Several minutes ago I asked my stepfather (a propertarian), ‘Hey, I got a funny question: did you know that Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935?’ He shook his head. I asked my mother the same thing, and she didn’t know either.

I know that it’s an odd thing to bring up, but to me it seems like a pretty basic subject of which more educated adults should at least be aware, and yet for the life of me I don’t remember seeing anybody casually mentioning it, except for one communist in a Discord server that I frequented (and even then they had little to say about it). I have a feeling that if somebody polled thousands of ordinary Westerners on the subject, the number of respondents with awareness would be heartbreakingly low.

This ultimately goes back to why I study and share research on Fascism, because it feels so backward to me that most ordinary adults—I am guessing—are probably at least vaguely aware of the concept but unaware of many major events in its history. If we want to articulately explain why fascism is not in our best interests, we damn well should be able to mention events like the reinvasion of Ethiopia.