… I think learning about Nicholas II really contextualized fascism for me. The tsar was a traditionalist authoritarian rather than a fascist, but he really shows, I think, how ordinary people can hold totalitarian beliefs and still be ‘good people’ (note that I would never call the tsar a good person, but bear with me). Oftentimes people say “X is fascism” but quickly backpedal if real-world comparisons are drawn between family or friends. “They’re a good person!” they object, “Just misguided! Not like the other rubes!”
But Nicholas II shows the face of genuinely conservative authoritarianism. The face of the mediocre man, who puts no deeper thought into his beliefs than to parrot what he was raised with and stubbornly resist all challenge to that. He was not exceptionally cruel in terms of personality. I think probably a significant minority of ‘nice’ people, in Nicholas II’s circumstances, would have turned out just as big a piece of shit as he was. …
see here for the full comment by @PugJesus: https://lemmy.world/comment/11418466
It is an interesting bit. It gets right up to, but stops just short of identifying how the tyrranies and atrocities attributed to these people are systems built by humanity.
Those parts aren’t inherently about the individual, but rather the station and system within society that they operate.
Individuals, in aggregate, create and shape systems. It’s not an either/or. Examining a system means not just examining the structure of it, but how individuals interact within that structure - such as, say, Tsarist Unshakable Autocracy™.