Political Thinking POL161

1. Political ThinkingPOL161 Erik Rankin D&B 295-334

3. Fascism • Fascism begins after WWI due to a dislike of liberalism and socialism • Fascists felt that both ideologies did nothing but divide society • Liberals are too individualistic • Socialists complain too much about class conflict • Fascism takes individuals and classes and creates a society or state that unites behind a supreme leader

4. Fascism • Fascism is the name given to a generic group of ideologies, each with several characteristics • Fascism tend to have points that are more negative than positive • Fascism is generally characterized by what it is against or opposed to • Fascism is at its root a reactionary ideology (if an ideology at all) • Again, Fascists tend to react against the 18th century Enlightenment and its 2 main ideologies: liberalism and socialism

5. Fascism • Different as they are in other respects socialism and liberalism are alike in sharing the main premise of the Enlightenment • Humanism- the idea that human beings are the source and measure of value • Rationalism- idea that human beings are rational creatures and that human reason- through scientific inquiry– will solve all mysteries and reveal solutions to problems of the human race • Secularism- the idea that religion may be a source of comfort but not of absolute and unquestionable truths for guiding public life. Scripture must give way to science if they conflict

6. Fascism • Progressivism- the idea that human history is the story of progress and involvement perhaps even inevitable improvement, in the human condition • Universalism- the idea that there is a single, unified, universal human nature that binds the whole human race together, despite differences of race, color, or religious creed. Moreover, human beings are equal– that is alike in that they share the same essential nature, including the use of language and the capacity for reason

7. Fascism • The opposition to these ideals became known as the Counter- Enlightenment • Their leaders were quite varied and included the linguist Herder, the royalists de Maistre and Bonald, the libertine and pornographer the Marquis de Sade, and the racial theorist Gobineau • They were clearly a very diverse group • They supplied the themes and ideals or the intellectual ammunition that 20th century fascists carried and used with deadly effect

8. Fascism • Backdrop for 20th century fascism • Error of humanism lay in its failure recognize that differences of sex, language culture, creed, and nationality run very deep. They define who we are! • Error of rationalism is a reliance on the naïve view that humans are rational creatures • Yet superstition like astrology, and magic are believed by many people • Secularism is also naïve, Religious beliefs cannot be proved correct, but they cannot be proved wrong. True or false they are socially necessary and useful

9. Fascism • The Enlightenments faith in progress is misplaced or mistaken. • Given innate human limitations, substantial progress is impossible and illusory • Imperfect human beings will live in, and perpetuate, imperfect human practices and institutions • Universalism is equally laughable given the notion that there is no shared human nature that overrides all differences • Our natural predilection is to associate with people like us, and to shun those who are different • Conflict between differences is inevitable and ineliminable

10. Fascism • Fascism is often times called an organism because it works to perform a single function • The two most influential leaders of this movement were Benito Mussolini (Italian Fascism) and Adolph Hitler (German Fascism) • The name fascism actually is a derivative of fasci which in Italian means to bind or fasten • Fascism was said to be the driving force that would lead Italy back to a Roman Empire like status

11. Fascism • Everyone is connected to the state • Which according to Mussolini was the legal embodiment of power, unity, and majesty of the nation • Mussolini and his followers often repeated “Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” • Fascism in its true form is a complete totalitarian state (much like Oceania in 1984)

12. Fascism • Mussolini and his followers had no use for democratic ideals • All they did was focus on equality which is a weak squabble that takes away the glory of the state • Democracy is weak because it is all talk and no action • It makes the strong weaker because they are constantly sharing power with the disadvantaged

13. Fascism • Fascism does appeal to the masses but not in the liberal or socialist manner • It appeals to the masses by binding people together not by thinking or speaking but by blindly following the supreme leader • “Believe, obey, fight” • Fascism is inherently violent

14. Fascism • Hitler and the Nazis adopted a very similar stance in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s • The Nazis attempted to combine all into one large party to create an all powerful empire (Reich) • Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer • “One people, one empire, one supreme leader” • The Nazis were a little different from the Italian fascists in that they found race to be the fundamental fact of life

15. Fascism • No such thing as one human nature, all races are different • There is one race that is by far superior according to the Nazis • The Aryan race is stronger, smarter, and more creative than any other race • The goal then is for this Aryan race to eliminate all other races in an attempt to purify the Empire

16. Fascism • Other than throwing in the supreme race theory Nazism and fascism are almost identical • They developed out of the Counter-Enlightenment or thinkers that rejected Enlightenment thought • They denied that reason alone can improve life or create human progress • They also felt that common people had no place in ruling other people • This is one of the main undemocratic features of fascism

17. Fascism • One of the biggest points of fascism is the intensely nationalistic sense they share • Nationalism is the belief that, there are different nations, or people and that they should all be united • German Nazism and Italian fascism used this idea of national unity to their advantage • Mussolini and Hitler both died in 1945 (Mussolini was beaten and dragged through the streets while Hitler's death still remains a mystery) • Many think Hitler committed suicide in a bunker and other still see him walking the streets today with Elvis (botox is wonderful)

18. Fascism • Fascism did not just occur in these two countries, there were other examples • Had WWII turned out differently things might be much different today • There are still neo-Nazi elements in our society today, many of whom have been linked to the “militia movement” • They tend to attract people who are opposed to other races and those who are against a color blind constitution • They still embrace the ideals that the white race is superior to all • They are not numerically large in our country but they still provide examples of Hitler and Mussolini’s legacy

19. Civilization and Race- Gobineau • While serving in the diplomatic service (1849–77), he wrote the Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853–55), which asserted the superiority of the white race over others and labeled the “Aryans,” or Germanic peoples, as the summit of civilization. • He claimed that white societies flourished as long as they remained free of “black and yellow strains” and that dilution would lead to corruption. • His theory of racial superiority in Essay influenced the racist policies of such figures as Mussolini and Adolph Hitler.

20. Civilization and Race- Gobineau • The foundation of Gobineau‘s system are his classification and characterization of the races and his theory of their fixed and unchangeable differences. • He wavered between the acceptance of the theory of the unitary as against the theory of the multiple origin of man, but assumed that all races are as different from their common ancestor, if they had one, as they are from each other

21. Civilization and Race- Gobineau • With 7,000 years between creation and the birth of Christ, he had trouble accounting for the differentiation of man into many diverse types. • Without an acceptable theory of evolution, he assumed that for some time after the appearance of man, apparently by special creation, and while the earth was still young the action of climatic forces was much more violent • During this period of violence man differentiated into types which, in the absence of crossing, remained permanently fixed • Gobineau felt the black races, the lowest in his estimation, were from Africa, the yellow from America, they traveled across Asia to Europe, and the white from the Hindu Kush region of Asia. • Inequalities of the races are inherent; they are independent of social institutions; the habitat does not create them

22. Civilization and Race- Gobineau • As regards the dominant traits of the three races, the black represents passion, the yellow, mediocrity in everything, and the white, god-like reason. • The black variety is animal-like, has highly developed senses but poor reasoning powers, is gluttonous, and careless of life, and yet is the source of human lyricism and artistic temperament. • It typifies the feminine among the races of man. • The yellow man is apathetic, stubborn, having feeble desires and lacking in physical energy, uninventive, obstinate • He loves utility, respects order, knows the value of a limited amount of freedom and is gifted with a sense of practicality • He typifies the masculine. “The yellow races are thus clearly superior to the black.

23. Civilization and Race- Gobineau • Every founder of a civilization would wish the backbone of his society, his middle class, to consist of such men“ • The whites excel in most physical, mental and moral qualities. • In fact the qualities of the races are artistically, even if artificially, proportioned by Gobineau. • If the temperament of the black race is hot and that of the yellow cold, that of the white is temperate; • If the black represents the sense without reason, and the yellow the reason without passion, the white is endowed with a reason rendered flexible and adaptable by energy, generosity, and a full realization of the significance of opportunity; • If the blacks prefer extreme individualism, even anarchy, with its counterpoise in despotism, and the yellow prefer democracy, humanitarianism and the communism of the bee-hive, the political genius of the whites expresses itself in liberalism, feudalism, parliamentarism, and benevolent imperialism. (Gobineau)

24. Civilization and Race- Gobineau • Moreover, the whites excel in physical beauty. • “The tall and nobly proportioned figure of Charlemagne, the intellectual regularity of the features of Napoleon, and the imposing majesty that exhales from the royal countenance of Louis XIV“ • “The peoples who are not of white blood approach beauty, but do not attain it.“ • Also in regards to physical strength: “We shall have to give the palm to those who belong to the white race” • But not all whites are equal in strength for, “In strength of fist the English are superior to all other European races; while the French and Spanish have a greater power of resisting fatigue and privation, as well as the inclemency of extreme climates • An assertion which, like much else in the literature of race differences, is an excellent example of the erection of personal impression or local tradition into a conclusion of science. • Gobineau clearly has favorites that were of his own upbringing

25. Civilization and Race- Gobineau • The whites are also superior intellectually, as shown by their “reflective energy“ or “energetic intelligence“; “a perseverance that takes account of obstacles and ultimately finds a way to overcome them“; “an extraordinary instinct for order.“ • “At the same time, they have a remarkable, and even extreme, love of liberty, and are openly hostile to the formalism under which the Chinese are glad to vegetate, as well as to the strict despotism which is the only way of governing the negro.“ • “The white races are, further, distinguished by an extraordinary attachment to life. • They know better how to use it, and so, as it would seem, set a greater price on it. • “When they are cruel, they are conscious of their cruelty; it is very doubtful whether such a consciousness exists in the negro“EX: lynching in America. • “The principal motive is honor,“ a word which “is unknown to both the yellow and the black man.“

26. Mein Kampf – Adolph Hitler • The book was originally entitled Four Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice. • Hitler's publisher reduced it to My Struggle (Mein Kampf). • The book is a mixture of autobiography, political ideas and an explanation of the techniques of propaganda.

27. Mein Kampf – Adolph Hitler • In Mein Kampf Hitler outlined his political philosophy. • He argued that the German (he wrongly described them as the Aryan race) was superior to all others. "Every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill, which we see before our eyes today, is almost exclusively the product of Aryan creative power." • Hitler warned that the Aryan's superiority was being threatened by intermarriage. • If this happened world civilization would decline: "On this planet of ours human culture and civilization are indissolubly bound up with the presence of the Aryan. • If he should be exterminated or subjugated, then the dark shroud of a new barbarian era would enfold the earth."

28. Mein Kampf – Adolph Hitler • Although other races would resist this process, the Aryan race had a duty to control the world. • This would be difficult and force would have to be used, but it could be done. • To support this view he gave the example of how the British Empire had controlled a quarter of the world by being well-organized and having fine tuned military. • Hitler believed that Aryan superiority was being threatened particularly by the Jewish race who, he argued, were lazy and had contributed little to world civilization. • Hitler has a love of music which ironically all of his favorite composers were Jewish • He claimed that the "Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end satanically glaring at and spying on the unconscious girl whom he plans to seduce, adulterating her blood with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate."

29. Mein Kampf – Adolph Hitler • According to Hitler, Jews were responsible for everything he disliked, including modern art, pornography and prostitution. • Hitler felt the Jews had been responsible for losing WWI • Hitler also claimed that Jews, who were only about 1% of the population, were slowly taking over the country. • They were doing this by controlling the largest political party in Germany, the German Social Democratic Party, many of the leading companies and several of the country's newspapers. • The fact that Jews had achieved prominent positions in a democratic society was, according to Hitler, an argument against democracy: "a hundred blockheads do not equal one man in wisdom."

30. Mein Kampf – Adolph Hitler • Hitler believed that the Jews were involved with Communists in a joint conspiracy to take over the world. • Like Henry Ford, Hitler claimed that 75% of all Communists were Jews. • Hitler argued that the combination of Jews and Marxists had already been successful in Russia and now threatened the rest of Europe. • He argued that the communist revolution was an act of revenge that attempted to disguise the inferiority of the Jews.

31. Mein Kampf – Adolph Hitler • In Mein Kampf Hitler declared that: "The external security of a people in largely determined by the size of its territory.“ • If he won power Hitler promised to occupy Russian land that would provide protection and living space for the German people. • This action would help to destroy the Jewish/Marxist attempt to control the world: "The Russian Empire in the East is ripe for collapse; and the end of the Jewish domination of Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state." • To achieve this expansion in the East and to win back land lost during the WWI, Hitler claimed that it might be necessary to form an alliance with Britain and Italy. • An alliance with Britain was vitally important because it would prevent Germany fighting a war in the East and West at the same time