The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

[173] unpolitical masses. The average intellectual who "does not want to have anything to do with politics" is
motivated by immediate economic interests and fear for his existence, dependent as it is on public opinion; out of
this fear, he sacrifices knowledge and conviction to a grotesque degree. Among the people who are in some way
part of the process of production and yet are socially irresponsible, two large groups can be distinguished. In one,
the concept of politics is unconsciously associated with the concept of violence and bodily danger, that is, with an
intense fear which prevents them from a realistic orientation. In the other, much larger group, social
irresponsibility is due to personal conflicts and worries, among which sexual conflicts predominate. When a
young employee, whose economic position is such as to make her conscious of her social responsibility, is,
nevertheless, socially irresponsible, it is, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, because of her "love affairs," that
is, her sexual conflicts. The same is true of the middle-class woman who must muster all her psychic strength in
order to master her sexual situation at least to such an extent that she does not completely collapse. Up to now,
the revolutionary movement has misunderstood this situation. It tried to mobilize the "unpolitical" individuals
politically solely by trying to make them conscious of their thwarted economic interests. Experience has shown
that the majority of these "unpolitical" individuals would not even listen to such economico-political talks; but
they would be readily swayed by the mystical phrases of a National Socialist who would not even say much about
economic interests. How is this to be explained? It is explained by the fact that sexual conflicts—in the broadest
sense of the word—be they conscious or unconscious, inhibit rational thinking and the development of social
responsibility; they make the individual apprehensive and armored. If, then, such an individual meets a Fascist
who works with the means of credulity and mysticism, that is, with sexual, libidinous means, he turns completely
to him. This is not because the fascist program impresses him more than the revolutionary program, but because
his surrender to the Führer and his ideology provides a momentary release from his chronic inner tension; because
he can unconsciously give a new form to [174] his conflict and thereby seemingly solve it; because he may even
look upon the Fascist as a revolutionary, consider Hitler the German Lenin. It is easy to see how the erotically
exciting forms of fascism provide a sort of gratification to a sexually resigned middle-class woman who never
thought of social responsibility or to a salesgirl who cannot develop a consciousness of social responsibility
because of her preoccupation with her sexual conflicts. One has to know the life of these millions of socially
suppressed unpolitical individuals in order to understand the role which people's private life, that is essentially
their sex life, plays in the total social process in a subterranean way. Hitler knew how to utilize this helplessness
born of sexual misery.
The socially irresponsible individual is the individual absorbed in sexual conflicts. To try to make him socially
responsible by excluding his sexuality from consideration, as has been done hitherto, is not only hopeless; it is the
surest way of handing him over to political reaction which knows very well how to utilize the results of his sexual
misery. Clearly, the only way out is social comprehension of his sex life. As simple as this conclusion is, there
was a time when I myself shrank from it. I can understand, therefore, that professional politicians may consider
such a concept the product of a politically naive armchair scientist. But if one attended sex-economic meetings
one found that they attracted for the most part people who had never gone to any political meetings. The sexeconomic
organizations in Western Germany were comprised predominantly of unorganized and unpolitical
people. The ignorance of the professional politicians in this regard is demonstrated by the fact that for thousands
of years the international organization of mysticism, in every city, town and hamlet, has been holding, at least
once a week, an impressive sex-political meeting in their sense, for this is what the church meetings or the rituals
of the Mohammedans, Jews, etc., are. In the face of existing sex-economic experience and the findings
concerning the relationship between mysticism and sexual suppression, neglect or even denial of these facts lends
an unpardonable, reactionary support to intellectual medievalism and economic slavery.
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CHAPTER IX