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Twentieth-century European fascism boasted of a strong State run by a right-wing Fuher or demagogue, i.e., dictator. Both in Italy and Nazi Germany, the nuclear family was central to the enthusiasm for patriotic nationalism and militarism. The fascist parties ran on anti-democratic and anti-capitalist platforms; this was their con. The parties were pro-corporatism or in other words demanded a “corporative state.” A racialized social Darwinism was present, which led to the embrace of expansionary militarism and imperialism.
Fascism has been a global phenomenon for the last 4,000 to 6,000 years. It is in the massed. It materialized during an economic crisis (Great Depression). There is a history of terror and violence inflicted on the Other, e.g., Jews, Communists, socialists, homosexuals, Indians, Negroes, immigrants, which maintains the status quo. With twentieth-century fascism there was a total unification with the State. The unity was based on an enforced symbiosis, whereby the “mobilized passions” were utilized to destroy unions and any forms of opposition to the State. Spectacle, commemorations, and state-run youth organizations dominated space and time, so private self was eliminated. One of a body of the State. The self was merged with the public self, e.g., being Catholic and being Italian, based on this collectivization of all spheres of life.
Twenty-first century fascism in the U.S. requires Reich’s application of “functional thinking.” Twentieth and twenty-first century fascism are simultaneously identical and antithetical (in opposition). For example, body and mind are not two not one: a functional unity whereby psyche and soma are two sides of the same coin. The function of fascism is to physically and ideologically enclose citizens in the pursuit of maintaining the status quo by any means necessary, e.g., war, propaganda, etc.
This naïve application allows us to consider how twentieth-century fascism is a continuously functional process of maintaining the status quo. Therefore, twenty-first century American fascism relies on the projection of a weak state and ineffectual leader, e.g., Bush II, Biden. The centrality of the nuclear family (sex-negating, compulsive monogamy) remains with room for cultural differences: same-sex, bi-racial, etc.
For fifty years, the slogan “government is the problem” prevails. The “corporative state” of twentieth-century fascism is actualized in the complete corporate takeover of the State in the U.S. Instead of antiparliamentarianism, the emphasis of both parties is to “save democracy” and “save the Republic.” This saving is about maintaining class divisions for the global power elite to reap benefits from. In short, to return to a restorative period (status quo) or Make America Great Again. Social Darwinism is still the norm, but instead of a racist ideology, a purely self-interested model is all-pervasive: neoliberal ideology, i.e., run everything like a business, including oneself.
Militarism and imperialism remain in U.S. but based on invisible enemies abroad. The U.S. empire has shifted into a predominantly Connection role (armaments), so other nations can fight. The racism of slavery and Jim Crow remains in areas of the country and certainly on the Indigenous “reservations” (enclosures). However, fascism is more personalized: each individual participates in the hateful Othering online, e.g., LGBTQ+, immigrants, Republicans, Democrats, in unity with the Nation.
Twentieth-century fascism required the mobilization of emotion and passion, which is in contrast with twenty-first century fascism. Jean Baudrillard recognized that the new system is one of universalized deterrence. Deterrence is a strange form of activity: “it is what causes something not to take place.” Politics and the media have erected a social (digital) system to pacify the citizenry. The compulsion to communicate and cancel manifests as a digital panopticon whereby the State, the intelligentsia, and Big Tech are in a symbiotic relationship to enclose everyone. Privacy is eliminated not via enforced merging of the State, but by an internal compulsion to be transparent about oneself. The latter is a self-merging process with corporations. The result is the same as twentieth-century fascism: the private and public self merge together. Therefore, in the U.S. there is a voluntary Gestapoization of everyone who shares themselves and manages or cancels everyone else based on “misinformation” or “hate speech.” Parents monitor and out their children compared to the youth of the twentieth-century who outed their parents. There is an overall absence of collective energy in the U.S. The emphasis is on egocentric individualism: “I must get what I want.” Finally, the enemy is still Communism, because it threatens monopolization of the economic system.
Recorded 4/05/2024
See Andrew’s “Zen Therapy” presentation, recorded on April 25, 2024, referenced in the podcast:
https://vimeo.com/showcase/10904193/video/939238444
References
Baudrillard, J. (1994), translation by Chris Turner. The illusion of the end. California: Stanford University Press.
Baudrillard, J., & Glaser, S. F. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Berne, E. (1964). Games people play: The psychology of human relationships. New York, NY: Grove Press, Inc.
Han, B.C. (2015). The burnout society. Stanford Briefs: Stanford, CA.
Han, B.C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and new technologies of power. Verso: New York.
Loy, D. (1996). Lack and transcendence: The problem of death and life in psychotherapy, existentialism, and Buddhism. Humanity Books: New York.
Niccol, A. & Weir, P. (1999). The Truman show. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures.
Pine, R. (2022). Zen roots: The first thousand years. Counterpoint: California.
Varoufakis, Y. (2023). Technofeudalism: What killed capitalism. London: The Bodley Head.
Visit MankatoTherapist.com for more information and to contact Andrew Archer.