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[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]
One doesn’t expect much substance or insight from the UK’s left-wing Guardian, and a recent opinion piece there – “Getting fit is great – but it could turn you into a rightwing jerk” – did not disappoint on that score, but it did accidentally raise a worthwhile question: does becoming healthier and stronger incline one toward right-wing politics, even fascism?
In all fairness to Guardian columnist Zoe Williams, it’s possible that her article was written tongue-in-cheek or meant to be more self-deprecating than serious; possible, but not likely. The humor and wit are too tepid to make for successful satire. And there is an underlying seriousness to the thesis, which she states as, “[T]here is a dark side to wellness, which I always, for shorthand, thought of as political: getting fit makes you more rightwing.”
Her implication, then, is that getting fit, which most people would see as a desirable aim, is a social danger to be avoided, because Europe already has too many unruly “far-right” populists threatening to overthrow the globalist elites who know best how the hoi polloi should live. No Guardian columnist would find anything right-wing acceptable, much less desirable.
“The mechanism is incredibly simple,” Williams explains. “You embark on this voyage of self-improvement, and more or less immediately see results. You feel stronger and more energetic, probably your mood lifts, and pretty soon you think you are master of your own destiny.”
It’s revealing that she believes that striving for self-improvement and feeling that you are responsible for your own destiny in life mark you as right-wing. It’s almost as if she is admitting that demanding everyone celebrate your obesity, and embracing victimhood in the face of social forces beyond your control, are left-wing attributes.
Williams goes on to make the questionable claim, for which she offers not even anecdotal evidence, that improving your fitness level gets you “high on self-righteousness”:
Inescapably, you start to situate other people’s problems within their failure to be as fit as you. This is particularly true if you don’t know them and they’re just a bunch of numbers. All those statistics – depressed people, obese people, people with IBS – imagine how much better they would be if only they took responsibility for their health, the way that you have.
I don’t think it’s self-righteousness so much as common sense to believe that people suffering from treatable conditions would be better off if they took greater responsibility for their health. Should we encourage them to take less or no responsibility for it? In any case, Williams seems to lack any awareness that self-righteousness today is largely the domain of left-wing social justice maniacs. They, and not right-wing gym rats, are the loudest and most self-righteous voices in the health field: tarring meat-eaters for killing the planet, for example.
Then Williams claims that “[f]itness has a capitalist logic”: “Always competing, always striving for growth…” This is not the condemnation of fitness that she thinks it is. Competition and striving for growth are, again, positive undertakings. But mostly she dislikes that “you’re getting on everyone’s nerves.” She sneers that upping your muscle-repairing protein intake has “the taste of pure virtue” and warns that “preening” about it is bad for “your soul.”
The dearth of self-awareness here is astounding, yet unsurprising: smug, self-satisfied virtue-signaling, and preening about one’s diet, are almost entirely the domain of the left-wing today, not the right-wing.
She concludes weakly, and again insupportably, that
there is a fixed amount of excellence in any self, and the more you spend on your biceps, the less you have for your personality. I realise it’s not really a question of an unwitting slide into fascism, hastened by a treadmill. It’s more that Wellness could turn you into a bit of a jerk, is what I’m saying.
Let’s address this “slide into fascism,” which is an overriding worry of the left. First we must ask ourselves what fascism actually is, especially because it is such an overused epithet today. The left regularly smears anyone as a fascist who resists accepting Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, open-borders globalism, and any other of their ideological lunacies. The most succinct definition of fascism came straight from the mouth of Mussolini, its most notorious icon: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
The Wikipedia entry on “fascism,” which reads like a Soros-funded high-school student wrote it, asserts that fascism is right-wing. But it has manifested itself differently in different countries, and Mussolini’s own definition sounds exactly like what today’s Democrat Party strives for, complete with fraudulent elections, the suppression of free speech, military purges and show trials of political opponents, government agencies weaponized against the people, and a state media that gaslights them with propaganda around-the-clock. Indeed, Jonah Goldberg, before his descent into Never-Trumper irrelevance, wrote a whole book, Liberal Fascism, detailing the shared roots of fascism and progressivism.
Nevertheless, the left in recent years has made a cottage industry of fear-mongering about right-wingers, fascism, and exercise. Countless articles abound on the internet with fretful headlines like this one from the far-left Daily Kos: “‘Fitness fascists’ hijack workout cultures to spread far-right politics and recruit a physical army.” Or another from the Guardian, with a title so similar it’s like a Harvard plagiarist wrote it: “‘Fascist fitness’: how the far right is recruiting with online gym groups.” How about this one from The Week: “Far-right ‘hypermasculine’ fitness clubs” (where do I sign up?). Yet another: “Gym Fascism,” from the Society of Cultural Anthropology. Or this unintentionally comic headline from the University of Oslo’s Center for Research on Extremism: “Granola Nazis: Fascism in the World of Health, Fitness, and Nature.”
And you knew they were going to make sure they linked it to white supremacy. Here’s a hilarious headline from Time, the magazine that voted Joseph Stalin as its “Person of the Year” – twice: “The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise.” The reliably idiotic MSNBC chimed in with its own article about how “White supremacists’ latest scheme to valorize violence and hypermasculinity has gone digital.”
Contrary to the left’s hysterically paranoid take on exercise, the fitness industry is not overrun with subversive fascists gearing up for another J6 “insurrection.” Fitness is good for everyone — of all races, not just “white supremacists” — and gym-goers are people of all political persuasions or none. The real danger of obsessing about fitness lies in self-idolatry (just check out all the gym selfies on Instagram), not self-righteousness or political extremism.
The truth about the left’s panic over an army of muscle-bound, right-wing warriors like the Spartan studs of the movie 300 is this: first, the left hates masculine men who bond over masculine pursuits; and second, the state-worshippers of the left are fearful of a populace that is strong, healthy, disciplined, self-reliant, clear-thinking, and politically dissident. Totalitarians require a society of weak, flaccid, dependent, cowed dullards, like the subservient race of Eloi in H.G. Wells’ Time Machine or the euphorically drugged and indoctrinated populace of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Pumping iron isn’t fascist, but it will help you resist fascism.
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Turning the other cheek and loving your enemy certainly will not help you resist fascism.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Love for Enemies
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” – Semon on the Mount
I can only imagine the pile of Objectivist jello you are.
I’m pretty sure that being fit is not exactly your bailiwick.
And what does this off-topic stupid comment have to do with this article? You are degenerating into a weak kneed angry pile of stale butter. You couldn’t resist fascism because you don’t fight for anything.
THX1138 are you becoming Christian? Have you given up on Peikoff or Ayn Rand ?
What are implying here? That we should go along with madness so as not to offend.
THX, your comment above seems so out of context. Fitness as Fascism, and you quote the Beatitudes? You must think the Beatitudes are a call to be weak and passive, but the opposite is true.
The Beatitudes are found in Matthew chapters 5 – 7 and Luke 6: 17 – 49. You need to read the entirety of them to know how badly you wrest them from their context and thus their true meaning.
The Beatitudes have no gospel, no faith, no repentance. They are an exposition of the law, and reveal the righteous character of the LORD God, Who is patient and long-suffering. Those who experience suffering and injustice are known to Him and can be like Him by patient endurance, just as God patiently endures us and our sins. The times of injustice and suffering will end, but while they endure, there is comfort that God Himself endured much suffering and injustice at our hands and will also give us supernatural grace to endure this from the hands of people like you and others who hate us. We are thereby more like God.
You love to quote the part that tells us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. But IMMEDIATELY following these is Matthew 5:45, which tells us we do these things to be like our Father in heaven. And verser 48 tells us to be perfect, even as God is perfect. Impossible! But no worries, Jesus has done it on your behalf.
THX, you slap God daily and He turns the other cheek and you do it again and again. You hate God, and yet He allows you to live and to continue to do so. His patience is not forever, and there is only one way to avoid the destruction of your (and my) unrighteousness. And that is the Gospel Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that He died for your sins, and ask God to forgive you and give you a new heart that repents.
Kynarion, when are his comments not out of context. He is a hateful childish creature. He is a cowardly, little narcissist who has deluded himself into thinking selfishness is somehow noble. The idea of risking his life to help someone that is in desperate need is loathsome to him because he sees his life as infinitely more valuable than that of anyone in need, regardless of how much they are suffering. He is the epitome of meritless pride and delusional self-worth.
It’s not that he hates God. He desires to be God and sees himself as some sort of savior to be obeyed.
He believes many, many lies. There is a history to him that has warped him horribly, and we do not know that history, but God does. Whatever it is, he is willing to believe horrible lies even when they are irrational and incoherent – a true religious faith without evidence.
THX still lives, and there is hope for him, just as there was for the Apostle Paul, who also had a passionate and ignorant hatred for Christ, Who told him it was difficult to kick against the pricks.
Intrepid, your intolerant energy is also passionate, and I believe they might be the goads against which it is difficult to kick. God uses means, and who can deny your opposition might not be one of God’s goads? The irony is I think no one would be more delighted than you should God give new life to our THX.
I know not of goads of God. Couldn’t find them in a search engine. There is no hope for this clown. The day before yesterday he was blaming Israel for the October 7 attack because of their alleged altruism. Here’s what he wrote on the 11th:
“This war would never have happened except for America’s and the West’s altruistic funding of Muslim savages.
Not to mention that Israel was also funding these Muslim savages and aiding and abetting them by giving them work permits to work in Israel.
Israel inflicted this bloody savagery on itself, all in the name of the supposedly “noble” and “moral” code of altruism and self-sacrifice. Israel should be ashamed of itself for practicing the self-immolation of altruism.”
He is obsessed with the concept of altruism and blames everything wrong with us on it. It’s all so easy for him.
You are too easy on him. If what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus happened to him I would automatically think it was a ruse, because he is an inveterate liar.
Demon possessed? Satan’s handmaiden? Perhaps. Anti-God, Anti-West and anti-American? Most assuredly.
Intrepid, look at Acts 9:5 and Acts 26:14.
I may be too easy on THX, but I have delivered some slaps, too. I try always to think of his well-being because I pity his slavery, while simultaneously being repulsed by his hypocrisy. But God often saves these very people and makes them monuments to His grace. THX would love much, because he would be forgiven much. Luke 7:47-48.
I think you love what is good, and therefore you hate what is evil. There is room for what you do with THX.. And please feel free to criticize me, because I need to examine my motives and methods. You might be right that my effort is wasted, but perhaps not.
Reading the Bible for his sake or mine will get me nowhere. You are too easy on him and he will take advantage of that. Slap him harder.
Have you ever seen the film “Glory”? It is the story of the Mass. 54th regiment, the first all black regiment in the Civil War. It’s commander has a friend in the regiment who needs to learn to be tougher.
During tough training, the commander is asked by the Sgt Major if the weak trooper is a friend and he says “we grew up together.” The Sgt Major intones “Let him grow up some more”. The commander leaves it at that. And the trooper manages to become a soldier.
In my world there is no excuse for weakness. We are at war with spineless traitors like THX. He is part of the 5th column.
Just sayin’.
Is this your way of apologizing for the frothing at the mouth hatred you Lefties have for President Trump and half of the country?
I know from experience, and I dare say it’s a fact, that if you want to succeed in athletics, whether it’s school sports, or the pros, that fitness is an essential component. Only a demented liberal would be opposed to that.
If getting fit makes you more rightwing,
then being unfit must make you more leftwing.
Therefore, the woke leftist democrats are unfit.
If the leftist democrats are unfit, then they must be sick.
If they are sick, then they are going to croak.
If they croak, then the woke leftist depraved psychopathic democrats will be no more.
And all will be well with the world.
Q.E.D.
Wait for the annoying little snowflakes demand all Body Building Lessons be banned and the Mr. Universe contests be outlawed and Charles Atlas be declared Offensive to the little snowflakes
Soeaking of Charles Atlas, one is reminded that bodybuilders of his generation, including the ideal form of Steve Reeves, achieved impressive results that were still esthetically pleasing without, for the most part, the use of drugs, unlike so many of the, yes, steroid monstrosities one sees on the covers of the muscle mags of today. To each his or her own, I guess, but even Arnold looked amazing/disgusting at times, in his prime.
Arnold was a body sculptor who had the genetics to pull it off. He reshaped his massive bull-like physique in order to fit the Conan character, noting that he wanted to more like a panther in that role.
Arnold’s image in an article countering the fitness=fascism claim may be less than compelling.
It is intriguing to remember that Arnold’s father was a Nazi Sargent, and Arnold himself, fell into totalitarian thinking when he criticized anyone failing to follow the regulations designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 telling them “Screw your freedom.”
Maybe a better mascot would be Denise Austin.
I used to ride in criteriums, velodrome and road bicycle races in So. Cal, throughout the 80’s and early 90’s. A lot of those super-fit athletes are some of the most arrogant, self-centered Marxists you could ever meet. Holier-than-thou, and extremely intolerant of non-athletes or those “not in shape”.
Some of the worst were Triathletes. 3 times as “cool” as the strictly road racers. (but strangely, they would get pissed when I dropped them in sprints)
A BIG thank you Sir, that was a wonderful write up in explaining how the Left think & why, & to what end.
If I didn’t know this was from the Guardian I would assume it came from the Babylon Bee. Unfortunately for us, The Kung Flu Scandemic proved that about 70% of the population are empty vessels, waiting to be told what to do by the dumbest of the dumb at the Guardian.
My elementary shcool principal instilled the habit of physical fitness in the entire school. The Navy training taught me the ongoing benefits of conditioning.
A difficult conversion to Christ and the way of life demonstrated in the Bible taught me just how weak the surrounding world really is. For example, most of my acquaintances have a hard time relating actions to consequences, especially in regards to morals.
So, there are different kinds of ‘strength’. Get some!
This is what Progressives, Socialists and Radical Islamists and the Woke have in common:
They are all depressed, bitter and miserable and they want everyone to be as bitter and miserable as they are.
They blame their depression and misery on others, on the West, on Jews or Capitalism, because that allows them to avoid responsibility for their own misery.
They spend their lives being offended and are in a never ending search for more things that offend them.
Now they have decided that they are offended by those who are happy and healthy and enjoy physical exercise and ;physical fitness.
It was bound to come tho this.
These people don’t want anyone to have fun or a good time or enjoy their lives because they aren’t having fun or enjoying their lives. They want everyone to spend their lives in a permanent state of misery and offense like them.
Exercise, recreation, physical fitness and outdoor activities are fun, enjoyable and healthy. These activities allow the individuals participating in them to feel happier, healthier, have a positive attitude about life, and feel more in control of their life and their future.
Therefore these activities must be banned and the people engaging in them must be vilified and called right wing.
Let these people worry about pronouns and the Patriarchy. I am going for a hike.
Such attitude comes from jealousy. Jealousy is an evil feeling. It’s the root cause of half of the world problems.
Losers want to demonize and destroy the winners in any field or aspect. That’s what “equity” really means.
A normal, healthy person would do his/her best to improve themselves. Not hate and demonize those who are superior.
Now, to confront this clear and present danger to all of the civilization any normal person should use their right to self-defense to the fullest. That is the right to survive and thrive.
The right wing is a term used to demonize the normal healthy people. In reality there is only right or wrong. The left is almost always on the wrong side.
I’ve known Arnold Schwarzenegger since 1972. I’ve studied Joseph Greenstein “The Mighty Atom” and other strongmen for decades. I’ve practiced chi and martial arts since the 1970s. It what keeps me viable and strong now in my 70’s. Fitness is a lifestyle discipline along with diet. It’s more discipline over motivation. It’s discipline that sets the motivation. I walked backwards up the Himalayas and did the Medusa Run down those mountains as well as other mountains I trained on. I know this ads to common sense and critical thinking and for me capitalism. As an entrepreneur blessed to be born in USA and a total capitalist I know it’s all that makes us what we are and the life we have. Body building is a professional sport.
I meet and deal with Fat People all the time in my job (which is transportation for “persons with disabilities,” not healthcare).
I don’t mean “over-weight,” which at 198 lb. is heavier than the ideal of 170 lb. for my sex (Male) and height (5′ 11″); I mean Morbidly Obese–like 300 lb. or more (often MUCH more than that) for a person of my height.
I never “fat-shame” them (nor comment about their weight at all, in any way) as I struggle and grunt to attach the seatbelt across their gigantic girth (or attach the seatbelt extender to make the stretch); and I never ask them about their political views, so I don’t know how they feel about Biden, Trump, illegal immigration, inflation, national security, the 2A, etc.
Usually, what we talk about as I drive them and they, not I, bring up the subject, is their diabetes (and amputated toes or foot), high blood pressure, hip- and knee-joint replacement surgery, heart disease, and thrice-weekly dialysis sessions for kidney failure: EVERY SYMPTOM A TYPICAL, DIRECT, AVOIDABLE RESULT OF THEIR GROSSLY MORBID OBESITY.
I’ve never met an old Fat Person on the job (even 60 y.o., much less 70, 80, or 90+-years-old, which many or most of my other, always slim, passengers are). Why might that be, do you think?
And yet the Left (not these poor, unhealthy fat people), while legalizing “Weed,” vehemently condemn me for smoking cigarettes because “It’ll kill you, and you Smokers are raising the cost of my health insurance!”
Look, the Leftard Totalitarians don’t care about any of us; that’s been obvious for a long time; they care about their overbearing Power over everybody else, and that’s all. They just need a Target to attack, slander, ridicule, and ban or jail. Their Prophet, Alinsky, wrote the script.
And that useful Target changes from year to year, as soon as the previous one becomes a worn-out cliche that doesn’t work for them any more. They’ll use any bludgeon they can get their hands on…although for this “Zoe Williams” nutcase it’s now, incredibly and insanely, the “physically fit Fascists.”
Striving for fitness allows one to understand that you reap what you sow. Become lazy and sloven, and you will highly likely fail. Work hard and become focused, and you will more likely succeed, at least on an individual level. However, having said that, i am not so sure that body building is completely a fitness game. Has anyone ever seen Arnold run, or has anyone seen a big body builder fight a smaller but skilled and fit boxer? Not to mention how steroids dominates that field.
From the UK leftists news Rag the Garbage-Can(Guardian)they have their own NYT’s across the Pond