The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

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In view of the natural organization of humanity, such an economic and familial situation could not continue to exist unless its existence were safeguarded by other basic elements. One of the most important among them is the patriarchal relationship between man and wife and a specific kind of sexual living. In trying to distinguish himself from the manual worker, the lower middle class individual can do so only in the forms of his sexual and family life, since his economic position is no better than that of the industrial worker. He compensates for what he lacks economically by way of sexual morality. This is the official's [44] strongest motive for his identification with state authority. Since one does not enjoy the economic position of the upper middle classes but at the same time identifies oneself ideologically with them, the sexual moral ideologies must make up for the economic deprivations. The forms of sexual and, with that, of cultural living, serve mainly the purpose of snobbish distinction from the "lower" strata. The sum total of these moralistic attitudes—the core of which is the attitude toward sexuality—expresses itself in ideas—ideas, not behavior—of honor and duty. The effect of these two words on the lower middle class is enormous and deserves the closest attention. They also constantly recur in the fascist ideology of dictatorship and race. In practice, everyday middle class existence and middle class business produce precisely the opposite behavior. In private trading, a bit of dishonesty is part of existence. When a peasant buys a horse, he will depreciate it in every way possible. When he sells the same horse a year later, it has become younger and better. "Duty" is based on business interest and not on national character. One's own wares will always be the best, that of the other fellow always inferior. Depreciation of the competitor, rarely an honest act, is an essential tool of "business." The overpoliteness and deference to the customer on the part of small business people show the brutal compulsion of economic existence which in the long run must warp even the best of characters. In spite of this, the concepts of "honor" and "duty" play a dominant role in the lower middle classes. This cannot be explained on purely economic grounds. For in spite of all hypocrisy, the depth of feeling connected with these concepts is genuine. The question is its source. The analysis of the lower middle class individual leaves no doubt about the connection between his sexual life and his ideology of "honor" and "duty." The father's economic position as well as his position in the state are reflected in his patriarchal relationship with the other members of the family. The authoritarian state has a representative in every family, the father; in this way he becomes the state's most valuable tool. [45] The father's authoritarian position reflects his political role and discloses the relationship of family and authoritarian state. The same position which the boss holds in the production process, the father maintains in the family. He in turn reproduces submissiveness to authority in his children, especially his sons. This is the basis of the passive, submissive attitude of middle class individuals toward Führer figures. Without really knowing it, Hitler built upon this attitude of the lower middle classes: The people in their overwhelming majority are so feminine by nature and attitude that sober reasoning determines their thoughts and actions far less than emotion and feeling. And this sentiment is not complicated, but very simple and all of a piece. It does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way, never partially, or that kind of thing. (MEIN KAMPF, p. 183) It is not a matter of being that way "by nature" but of being a typical example of the reproduction of an authoritarian social system in the structures of its members. For the patriarchal position of the father requires the strictest sexual inhibition on the part of the women and children. Under lower middle class influence, the women develop an attitude of resignation which covers up repressed sexual rebellion; the sons develop, in addition to a submissive attitude toward authority, a strong identification with the father which later becomes identification with any kind of authority. It will remain a mystery for some time to come as to how the psychic structures of the decisive stratum of society fit the economic system and the purposes of the powers that be like the parts of a watch. What we are describing as the mass-psychological structural reproduction of the economic system is the basic mechanism of the formation of
political ideologies. The attitude of economic and social competition becomes a factor in the development of middle class structure only at a very late stage. The reactionary ideologies which are then formed are [46] built up secondarily on psychological processes which take place in the infant when it is growing up in the authoritarian family atmosphere. There we find, to begin with, competition between the children and the adults, and between the children among themselves in relation to the parents. This competition, which in adults and in extrafamilial life is predominantly economic, takes place in the framework of the highly emotional family relationships of love and hatred. This is not the place to discuss these in detail. What is important here is the following: the sexual inhibitions which constitute the prerequisite of the continued existence of the authoritarian family and the essential basis of the structure of the lower middle class individual are brought about with the aid of religious fears which thus become sexual guilt feelings and deeply anchored. This leads to the problem of the connection between religion and denial of sexual pleasure. Sexual weakness undermines self-confidence; compensation is effected by rigid character traits or brutal sexual behavior. The necessity for sexual self-control, for maintenance of sexual repression, leads to the development of compulsive, emotionally highly charged ideas of honor, duty, courage and self-control. 4 The compulsiveness and emotional charge of these ideas, however, is in strange contrast to the actual behavior. The genitally gratified individual is honest, conscientious, courageous and selfcontrolled, without making any fuss about it. These attitudes are organic parts of his personality. The individual with a weakened genitality and a contradictory sexual structure, on the other hand, must incessantly remind himself to control his sexuality, to preserve his sexual honor, to fight temptations courageously, etc. Every child and adolescent goes through the struggle against the temptation to masturbate. In this struggle, all elements of the reactionary human structure develop. In the lower middle classes, this structure is most strongly developed and most deeply anchored. This compulsive suppression of sexuality provides mysticism, of whatever kind, with its energy and also with some of its contents. To the ________ 4 Particularly instructive in showing these connections is a book by the National Socialist, Ernst Mann, DIE MORAL DER KRAFT. [47] extent to which the industrial workers are under the same social influences, they also develop the corresponding attitudes; due to their different way of living, however, they develop opposite, sex-affirmative attitudes to a far higher degree. The emotional anchoring of these structures by means of unconscious anxiety and their masking by apparently asexual character traits make it impossible for one to reach these deep layers of the personality with intellectual arguments. The importance of this fact for a practical sex policy will be discussed in Chapter VIII. We cannot discuss here in detail the significance of the unconscious fight against the individual sexual demands for the breeding of metaphysical and mystical thinking. We shall only mention one aspect which is characteristic of National Socialist ideology. Again and again one finds the series, personal honor, family honor, race honor, national honor. This series is consistent with the series of stages in individual structure formation. But it should include the socio-economic background patriarchy, compulsive marriage, sexual aggression, personal fight against one's sexuality, compensatory idea of honor, etc. The last in the series is the ideology of "national honor." It is the irrational core of National Socialism. Its comprehension requires a further preliminary consideration. The fight of authoritarian society against the sexuality of children and adolescents takes place in the framework of the authoritarian family which thus far has proven the best institution for this fight. By their very nature, sexual needs impel contacts of various kinds in the world. If they are suppressed, they can express themselves only within the narrow framework of the family. Sexual inhibition is the basis of the familial incapsulation of the individuals as well as the basis of an individualistic ideology. Metaphysical, individualistic and familial sentimental behavior are only different aspects of one and the same process, sex negation. Realistic, non-mystical thinking on the other hand, go with loose family ties and, to say the least, indifference toward ascetic sexual ideologies. The important point is that sexual inhibition is a means of producing a fixation to the authoritarian
Page 1 and 2: THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM By W
Page 3 and 4: ORGONE INSTITUTE PRESS NEW YORK . 1
Page 5 and 6: [vii] 1. Theory and practice 145 2.
Page 7 and 8: ealization of their responsibility
Page 9 and 10: the tremendous changes in thought w
Page 11 and 12: new sociological concept. It compri
Page 13 and 14: continue to exist as long as the ma
Page 15 and 16: emained entirely in the background.
Page 17 and 18: Small farmers 6,598 9.0 Bourgeoisie
Page 19 and 20: the metaphysical character of react
Page 21 and 22: and directly express the economic s
Page 23 and 24: themselves be shot, lay down again
Page 25 and 26: [24] of infantile and adolescent se
Page 27 and 28: middle-class economic organizations
Page 29 and 30: German plow and daily bread for the
Page 31 and 32: determines its ideology. While the
Page 33: This was Hitler's point of view. It
Page 37 and 38: [50] himself fully with a personifi
Page 39 and 40: The self-confidence of the worker i
Page 41 and 42: hours. To try to "reach the masses"
Page 43 and 44: ________ 8 The collapse of Norway i
Page 45 and 46: metaphysics. Then we open an avenue
Page 47 and 48: "protectors of the noble and joyful
Page 49 and 50: of patriarchy. Sexology of the patr
Page 51 and 52: mechanical relationship between sex
Page 53 and 54: masses was clearly expressed in the
Page 55 and 56: 2 Herta Heinrich: "Hakenkreuz, Vier
Page 57 and 58: eactionary family politics is the d
Page 59 and 60: antiquity, from which, over a perio
Page 61 and 62: An identification of the Jewish God
Page 63 and 64: Der Verband katholischer Bücherver
Page 65 and 66: mystical feeling of the mass indivi
Page 67 and 68: marriage, because the institution o
Page 69 and 70: floating dismembered mankind into a
Page 71 and 72: eadily the real goal, which is not
Page 73 and 74: the sexual life of the individual.
Page 75 and 76: 6. The negation of the sexual natur
Page 77 and 78: is a well-known fact. What is less
Page 79 and 80: dangerously astray; if he has thoug
Page 81 and 82: The Virgin Mary cult is used with g
Page 83 and 84: when technics would be able to repl
Page 85 and 86:
shown to be a simple pump, the fore
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him from the infantile submission t
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the upper hand. How, he will ask, w
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succeeds in rationally guiding this
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children than the antifascist movem
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[173] unpolitical masses. The avera
Page 97 and 98:
When he has found them, he plays th
Page 99 and 100:
The fusion of scientific and social
Page 101 and 102:
practically was remote. There was,
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who were developing. Understandably
Page 105 and 106:
only in the workers' movement but a
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quickly than Christianity had shed
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Let us summarize first the concepts
Page 111 and 112:
the bourgeois state, Lenin said, "d
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now already within the capacity of
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destroying the old bourgeois state
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democracy, nor can there be any "fu
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dear, liberated and new land. The S
Page 121 and 122:
character structure, this attitude
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of people in other communities. Wit
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As a result of the world economic c
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and without bloodshed. This is poss
Page 129 and 130:
foremen, technicians and specialize
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exodus could have been prevented if
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learn to eliminate their own weakne
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[260] the necessity of this process
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irrationalism. The process of socia
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naturally given and which have alwa
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een able to protect work against ex
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idealization as well as the commise
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carry the responsibility for their
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more difficult, more dangerous, mor
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The answer is unequivocal: The lag
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kingdom, clearly represent the act
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dictatorship, may itself undergo a
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evolutionary. But it should be obvi
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article intended to do was to demon
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smuggled into Germany. In the cours
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would grant love, work and knowledg
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eing all bathed in perspiration and
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unnecessary in the factual realm of
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dependent on my own development and
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distinctions," the "establishment o
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self-determination of society is to
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293, 301 Biopathic character struct
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283ff., 298f. "Incest," 66 Internat
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Politician, 175f., 181, 313ff, 323,
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18 Swastika, 83ff. Technical progre
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