Why did Fascism happen in this Century? (fwd)
James Class
intellectual foundation of National Socialism nowadays calls forth a
chorus of defenders who "understand" the elusive writer of aphorisms.
But quite frankly, Hitler appropriated his ideas directly; Nietzsche
had been quite prevalent in German culture--as in Russian culture even
into the Stalin years (BG Rosenthal has a good book on this), and
Nietzsche's notion of the noble ethic implies a desensitized force
exercises its will merely because it is its will. The lamb has no
right to question the eagle's hunting instinct, right? Anyway, I think
that if fascism interests you, Nietzsche is a thread worth following.
Nevertheless, i wonder what you have in mind with backward and
forward, esp. using such terms on a newsgroup where "metanarrative" is
public enemy no. 1. If you mean in it in the most linear sense, then
ever sense the end of the Enlightenment (I mean Rousseau), European
intellectuals had turned against reason: to "natural" sympathy
(Rousseau); sublime feeling (Schiller); incalculable will
(Dostoevsky). Anyway, in some respect, this turn hinged on a return to
the past, for Rousseau (and Tolstoy) especially, while the German
Romantics and Dostoevsky aimed more toward the future. The point is
that irrationalists were skewed on history and "progress"--and that we
shouldn't necessarily see Nietzsche, if we look at him in context, as
just a throwback to the barbaric days of the Iliad, when men could
exercise their will, pillage the women, curse the skies, etc.
Furthermore, the German and Italian "fascist" movements were both
very "progressive" in their sense of history. They actually thought
(much like the Russian monarchy of the previous century) that
bourgeois constitutionalism was just a terrible form of government
that would soon implode or be destroyed by communist vultures.
Especially among the popular bases, fascist-people really wanted to
create a new stage in history. Granted, Hitler appealed to a rather
pagan sort of cult of volk , but--in good Romantic fashion--this
provided continuity with the past that would power the future.
Similarly, Mussolini wanted not to restore Rome, but to come up with
the present manifestation of the glory that Rome was.
The main problem with fascists, I think, was that they broke from the
long strain of discursive life, which the Greeks bequeathed ever so
slowly on to our civilization and let themselves be led by
Romanticism, which poses man as the creator of the so-called universe;
and which (this is Isaiah Berlin) reaches its apotheosis in the idea
of fuhrer creating the nation out of his own will.
Anyway, Im sorry that I didn't stick to your topic so much, but I
really think that if you seek the contingency of fascism, you need to
look at Romanticism and the degradation of the old discursive life
that prevailed to (by our standards) a great degree in the new
parliamentary countries of the early 20th century.
Best,
James
_________________________________________________________________
Dkriz
together to exclude the rest from power/decision-making and the remainder of
those with some power let the faction that craved such hegemony get away with
it.
That is why giving power to regular people (and showing them how to use it
effectively in self defense ... the giving them a fishing -- and a course on
fishing -- rather than simply a fish) is so important.
We can't allow a party of fascists portray itself as a party of "compassion"
when it is not.
You want to see how common people could bring down the best political campaigns
that money can buy ... (seriously ... and I know this is self-promotion) ...
take a look at my web-site.
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Wetlands/4731/Bush-Poster.html
Don't take GW Bush's "word for it" that he's "compassionate" when the rest of
his party is filled with "incompassionate" (and I'm being kind here) people.
Don't let him, or anyone else like him get away with it.
Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM
Dk...@aol.com
Treeclimbr
studying German Romanticism and also
the writers Diderot and D'Alembert, two of the
French Enlightenment "Fathers." I will respond
to some of it in a little while but for now
I was hoping that you could explain this paragraph:
>Anyway, Im sorry that I didn't stick to your topic so much, but I
>really think that if you seek the contingency of fascism, you need to
>look at Romanticism and the degradation of the old discursive life
>that prevailed to (by our standards) a great degree in the new
>parliamentary countries of the early 20th century.
>
I'm not sure what you mean by "the contingency of fascism"
I do look at Romanticism as a positive force. I tend to think that
art is a precusor of science: realism in painting developed the
force of realism in science. Of course, it could have come from
realism in philosophy as in logic or epistomology, but it is all
connected. We've broken out of this and have had this century
full of these horror -- not just mass destruction due to our technology
but one-on-one cruelty by the hands of these goverment rulers.
Perhpas the only way to understand it all is like the philosopher
Gurdjieff says, that wars happen for a reason outside of mankind,
for the reasons on a higher planetary level. Perhaps that doesn't even
take a metaphysical faith to believe such a thing, but I have decided
such beliefs are not for me. To season my thought perhaps. While I
don't expect golden ages to happen, I do see this study as one of
cause and effects. So many things seem to evolve for the better, why
not our governments and what we expect from our fellow human being.
If having such philosophers as Nietzsche being a favorte does affect
the way human beings treat each other, then it's part of my life task
to show Nietzscheans where they are wrong.
I see the French themselves who had so many pro-Nietazscheans this century
are already ably looking at these questions as I just got a copy of the
book "Why We Are Not Nietzscheans"
Imagine one day if social science was so exact that we could know
exactly the effect of Niezsche's work on society. There is always a soft
spot in our heart for him, at least today, but perhaps when we can analyze
his texts without all the adulation, we may be really getting somewhere.
___________________
Robert Pearson
Creative Virtue: http://www.eskimo.com/~telical/
ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net/
James Class
>
>
> >Anyway, Im sorry that I didn't stick to your topic so much, but I
> >really think that if you seek the contingency of fascism, you need to
> >look at Romanticism and the degradation of the old discursive life
> >that prevailed to (by our standards) a great degree in the new
> >parliamentary countries of the early 20th century.
> >
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "the contingency of fascism"
Sorry I left this one unexplained. In historical writing recently there
has been a problem of figuring out whether you can speak of fascism as a
general phenomenon, or even if you have to reduce just to a particular
Italian thing. (After all, there are plenty of nasty authoritarians in the
world, but fascism seems to be a particularly post-WWI European thing.) So
the question remains: what caused fascism in this particular circumstance,
or upon what was its post-WWI manifestation contingent? In other words,
it's my way of agreeing with you that it has some kind of cause, although
I am not exactly sure about your proposition that the social sciences can
track somehow Nietzsche's influence into it. I think that we have to look
at formal causes for this kind of thing, since the efficient causes seem
out of our reach. And in this case, I think that the sort of
anti-philosophic movement that grows out of Romanticism reaches its apex
in people like Mussolini. (I can elaborate upon this with particular
authors if you'd like.)
What interests me more is your understand of progress.
> cause and effects. So many things seem to evolve for the better, why
> not our governments and what we expect from our fellow human being.
You seem to imply here a normative framework, through which history is
progressing. Can you lay out in what this consists? Again, this does seem
to the kind of moral-historical metanarrative that has come under major
attack by people like Jean-Francois Lyotard (and Nietzsche for that
matter).
James
Treeclimbr
>> I was hoping that you could explain this paragraph:
>>
>>
>> >Anyway, Im sorry that I didn't stick to your topic so much, but I
>> >really think that if you seek the contingency of fascism, you need to
>> >look at Romanticism and the degradation of the old discursive life
>> >that prevailed to (by our standards) a great degree in the new
>> >parliamentary countries of the early 20th century.
>> >
>>
>> I'm not sure what you mean by "the contingency of fascism"
>
>Sorry I left this one unexplained. In historical writing recently there
>has been a problem of figuring out whether you can speak of fascism as a
>general phenomenon, or even if you have to reduce just to a particular
>Italian thing.
Exactly, I'm not sure I myself know really what fascism really means.
It seems like it is like the word "Surrealism."
(After all, there are plenty of nasty authoritarians in the
>world, but fascism seems to be a particularly post-WWI European thing.) So
>the question remains: what caused fascism in this particular circumstance,
>or upon what was its post-WWI manifestation contingent? In other words,
>it's my way of agreeing with you that it has some kind of cause, although
>I am not exactly sure about your proposition that the social sciences can
>track somehow Nietzsche's influence into it. I think that we have to look
>at formal causes for this kind of thing, since the efficient causes seem
>out of our reach. And in this case, I think that the sort of
>anti-philosophic movement that grows out of Romanticism reaches its apex
>in people like Mussolini. (I can elaborate upon this with particular
>authors if you'd like.)
Well, I think you may be using Romanticism in a different way that I would
use it. I use it in the sense of the Idealistic school that grew out of Kant
and
Fichte and then made it's way into the Schlegels, Novalis, Goethe and others
in that circle. After about 1810, I can't track it at all, and I'm sure it
probably
decayed into something emotional and unrelated to the idealistic roots it
once had.
>
>What interests me more is your understand of progress.
>
I tend to think with Aristotle that the virtues and the emotions are
somehow linked: that virtue is beautiful, and by this witnessing of
beauty, we have pleasure in our lives. I think this is the hardwiring
of our system, like the way Jung talked about how the Archtypes
were hardwired.
I think that much of life in the twentieth century missed this notion
in the hope of finding something new. One can make reference to
Nietzsche but I don't see the reason to enthrone him in this. The
French and Americans were just as progressive and earlier than him.
I think Nietzscheans just show a lopsided study of culture. Nietzsche
to me transposes the very old "superman" idea from the occultist tradition in
an
accepted western literary and philsophical tradition.
True progress isn't simple. It takes one second to light a match
and burn down a building, but it can take months or years
to create that building.
>> cause and effects. So many things seem to evolve for the better, why
>> not our governments and what we expect from our fellow human being.
>
>You seem to imply here a normative framework, through which history is
>progressing. Can you lay out in what this consists? Again, this does seem
>to the kind of moral-historical metanarrative that has come under major
>attack by people like Jean-Francois Lyotard (and Nietzsche for that
>matter).
It's been about a year since I've been
reading this newsgroup. I would posit
in our present time progress in various
areas that should be readily easy
to prove. I will take a little time with
each area so I can show how important it
is. On such area is the treatment
of alcoholism. Before roughly 1940, there
was really little that could be done about
an alcoholic. Through the work of people like
Jung and other, Alcoholics Anonymous formed
which allowed alcoholics the ability to gather
together to help each other. I'm not sure
what would have happened in 1840 or 1740
but one can imagine various negative scenarios.
The second consideration is what happens when
a child is molested today. Rarely in the past anything
negative would happen. The same thing can be
said about physical abuse, not only of children, but
one only has to go back one or two hundred years and
see various types of lawless behavior which didn't get
much attention.
After these things, take a look at the kind of censorship
that was being done just fifty years ago. This alone is a
tremendous amount of "progress."
I'm an existentialist and against a "system" in what I mean
by progress. I don't imply a mystical tone to what I mean
by "progress" which you seem to think I might be. Perhaps
the Enlightenment authors really did believe that everything
was going to progress smoothly. I don't see how they could
so naive, unless they believed it mystically, but weren't
they also somewhat characterized by aetheism?
I think things can progress. I think to think otherwise helps
cause lack of progress. It seems a pattern not only of history
but our own lives. Also, today is the first time in history where science
actually
proves such statements as this. There are many scientific
studies about the results of positive thinking, prayer, etc. and
how these things are show to be helpful. Why not put this into
philosophy if western philosophy is supposed to be so
empirical?
Puss in Boots
[...]
> If having such philosophers as Nietzsche being a favorte does affect
> the way human beings treat each other, then it's part of my life task
> to show Nietzscheans where they are wrong.
Everyone needs a hobby. Do you plan to start soon?
-- Moggin
Treeclimbr
It's actually fun,for me to try to do this.
And it's fun to find people who are already
looking at it. Perhaps looking at it as a linguist is what makes it so much
fun to
me. While the core of much of what N.
said isn't false, some of his language
and peripheral baggage always struck
my personal philosopical "taste" as
dangerous and false. Having had a
serious illness in the family the last
three weeks, I haven't been able to
respond/post very much.