GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

614 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
been committed by a negro against a white woman in one
of the Southern States of America and in the case of a
movement which, like modem Fascism, at once agitates
and divides the contemporary world, it is impossible that
exposition should wholly escape the disturbing influence
of emotions from which the expositor, himself a child
of his age, cannot be wholly immune. Not less embarrass-
ing than the emotional reactions of the expositor, are the
varieties of the doctrine which he seeks to expound.
Fascism is an intensely nationalist creed, the expression,
as its exponents insist, of the soul of a nation. The German
soul differs from the Italian, and Fascism, therefore,
necessarily assumes a very different complexion in Germany
from that which it wears in Italy. As a result, statements
which are made about Fascism, affirming it to be or to
maintain this or that, will often be found to be true only
of a particular variety of Fascist doctrine and behaviour,
and will be misleading if universally applied.
In the face of these difficulties all that I can hope to
do is to present as shortly as I can a summary of some of
the leading ethical and political doctrines of Fascism,
refraining, so far as possible, from personal comment or
criticism.
Antj-JirtdlccflM^iffn of Fascism* But at this point
a further difficulty arises; for i by "the leading ethical
and political doctrines of Fascism" there is meant a creed of
precise articles, at once common and peculiar to all forms
of Fascism, no such creed is discernible. For Fascism
explicitly repudiates set doctrines. The reasons for this
repudiation are interesting in themselves and afford a
path into the labyrinth of the subject which it will be
convenient to follow.
Fascism is pervaded by a thorough-going anti-intellec-
tualism. More particularly in its German form, it repudiates
the notion that there is an absolute truth or set of truths
which can be discovered by the human mind by a process
of reasoning, and communicated by the discoverer to others