Are Combine Sympathisers technically fascists?

[ozymandias]

This argument could probably be abolished with the fact that the Combine is fictional, and fascism is very much real. You should think about it for a second.

 

[RedHotGinger]

CCA players are, but it seems this is mostly coincidental.

 

[ozymandias]

CCA players are, but it seems this is mostly coincidental.

mumblemumbleprocessedgrainmumblemumblemumblemumble

 

[RedHotGinger]

Eeerm
I'm a CCA player


I Combine

 

[Parsil]

A question like this was raised a year or so ago, and I answered yes. Let's tick off the boxes.

The combine expects its citizens to believe in:
☑ Devotion to the state and leader (Wallace Breen and/or local CAs)
☑ Myth of national rebirth (immortality and ascension)
☑ Corporatist economy (proles and shop owners united under the CWU, owned by the state)
☑ Bigotry (how many times have we had a lesbian trial? I've lost count)
☑ Monopoly on speech (MOE, ISD, whatever you call it)
☑ Anti-Intellectualism (disdain for "old world" things)
☑ Undemocratic one-party rule (mitigated to a degree with binders)

The only common aspects which don't neatly fit here are rabid nationalism, and a love for traditionalism and religion, all of which are shunned as being old world idiocies.

The Combine state can 100% be defined as fascist. I'd hesitate to call all its supporters fascists. A vast majority of them are (mine included) but with the amount of "goody two-shoes worker union wholesome help the people" characters out there, there is a big portion of the loyalist base who are either in it only for themselves, or out of a foolish conformist ideal that the genocidal regime can be reformed from the inside. (Lassalle is that you?)

 

[Processed_Grain]

mumblemumbleprocessedgrainmumblemumblemumblemumble

I'm a liberal IRL and think Nick Land's retarded. Also Metadynamism =/= fascism.

 

[Processed_Grain]

The combine expects its citizens to believe in:
☑ Devotion to the state and leader (Wallace Breen and/or local CAs)
☑ Myth of national rebirth (immortality and ascension)
☑ Corporatist economy (proles and shop owners united under the CWU, owned by the state)
☑ Bigotry (how many times have we had a lesbian trial? I've lost count)
☑ Monopoly on speech (MOE, ISD, whatever you call it)
☑ Anti-Intellectualism (disdain for "old world" things)
☑ Undemocratic one-party rule (mitigated to a degree with binders)

"I blame Breen, personally" - I.e., 'The Combine' itself as the actual extradimensional alien force is completely unknown to us and unknowable to us on the grounds that it's so interconnected and organizationally alien that a human could never comprehend it in full.

 

[Parsil]

"I blame Breen, personally" - I.e., 'The Combine' itself as the actual extradimensional alien force is completely unknown to us and unknowable to us on the grounds that it's so interconnected and organizationally alien that a human could never comprehend it in full.

This is true. We've never seen the "true" Combine regime, their homeworld. But Our Benefactors have imposed upon us human-made rules for (mostly) human-made oppression when they came down to earth. It was the easiest thing they could do

 

[Processed_Grain]

This is true. We've never seen the "true" Combine regime, their homeworld. But Our Benefactors have imposed upon us human-made rules for (mostly) human-made oppression when they came down to earth. It was the easiest thing they could do

Real ones know headcannon that The Combine is a conglomerate of 'megacorporations' and that Advisors are the equivalent of foreign tech personnel absorbed into the fold to produce technology and manage holdings.

 

[nora]

expecting willard players to maturely talk about fascism is brave

i don't think so. i don't think the combine regime on earth is any flavor of ideology, honestly. individual cities, sure, but i think overall it's more of a much harder stabilitocracy than something concrete. so long the quotas are met, people are subjugated, it's fine -- there's no revival of the nation or w/e that fascistic governments do.

economically speaking it's a social democrat's dream

 

[Processed_Grain]

i don't think so. i don't think the combine regime on earth is any flavor of ideology, honestly. individual cities, sure, but i think overall it's more of a much harder stabilitocracy than something concrete. so long the quotas are met, people are subjugated, it's fine -- there's no revival of the nation or w/e that fascistic governments do.

Most fascist states historically didn't revere sheer loyalty and reactionary conformity to the State as much as the HL2/Willard occupation. "Stabilitocracy" is a great word to describe it, as the entire basis of the system is built on "how much of a quisling you can be".

The end result is a sort of limbo of eternal suffering on the altar of Doctor Breen.

 

[Processed_Grain]

"Stabilitocracy"

 

[Eviction Notice]

☑ Bigotry (how many times have we had a lesbian trial? I've lost count)

This one doesn't track, the Combine aren't in the slightest bit interested in the concept of sexuality.

 

[dubik15]

This one doesn't track, the Combine aren't in the slightest bit interested in the concept of sexuality.

Yes but you can replace it with hate for vorts

 

[Parsil]

This one doesn't track, the Combine aren't in the slightest bit interested in the concept of sexuality.

They are interested, but in the opposite direction. My mention of the anti lesbian trials were a meme, but it's obvious that sexuality and displays of public and (sometimes) private affection are severely frowned upon. Big red arrow that point to suppression field. Also as dubik said, not-so-subtle vort racism.

 

[Ansty]

You could compare the Combine ideology to how the Soviet block worked post Stalinism. Acquiescence in a common discourse that coopted the population—a case of propaganda signaling what was “correct” behavior
rather than achieving ideological indoctrination.

 

[Lab]

They are interested, but in the opposite direction. My mention of the anti lesbian trials were a meme, but it's obvious that sexuality and displays of public and (sometimes) private affection are severely frowned upon. Big red arrow that point to suppression field. Also as dubik said, not-so-subtle vort racism.

The reaction against lesbians is much more an OOC thing that has seeped IC due to its jarring numerical pervasiveness compared to heterosexuality. It has little to do with the actual views of the Combine.

 

[Malic]

the entire basis of the system is built on "how much of a quisling you can be".

Staunch Quislitocracy


I most agree with Parsil's take but if you really want to split some hairs our characters are all agents within a Colonial Government with Fascistic characteristics. There's plenty of flavors of historic totalitarianism all rolled into the shape that the Combine ultimately takes in Half Life 2.

 

[Processed_Grain]

"It's just shit Marc Laidlaw thought would make the character recognize them as the main antagonist + whatever 1984 elements Willard threw in"

 

[Lab]

Fascism can be both intricate and extremely vague. It also exists (and existed) in specific historical and geopolitical contexts and varied wildly from place to place (e.g. Mussolini believed that Libyans could 'become' Italian; is this thought process to be considered "Orthodox Fascism"?).

Trying to shoehorn the term 'fascist' to the Combine, or the human administrators that govern cities, is meaningless. Being both stripped of its 'ethnocentric' vision, and its extreme tendencies for mythologising, and due to the foregoing fact that fascism is so loosely defined depending on where you look, it makes the comparison simply useless.

Parsil pointed out specific policies and trends that we can see in fascist states, but again, I find this useless in the long-run since these are broadly seen in most authoritarian states. Fascists did not invent censorship, nor cults of personality, nor bigotry. Identifying similarities in the consequences of fascism and the Combine does not necessarily impute the latter as such.

Most of the arguments in support are weak, and to go onto a deeper level, it falls through your fingers like sand, because fascism is difficult to define, and so is the Combine's ideology.

--
Being under an occupation (especially an alien one) also completely upheaves the entire concept of any political ideology. For instance, what does it mean to be a communist in the world of HL2? Ought the core theoretical tenets of historical materialism be revised? To what extent? Is Marxism even Marxism anymore after such a huge revision? We can begin to see the politico-existential issues that arise due to the Combine's invasion, and how terms retain their position but the substance beneath may fundamentally alter irreversibly. The same ideological existentialism applies to any ideology, including fascism, which is already poorly-defined in real life on its own.