Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and many more…
These people had beliefs and worldviews that were so horribly, by today’s standards, that calling them fascist would be huge understatement. And they followed through by committing a lot of evil.
Aren’t we basically glorifying the Hitlers of centuries past?
I know, historians always say that one should not judge historical figures by contemporary moral standards. But there’s a difference between objectively studying history and actually glorifying these figures.
I think part of it also stems from our “colonization” of other species on Earth.
We exploit the living shit out of every other living thing while telling ourselves those living things are somehow different from us, don’t experience the same fears, the same pains, and so on. Those of us with an inkling of self-reflection can see how they are like us just by looking at how they react to similar stimulus. We aren’t different but we’ve spent a millennia telling ourselves that we are simply because we have language and can create tools. Both things other animals clearly have and do, but since we don’t understand those animals, instead we treat them as inferior.
I think part of the panic of colonization of other species comes from the deeply rooted realization that we have been brutal, violent executioners of millions of species who may have had similar reasoning capabilities as we do but simply don’t have thumbs so they can do things like write down their language or codify it in any way. Like how humans lived for millions of years without written language…
Anyway, yeah, visceral guilt for being real fucking bastards and killing off so many species that we literally kicked off a mass fucking extinction.