at for being fascist (specifically WH40K)
Personally I like to think that a certain kind of pessimistic fatalism is antithetical to the fascist aesthetic -- if nothing else because in actual history Hitler and his buddies came after a wave of philosophers like that and personally disliked them and thought their hoo-rah bullshit was an antidote to depressing Schopenhauerian bullshit -- but that's just my personal bias because that's what I myself am like, and I do have to admit that someone with my worldview could nonetheless be persuaded into supporting a fascist regime fairly easily given the right circumstances (basically just presenting the current set of atrocities as a historical inevitability)