An Apple store employee won’t give you your rightful AppleCare refund: diet fascist!

一個蘋果專賣店的員工不願意接受你合理的 AppleCare 退費要求－飲食法西斯主義者！

In today's news cycle, no person is called a fascist more than this man: Donald Trump.

在最近的新聞中，最常被冠上法西斯主義者稱號的人，無疑就是唐納．川普。

If a substantial number of educated people agree that he’s a fascist, why hasn’t this whistleblowing changed his political momentum?

如果絕大部分受教育的人，同意他是一個法西斯主義者，這些揭發為什麼沒有影響他的政治聲望？

Why has he been able to shake it off like it ain’t no thang? Perhaps it's because most people don't really know what fascism is

為什麼他可以若無其事地甩開這些傳聞？或許是因為，大多數的人們並不知道法西斯主義是什麼。

The Oxford English Dictionary defines fascism as: ‘‘An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.’’

牛津英語辭典是這樣定義法西斯主義的：「一個獨裁且國家主義的右派政府和社會組織。」

Hmm..that leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

嗯......看來有很多詮釋空間呢！

So let’s consider the historical etymology of fascism. That starts with the early Roman Republic.

我們回到法西斯主義的語源學起源吧，也就是早期的羅馬共和時期。

The heads of the Republic, the Praetors, Consuls, and Quaestors, were protected by bodyguards called lictors.

共和國的領導者：裁判官、長老院以及財務官，他們都由 lictors 這樣的警衛所保護著。

When they walked through the streets, the lictors waved a sort of "whacking stick"called a fasces, it's made up of a bundle of birch rods tied together with red cord.

當這些官員走在路上時，這些 lictors 會揮舞著一種稱為 fasces 的巨大的棍子，它是由一串樺樹枝條，並由紅色的弦綁起而成。

As a metaphorical object, the fasces represented the different social classes tied together, working towards a common goal.

fasces 在象徵意義上代表的是不同社會階級團結一心，朝著一個共同的目標奮鬥。

As individual birch rods they’re weak, but as a group they're stronger than their individual parts, like One Direction.

做為單一的枝條，每個人都很脆弱；但大家結合起來，就比個人更強大。就像 One Direction 樂團。

Still perplexed? Don’t feel bad. Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco, who studied language and lived under Mussolini’s reign, agrees that the concept of fascism is confusing.

還是搞不清楚嗎？不用覺得沮喪，義大利小說家暨哲學家安貝托．艾可，他專攻語言並曾生活在墨索里尼時期，他認為法西斯主義的概念本身就是模糊不清的。

Fascism is a buzzy term. Given that there is not one unifying principle or ideology, it's hard to pin down.

「法西斯主義」是最近很流行的用語。因為它背後並沒有一個統一的原則或意識形態，我們很難將它明確界定。

For Eco, there are certain sufficient qualities that fascism contains.

艾可認為法西斯主義含有幾個必要條件。

Conveniently he lists fourteen of these tropes.

方便起見，他列了十四點。

Such as: Fascists don't take kindly to criticism. They appeal to nationalism through xenophobia.

例如：法西斯主義者很難接受批評。他們藉著仇外情節來訴求國家主義。

They're built on a frustrated middle class. Fascism gains steam through selective populism - minority rights are given up for the larger group.

法西斯主義者是建立在沮喪的中產階級之上。法西斯主義藉由選擇性的民粹主義獲得支持，少數人的權益為多數人所犧牲。

Newspeak, or simplified, digestible ways of communication rules fascist discourse.

新語，或簡易且易理解的語言充斥在法西斯主義者的言談中。

The point is not that Donald Trump is a fascist, dear viewer.

親愛的觀眾，重點不是唐諾．川普是個法西斯主義者。

The point is: does this checklist even help?

而是：這份清單真的有幫助嗎？

Has our liberal use of language robbed serious words of their power?

我們隨意地使用語言，是否剝奪了一些嚴肅詞彙的原有力道？

In his essay: ‘‘What is fascism?’’ English writer George Orwell argued that fascism as a word, is pretty much meaningless.

在他的文章〈何謂法西斯主義〉中，英國作家喬治．歐威爾認為，法西斯主義這個詞本身其實是沒有實質意義的。

Even if people could decide on a working definition, it’s overused and watered-down: it's used as a favorite attack from the left to mean anything from a shrewd venture capitalist to a person overly concerned with grammar.

即使人們定了一個可行的定義，法西斯主義這個詞仍然被過度使用而淡化了：它成為左派人士愛用的攻擊手段，可以用來指稱任何事物，從一個狡猾且充滿冒險精神的資本家，到一個過度挑剔文法的人。

They're just sort of insults that people throw around willy-nilly.

這個詞就只是人們隨意使用的侮辱用詞而已。

The larger issue is that when we divorce history from the discussion when people think it’s okay to call a police officer, a telemarketer, or the PTA president a fascist, we remove the historical significance from actual political movements.

更大的問題是，當我們抽離法西斯主義一詞的歷史意義，當人們認為將「法西斯主義者」套用在警察、電話行銷專員或師長會主席無傷大雅的時候，我們便抽離了這個詞彙背後的，確切政治運動的歷史意義。

It belittles the actual suffering that occurred from the pairing of: Hungary and Gömbös Gyula,

這樣的舉止蔑視了以下這些組合所造成的傷害 (以下皆為法西斯主義政權，多恐怖統治或極權政治)：匈牙利和 Gömbös Gyula、

Romania and Ion Antonescu, Austria and Engelbert Dollfuss, Italy and Benito Mussolini, Spain and Francisco Franco, Croatia and Ante Pavelić, Argentina and Juan Perón, Chile and Jorge González von Marées, Portugal and António de Oliveira Salazar, Norway and Vidkun Quisling, and Germany and Adolf Hitler.

羅馬尼亞與揚．安東內斯庫、奧地利和恩格爾伯特．陶爾斐斯、義大利與墨索里尼、西班牙和佛朗哥、克羅埃西亞與安特．帕維里奇、阿根廷與胡安．裴隆、智利和 Jorge González von Marées、葡萄牙與安東尼奧．德．奧利維拉．薩拉查、挪威和維德孔．吉斯林，還有德國與希特勒。

News stories that say things like: "Neo-Nazis worship Taylor Swift as an Aryan Goddess who’s turning America on to fascism, here’s why" may seem cute.

「新納粹主義者崇拜泰勒斯為『亞利安女神』，她已將美國變成法西斯國家，請見以下報導」這樣的新聞標題看起來可能很俏皮

Perhaps it's humorous to call Obama a fascist, or heroic to put a sticker on your guitar, proclaiming that ‘‘this machine kills fascists,’’ but it is distanced from the reality of fascism.

或許稱歐巴馬為法西斯主義者這樣很幽默，或是在自己的吉他上貼著宣稱「這台機器會殺死法西斯主義者」的貼紙很英勇，但這些行為都和法西斯主義的原貌相去甚遠。

"Fascism"as a term has lost its linguistic oomph.

「法西斯主義」這個詞已經喪失了它原本的文字力量。

The same way it isn’t shocking to hear a person called a racist or a sexist on the daily.

如同當我們日復一日地聽見一個人被稱作「種族主義者」或「性別歧視者」那樣，我們不再有感了。

When phrases that have significant historical and cultural power become just another catchphrase due to overuse, they lose their power.

當這些擁有深遠歷史和文化強度的詞彙因為濫用而變成另一種流行語，他們就失去了本來的力道。

When we don’t respect the words that we use, the power they hold, and the history they contain, people stop caring.

當我們不再重視我們所使用的文字語言，以及他們所擁有的力量和歷史意義，人們不再在乎。

These words are of no use to anyone as swear words.

這些詞語對任何人來說都變得只像髒話一樣沒用。

Even if Trump was an actual card-carrying fascist, could we call him out on it?

即使川普真的是一個貨真價實的法西斯主義者，我們能夠單憑這樣就批評他嗎？

Or have we come to the place as a society where we are completely deprived of the tools to effectively criticize?

還是，我們的社會已經發展到人類早已失去所有可以有效批判他人的武器？

So dear viewer, have we robbed ourselves of the ability to stop the next fascist dictator?

所以我親愛的觀眾，我們是否剝奪了自己阻止下一個法西斯獨裁者的能力呢？