Saturday, May 12, 2012

Fascist Thought: Re-enchantment or Bigotry?

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In its effort to curb the Machiavellian problem, Liberal thought made the modern man morally weaker, a hypocrite and a slave to desire. Indeed this disenchantment of the human race comes with a shift away from the spiritual and an alignment with the desires of the body, and the worldly. The modern day consumer-driven society is geared towards making life easier, more pleasant- and more base. The liberal system is characterized by its moral values, which aim to drive men by fear fear of conflict, fear of violent death- the liberal man is driven by passions and ruled by fear. Nietzsche argues that this weak liberal man is disenchanted and reintroduces the language of the soul- along with which comes that which is spiritual and noble, which he believes will re-enchant our degenerating race. Fascist thought does, to a large extent re-enchant man, restoring respect, and re-injecting value in the individual. However, its noble nature spills over into elitism with a hint of racism and more than just a pinch of violence. While fascist thought does inspire man to a level seemingly higher level than that of today, the values that it holds at its core, reeks of personal prejudice and condemns it to just a passing phase in the history of man. In this essay I will discuss the key values in fascist thought, how it inspires; and how these very values cause the very mention of fascism to be tinged with cruelty, murder, suffering and disaster.


Nietzsche puts forward that modern day morality is that of ‘herd instinct’ (Nietzsche, p10). The modern man has had his instinct to lead, to explore new ground cut off, by this ‘formal conscience’ (Nietzsche, p10), which commands man and tells him what he should or should not do. Modesty, submission, and conformity are but some of the celebrated traits of the herd morality, and man’s long subjection to this system has weakened him, and like a long-time captive animal, he carries with him a broken spirit. He has become but a follower of orders, afraid to step out into uncharted waters. This fear is like a cloud that hangs over the human race, stunting the spiritual growth of man, preventing progress


“The strange narrowness of human evolution, its hesitations, its delays, its frequent retrogressions and rotations, are due to the fact that the herd instinct of obedience has been inherited best and at the expense of the art of commanding.” (Nietzsche, p10)





The qualities that are glorified in the herd morality lead the herd man down the path of the tame, the peaceable, and those that pity; qualities which make him fear- fear change, fear pain, fear violent suffering. Herd morality is dedicated to the satisfaction of bodily desires, with the degradation of man’s supreme faculty serving all his other lowly ones. The modern man is ‘dissatisfied with himself that is certain’ (Nietzsche, p151).


Nietzsche mocks this fear of suffering, claiming that it is suffering, ‘great suffering … alone which has created every elevation of mankind hitherto’ (Nietzsche, p155). He wants to replace this herd with a warrior culture, that which celebrates noble suffering and violence. Suffering educates the spirit and strengthens the soul- fasting and the deprivation of the body’s physical desires elevates man from his base self, but only in war can one see the best and the worst of man. Life is a struggle, and in war there can be noble self-sacrifice- one either succeeds and is bathed in glory or is remembered in failure. While it can be argued that war can be noble, and that it does bring out the best in men; it gives one a reason to live- the nation. Before the concept of the nation can be discussed, the realities of war must be made clear. War is not just suffering, it is brutality, whole cities are destroyed, and innocent non-combatants, women and children are massacred. If one knew the reality of war one would not, in the words of one Wilfred Owen,


“…tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,/ The old Lie Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori” (Owen, 11)


The nature of war has not changed since the First World War, it did not change when Fascist countries took to the battlefield, and still has not changed today. In actuality of modern times, there is less suffering on the part of the so-called noble combatants, and more damage to innocents; with missiles, bombs and other technologically advanced weapons doing the damage from a safe distance. True, there may be value in ‘making oneself suffer’ (Nietzsche, p15), but one cannot help but wonder how it can be considered noble to suffer and die if one was not even fighting to begin with.


Unity is an important concept in fascist thought. Unity presupposes the concept of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ but Nietzsche takes this a step further, bordering on racism, he says ‘society should not exist for the sake of society but only as a foundation and scaffolding upon which a select species of being is able to raise itself to its higher task’ (Nietzsche, p1). The noble species, is the select species, and the noble man knows ‘himself to be the determiner of values, he does not need to be approved of’ (Nietzsche, p15). This has a tinge of bigotry, and is clearly manifested in the reign of one of the most recognizable fascist leaders- Adolf Hitler. His assertion of the Aryan race as the most pure and the Jews as ‘culture destroyers’ was brutally enforced, with the massacre of millions of Jewish men women and children. While unity can make a people stronger, it comes with definite negative side effects, that when combined with the celebration of suffering and violence produces a deadly cocktail of death and destruction.


Fascist thought should not be denied its worth, it does give man a better reason to live- for the nation, rather than for the petty pursuits of consumer life; it does give the individual more respect than is accorded by the capitalist system, it brings back spirituality and with it a certain ethics; but in manifesting fascist thought, the Germans committed genocide, and were guilty of war crimes. The fascist quest for the noble is highly commendable, it does rescue man from the doldrums of petty consumerism and gives value to life- a re-enchantment definitely; but along with the nobility comes the inevitable dose of bigotry. With vocabulary such as ‘the noble caste,’’ a select species,’ and ‘exploitation…as a reality it is the primordial fact of all history,’ one just needs to add this bigotry to the celebration of violence and suffering to see its disastrous effects not only on a particular race, but on the world. What cannot be denied is that the soul language of the fascists does bring us back to the machiavellian problem, which is precisely the side-effect of fascist nobility- the exploitation of man and his ‘spirituality’ for glory of the nation (read political power). The Fight Club captures fascist behaviour rather well true, in fascism, ‘you are not the contents of your wallet,’ but you love death more than they love life- you are a danger to the world because you think you are right, you think you are the best, and you think you may act as you wish, or as ‘the heart dictates, and in any case beyond good and evil.’ (Nietzsche, p16)


Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil, translated by Hollingdale, R.J. (England Penguin Books Ltd, 10)


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