The Role of Intellectuals in the Rise of Fascism in Europe: From Sternhell’s Book
Here’s another passage from Zeev Sternhell’s THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY.
A previous posting introduced this work. (See www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5740.
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And another, “How Fascism Revised Socialism: From THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY,” can be found at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5840.
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“Mussolini would probably never have entered the Quirinal Palace if people like [prominent Italian philosopher Benedetto] Croce had not initially seen fascism as something positive. The historian of ideas cannot overlook or regard as unimportant the hesitations, contradictions, and ambiguities that characterized Croce’s attitude until 1925. The same principle applied to Germany, Spain, and the Vichy regime in France.
“Spengler and Ernest Juenger, for example, were contemptuous of the Austrian corporal who took over their country, but they and their frends from the ‘revolutionary conservative’ school of thought gave Nazism the legitimacy it needed in the eyes of the upper middle class. It was they who brought the elite of the German Reich into the arms of Hitler. Carl Schmitt served the regime faithfully and Heidegger spoke of the ‘great inner truth of Nazism.’ In this connection, the contemporary German philosopher Juergen Habermas was correct in saying that if a Nazi intelligentsia as such never came into being, it was for one reason only, namely, that the Nazi leadership was incapable of appreciating the intellectuals and thus unable to exploit their readiness to serve the regime.
“An outstanding example of the importance of ideological preparation in generating revolutionary political change is provided by the ‘national revolution’ in France in 1940. The liquidation of French liberal democracy in less than six months, despite its deep roots, could not have been achieved without the position of dominance that the new ideology hd gained in society. It was precisely the elites that collapsed most quickly; this was the most significant immediate factor in creating the conditions for the realization of the revolution. This fact was an eloquent demonstration of the success of the ceaseless destructive criticism directed every morning for fifty years again both the principles of liberalism and the functioning of the democratic regime. The call for a strong government that would put an end for once and for all to the horse-trading in votes by voters and representatives broke democracy’s power of resistance. The fact that horse-trading was an element of a regime that by its nature was a system of compromise operating according to complicated rules intended to insure the freedom of the individual and equality before the law did not carry much weight with the nonconformists. In 1940 the political elite collapsed and delivered up the country to a dictator. Most of the important intellectuals, politicians, people of the media, university professors, artists, journalists and judges joined the ranks of the national revolution. This was the real problem: it was not the common citizen but the social leadership that betrayed democracy. That is how the oldest and most deeply rooted democracy on the European continent fell.
“Above all, the national revolution reflected one basic fact: the political ideology and political forces that had assailed the liberal-democratic order since the end of the nineteenth century had finally achieved their major victory. The fall of France was regarded first and foremost as the defeat of a political culture. It was not an army that prepared for war according to the rules and principles of the one before that was considered to have been defeated, nor was it a conservative, hidebound, and impotent high command, but a liberal and democratic political culture rooted in the principles of the French Revolution.”
February 27th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Interesting. I agree that intellectuals are susceptible to the allure of Fascism. This is because they are well educated and are used to being intellectually, and also usually economically, superior to the average person. When they see the rise of a system that differentiates between the classes, they feel like they should be part of the ruling elite and many take action to support such changes and ingratiate themselves with those in power.
Of course, intellectuals who better understand the dangers of a shift to a system which puts the ruling elite above the masses tend to resist such change. Such intellectuals, which after the last century hopefully includes most intellectuals, realize that a governmental system that allows the ruling elite to abuse the rights of the masses represents a danger to everyone. For some examples of what happens when the government obtains too much power over those it rules, see http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/ and http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM to see how many millions were murdered by their government in the 20th century.
Unfortunately, although many are not yet aware of it, we live under a Fascist government. If you think that we are still a democratic republic with liberty and justice for all, see Why Does the Government Ignore Our Wishes? at http://dailycensored.com/2009/09/11/why-does-the-government-ignore-our-wishes/ and don’t miss my 18 minute speech. See the link in the first comment to learn that bad things can even happen to princesses right in their father’s fiefdom.
If you take a look, you’ll learn why that those in power get away with violating our rights, abusing their power, and committing horrible crimes. My article on torture includes a link to the U.S. Supreme Court case which explains how one of our stolen rights makes the difference between justice and injustice, between freedom and slavery.
February 27th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I am not sure that I would agree with what you are agreeing with, Mark. You express the proposition in a general form: “intellectuals are susceptible…” What interested me about this was that in Europe in a particular era –the end of the nineteenth century and the first few decades of the twentieth– intellectuals WERE susceptible. My own experience, growing up in a post-World War II world, and being situated as a child through early adulthood squarely in the intellectual culture, was that intellectuals did not seem to have such susceptibility. Or at least that it was far rarer in intellectual circles than anywhere else. So I am struck by what Sternhell describes precisely because it shows something –how intellectuals COULD find something attractive in fascism– that I’d not seen in my own times.
To the extent that fascism has gained a foothold in America today –and I certainly think your statement “we live under a Fascist government” to be quite hyperbolistic– the impetus for it has come from very different sources, with intellectuals figuring rather negligibly.
It was also interesting to me to discover, in Sternhell, that Fascism had intellectual foundations, i.e. that it wasn’t just a bunch of thugs grabbing for power. In this book, I discovered that Mussolini himself was actually deeply involved in the world of ideas, that he’d been influenced by real ideas and was quite conversant in them– more intellectual by far than a Bush or a Cheney, perhaps in the league, in those terms, with Obama.
Yet Sternhell also observes how the Nazis, at least, though they had some significant intellectual support (e.g. Heidegger), had no use for intellectuals. Dictators of all sorts seem hostile to the intellectuals who might, after all, think for themselves, and lead others to think thoughts other than those being dictated from the top.
February 27th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
While I was looking through quotes of Hitler and Goebbels, Mark Adams has made my comment and more thoroughly than I would have.
The intellectual’s notion of his (imagined) status above the active productive said masses of the people leaves them no root nor rock- only their imagined status. When it is apparent that the rising power is goping to succeed with the masses they cannot allow themselves to be left behind.
Ho ! ho ! Hitler and Goebbels knew this -probably by instinct.
February 27th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I know, David R., that it gratifies you to make the intellectuals into petty people, divorced from the real action, but you’ve got the order of events wrong here. Sternhell’s book is about the laying of the intellectual/ideological foundations for the political movements that were to come. The intellectual role came before there was a bandwagon to get on. So it’s not a matter, as you suggest, of the intellectuals trying to get onto the train before it leaves the station (to mix the vehicular metaphor).
February 27th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
“Listen, learn, wake up and take action before it’s too late”
Sounds like a would-be rallying cry. Pray tell what that action be ?!
February 27th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
“The historian of ideas ”
This brief expression is to me the most compelling thought so far on this thread.
I wonder if someone has put together, in brief, the sequences and times of significant ideas that have made their advent onto the stage of human affairs and how they have played in their times and maybe until even now ?
February 27th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
If we accept Mussolini’s simple definition of fascism as corporatism, then it is hard to deny that America is already a fascist state. Many so-called intellectuals support the political economic system of corporatism and many don’t. I don’t think you can generalize. Intellectuals are not totally immune from propaganda, and some are true believers.