The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

never occurs. The defense against the orgastic desire takes the form of obsessive concepts of "purity" and
"perfection." Healthy sensuality and capacity for gratification convey a natural self-confidence. The mystical
individual develops an artificial self-confidence. As in nationalistic feeling, the self-confidence is based on the
defense functions. Even superficially, this self-confidence is quite different from that based on a healthy
genitality: it is overemphasized, there is a lack of naturalness in behavior, there are sexual inferiority feelings.
This is why the individual brought up in nationalistic or mystical "morality" is so easily accessible to such phrases
of political reaction as "honor," "purity," etc. He is forced to admonish himself constantly to be honest and pure.
The genital character, on the other hand, is spontaneously honest and pure; he does not need constant admonition
to be so.
[145]
CHAPTER VIII
SOME PROBLEMS OF SEX-POLITICAL
PRACTICE
1. THEORY AND PRACTICE
Reactionary academic science postulates a separation of that which "is" from that which "should be," of
"recognizing" from "acting." Therefore, it feels itself "unpolitical," unpragmatic. Absolute logic even contends
that from what "is" it never follows what "should be." The function of this restriction is that of enabling one to
indulge serenely in academic research without having to draw the consequences which are inherent in any serious
scientific insight. Consequences of scientific insights are always progressive and often revolutionary. To us, the
formation of theoretical concepts is dictated by the necessities of actual life, by the necessity of solving practical
problems. Such theoretical concepts lead to a better mastery of the practical tasks; more than that, to us a theory is
of value only if it is confirmed in practice. The rest we leave to the intellectual gymnasts, to the guardians of the
"higher values." First of all, we have to overcome the basic failing of research in religion, that of getting bogged
down in academic presentations which do not point any rational way. We agree with the many scientists who
state that religious mysticism in all its forms means intellectual narrow-mindedness. We also agree with the many
academic scientists who state that, in the course of centuries, the religiosity of people has come to be an
instrument of power. We differ from them, however, in that we are determined to carry on a successful fight
against mysticism and superstition, and to turn our knowledge into practice. Has natural science, we must ask,
exhausted its possibilities in the fight against mysticism? Without any doubt, [146] it has not. Mysticism
continues to keep the masses of people blind and dumb.
2. THE FIGHT AGAINST MYSTICISM TO DATE
In the development of mysticism and the fight against it, one can roughly distinguish four phases. The first
phase is characterized by the complete lack of any scientific concepts; in their place, there are animistic concepts.
The primitive tries to explain natural phenomena in an attempt to overcome his fear of the unknown. He seeks to
protect himself against the overpowering forces of nature. This he achieves—subjectively though not
objectively—by mysticism, superstition and animistic concepts of natural processes, including his inner, psychic
processes. Thus he believes himself able to increase soil fertility by erecting phallic sculptures or to banish
draught by urinating.
This situation remained basically unaltered in all peoples of the earth until, at the close of the Middle Ages, the
ancient beginnings of a scientific comprehension of nature took on a serious character and began to threaten
mysticism. In the course of the great bourgeois revolution a violent battle broke out against religion and for
rationalism: The time approached when science would be able to replace mysticism in explaining nature, and