This was an attempt to encourage Italians to eat more rice and decrease reliance on food imports by no-fash and wheat was imported while rice was more easily grown in Italy, and no they did not think of making rice noodles to replace pasta

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[–] grendahlgrendahlgen@hexbear.net 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Absolutely fascinating, thank you.

I remember learning about Italian futurists in college, but that was in the context of early experimental music (they were doin some wild shit with simple machines). I wish I knew then what I know now about their relationship to fascism; it would've made for an interesting discussion in that class.

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

They did some crazy shit when it comes to art, architecture, and even gastronomy. I can respect the iconoclastic and relentlessly hopeful view of the future as something to be shaped according to humanity's desires by breaking with every possible tradition, social more, and political structure; even if I don't share that view. But of course, fascism had very similar ideas, and came from more or less the same intellectual primordial soup, so it's not too strange to understand why they rose to prominence together.

And hell, it's not the only time vanguardist, crazy artists happened to benefit from fascist control and to be aligned with the fash. Look at Dalí and Franco, for instance.

[–] grendahlgrendahlgen@hexbear.net 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

"Move fast and break things" leads to "Progress is our birthright", which leads to "What undesirable people in our society are holding us back from our birthright?" (i.e. quintessential fascist thought).

The repeated failures (still ongoing) of Futurism highlight the need for a different method of conceptualizing 'progress'.

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I sort of agree, but at the same time the USSR and many communist projects in the early 20th century had a very similar perspective, to break the past so thoroughly that the future could be built in the name of progress. Even Gramsci, the most leftist Italian* to ever AyyyyyOC-big had a very similar view. So, iconoclasm and disregard for the sacred cows of society doesn't always lead to "purge all undesirables".

It's all Hegel's fault for making such a good argument for the concept of historical progress as something that could and had to be driven forward.

* (he was actually Sardinian, and back then that mattered a lot)

[–] grendahlgrendahlgen@hexbear.net 7 points 6 days ago

Agreed. I think that's what I meant by the "methodology" of futurism. The idea of breaking the past isn't the issue. It's the means and systems used to do so that matters, and therefore the ideology of the futurists in question.

DO NOT give melon-musk the big past-breaking hammer.