Let's get a few things straight before we get going here. Firstly, fascism is on the right of the political spectrum. In fact, it's the furthest right position possible. It's left-wing analogue in Communism. In very simple terms, the difference is that in Communism, the state (in theory) serves the people while in Fascism, the people serve the state. Granted, the two look similar to the person suffering under them because both are authoritarian and authoritarian regimes always look somewhat similar but they have very different reasons for being authoritarian. Secondly, despise whatever lies you may have been told, fascism and socialism or communism have nothing to do with each other. While the mental picture of Fascism tends to bring to mind Hitler's Nazi party (it's not a Godwins if you're talking about legitimate history) which was called the "Socialist Worker's Party", the plain facts are that firstly, the "Socialist" appelation pre-dates Hitler's rise to leadership; secondly, the insertion of "Socialist" in the name and a couple of socialist points in the manifesto were a fairly cynical attempt to bring in extra members and thirdly, upon Hitler's assumption of power, all the Socialist aspects except the name were dropped under Hitler's instructions (the Nazi party being run under fuhrerprinzip or "what the boss says, goes").
Fascism as a political ideaology can be attributed to Mussolini, who invented (or possibly stole, it's unclear) the ideaology sometime between 1915 and 1920. Mussolini variously described the ideaology as being "the union of corporate and state power" or "corporate control of the state". It's clear that, while under Communism, the state would control business; under Fascism, business would control the state. Depending on which version of Fascism you're talking about (Mussolini's is Classical Fascism, Hitler's was Racial Fascism, there are many other variations), you can sometimes add that the state would curtail or encourage various business practices depending on what industries it considered valuable (this was far more prevelent in Hitler's version than Mussolini's). While Communism envisions the state gradually withering away entirely to leave a collectivist utopia, Fascism concentrates power into the state and the state prostrates itself to business.
Now, the topic of this essay is whether the USA can be considered a Fascist state. To that end, we shall start by looking at Dr Lawrence Britt's list of Fascism's fourteen defining features but before we start, a word of caution about Dr Britt's list: While I'm sure that Dr Britt does not intend to promote misinformation with his list, he has a tendancy to use "Fascism" as a generic term for authoritarianism and, in my opinion, misses a few pointers and gives too much weight to others. However, his list makes a good starting point so here we go.
1 - Powerful and Continuing Nationalism. This is one of the major features of Fascism and one where it can be easily distinguished from socialism or Communism. While Socialism and Communism are explicitly transnational (think of the Communist Internationale), Fascism is powerfully nationalist and, usually, nativist. The flag is seen everywhere and the nation is identified with the party. On this one, the USA is guilty as sin. The USA has always been more nationalistic than many nations. Think of popular slogans like "love it or leave it" or "my country, right or wrong". Think of how often any American criticising an American policy or historical act has to stress that they love their country. In other nations, that would just be assumed. Think of the doctrine of "American Exceptionalism" or the uproar when Michelle Obama said she was "really proud of her country" for the first time. In the USA, patriotism is not just expected but socially enforced by public approbation.
2 - Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights. Because of Fascism's use of scapegoats and fearmongering and the glorification of the state, rights are seen not as due simply for being human or granted by the divine but granted by the state, which may withdraw them as it wishes. Frequently, rights are first withdrawn from official scapegoats with the rationale that "they're only terrorists/communists/Jews/Gypsies, they don't deserve rights". Here, the USA has a mixed record. The Bush administration's hatred of human rights is well known (and their escape from accountability will forever be a stain on Obama's record). The withdrawal of habeus corpus rights from anyone accused of terrorism (including at least two American citizens) is notorious. While it's unclear whether Bush's reputed description of the Bill of Rights as a "goddamn piece of paper" was actually true or not, it's clear that they acted as if it were. The Obama administration has not gone any further in destroying humans rights than the Bush administration did. However, they have also not reversed much of the damage. Most provisions of the Orwellian-named PATRIOT Act remain in force, Gitmo remains open. So a mixed result.
3 - Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause. Fascist regimes always single out something to unite against. In this, Fascism understands human nature far better than many political ideaologies. It is vastly easier to get humans to unite and stop grumbling when you convince them that they're under attack. It's also the case that humans love to play the victim. You will rarely find any societal group, no matter how repugnant, that doesn't claim to be under attack. White supremacists claim to be under attack by race-mixing, Fred Phelps claims to be under attack from "sodomites", even Hitler claimed to be defending Germany against Polish forces (no, I'm not kidding). Here, again, the USA has a mixed record. Historically, one could mention the crazed panic of "Reds under the bed" and McCarthyism (as it turned out, while the USSR would doubtless have loved to undermine US society, they never came close to having the capacity to do so). In recent history, the Bush admin used terrorists as a unifying scapegoat (although, credit where it's due, they never equated terrorists with Muslims despite many fellow travellers doing so) while the Obama admin hasn't used it half as much. In fact, this is a far more pronounced tendancy on the American right than the left. While outright hatred of Obama in particular and liberals/progressives in general has become a cause celebre on the right and the Teabaggers sole defining characteristic, there is nothing similar on the left (no, Baggers, liberals were NOT this bad to Bush). So, mixed again.
4 - Supremacy of the Military. In Fascist regimes, the military is always given a disproportionate amount of funding, military service is glorified and glamorised. Now, is the USA guilty of this one? OH HELL, YES! The USA spends more on it's military than every other nation in the world combined. The yearly budget increase alone is more than the entire military budget of your nearest competitor. The USA has enough firepower to render the planet devoid of life several times over and that's without even using the nuclear arsenal. And military spending is sacrosanct. Even when the economy is supposedly in trouble, no-one is seriously talking about cuts in military spending. Likewise, joining the military is not just seen as performing a valuable and necessary service , as it is in other nations, but as an automatic act of heroism sufficient to give one additional gravitas even in unconnected areas. John McCain's entire campaign for president was contingent on his having spent five years as a PoW in Vietnam and, while I respect that service, one must ask how it gives him any additional insight on, say, economics or foreign relations?
5 - Rampant Sexism. In Fascist regimes, power tends to be controlled almost exclusively by males. Women are exhorted to breed, to be homemakers. Traditional gender roles are socially enforced. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are surpressed. Here, again, the USA has a mixed record. While no-one would claim that the USA is free of sexism, it has become both less prevelent and less tolerated in recent years. Divorce is relatively easily available and while gay rights still has a long way to go, things are slowly moving in the right direction. The rampant sexism often claimed by supporters of Hillary Clinton's campaign for president turned out, on inspection, to be mostly untrue (mostly, there were some seriously sexist attacks on her though). The exception is abortion. Abortion rights in the USA have always been under attack. While the Supreme Court legalised abortion under most circumstances with Roe V. Wade, the American pro-life movement (which is concentrated on the right but not exclusively so) has never conceded their loss. Challenges to the law by both individuals and state legislatures are frequent and campaigns of threats, intimidation and sometimes outright terrorism have forced many abortion providers out of business.
6 - Controlled Mass Media. The USA is innocent of this one. Fascist regimes tend to have a controlled media, either through outright state control (interestingly, the BBC, which is state controlled, is considered the global standard of scrupulous impartiality) or through sympathetic media figures and censorship is common. Here, the USA can hold it's hands up and say "not us". While the media in the USA is controlled by it's corporate ownership and therefore, the USA has the most conservative media in the free world (anyone who genuinely thinks the US media is liberally biased should shoot themselves to remove their stupidity from the gene pool), the state exerts very little control over the media itself. Regulation consists mainly of dividing up the available TV and radio bandwidth and ensuring against monopoly (although even that is very often ignored). The FCC, an organ of state, attempts to control content to ensure appropriate broadcast times (and is sometimes absurdly restrictive on sexual grounds) but censorship on political grounds is entirely absent. One must mention Fox News here. Fox News is dedicated to attacking Democrats and liberals/progressives in general and President Obama in particular. As much as they may bleat about Obama's supposed "fascism", their continued operation proves otherwise because such a 24/7 attack/smear machine would never be allowed in a Fascist regime.
7 - Obsession with National Security. This one goes in cycles. In general, the sequence goes that there is a terrorist or international incident. Then the USA goes batshit crazy about national security for a few years, stripping back rights, inconvieniencing the average person and arresting anyone who looks sideways at a landmark. Then gradually, the panic wears off and things go back to more-or-less normal and the cycle repeats.
8 - Religion and Government are Intertwined. This is another one much more true of right-wing administrations than leftish ones. It's easily observable that the USA is one of the most religiously extreme natiuons in the western world, not as a matter of policy but as a matter of the public psyche. In right-wing administrations, the state tends to push religion as much into state power as it legally can (and, in some cases, further). Again, the Bush admin should be our guide. Bush instituted the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives (as one wag pointed out "9/11 was a faith-based initiative"), positions were commonly staffed by graduates of Pat Robertson's university. Monica Goodling, a Bush appointee who ended up smack in teh middle of the US Attorneys scandal, routinely made staff recomendations based on religious views and Whitehouse prayer meetings and Bible study were, while not enforced, an expected part of life. While Obama is a Christian (or claims to be anyway, it's not my job to play No True Scotsman) and has continued the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, he has been noticeably more circumspect about bringing his faith into his public life. Partly, that can be attributed to the attention whoring of his former pastor, Rev Wright.
9 - Corporate Power is Protected. Another biggie. This, and the following entry, are two of the defining features of Fascism. The industrial and business leaders are both those who put politicians into power and those who benefit from their policies, creating a mutal cycle of corruption (in fact, if not in law). And on this one, the USA is guilty. The tremendous deference shown to wealth in the USA is easily observable, both by the almost deification of business leaders and by the public outrage shown when the Obama admin suggested raising the top rate of income tax by 3.5%. Suddenly, a wimpy moderate of a leader became "SOCIALIST, COMMUNIST!". While Obama has been less deferential to wealth than Bush, he has still been far more accomodating than most Western leaders.
10 - Labor Power is Suppressed. Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. This is another one where there's a real left/right divide. The right, which has become simply the political arm of Big Business, is ruthlessly anti-labour and routinely presses for lower wages and benefits or, lately, the outright banning of the union's power of collective bargaining ("First, they came for the trade unionists"). The left tends to be more supportive of labour power and while teh cynical would say that's because trades unions donate mainly to Democrats (and there's an element of truth to that), they rarely ask why unions mainly donate to Democrats.
11 - Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts. Another one where the divide is pronounced. The right in teh USA is fiercely opposed to both intellectuals and the arts and has been for many years. There is a very, very strong streak of anti-intellectualism to the right which is not only suspicious of intellectual achievment but outright hostile to being taught anything. If you took a shot every time Sarah Palin bashed intellectuals, you'd almost be as wasted as Sarah Palin. On the other side, the left has a tendancy to listen to intellectuals only selectively (see for example, the fact that scientists have been ringing giant alarm bells about global warming for years) and ignore the arts altogether.
12 - Obsession with Crime and Punishment . This is another one the USA is guilty of. Of the countries which release statistics, the USA has the highest population of prisoners in the world. Red China locks up less people than the USA does. The US has over seven million people either imprisoned or on parole, around 730 people per 100,000. The nearest comparison is Russia which has 584 per 100k. And there is a marked racial disparity. 70% of US prisoners are non-white. In fact, of the three major ethnic groups in prison, whites make up the least populous group and blacks the most (Hispanics are in the middle). The USA is also one of the very few western nations which retains the use of the death penalty and by far the western nation which uses it most. In 2009 (2010 records unavailable), the USA executed 52 people. Compared to China (which executed at least 1700), that's not too bad but it stands in marked contrast to the rest of the western world which executed none. I don't want to argue the merits of the death penalty here but there is often a disturbing level of glee seen in teh USA when someone is executed. The execution seen less as a terrible necessity than a cause for celebration.
13 - Rampant Cronyism and Corruption. We're using "corruption" here in it's non-legal sense. That is, the influence of personal advantage or nepotism in policy. And here is another where the USA is guilty as sin. The revolving door between politics, business and media doesn't need any further ranting from me, one needs only examine Dick Cheney's personal history. Fox currently has at least three possible Republican candidates for president in 2012 under contract. Bush was the son of a former president, Hillary the wife of another. In itself, it doesn't prove nepotism but it is an uncomfortable observation for a country which supposedly has no aristocracy.
14 - Fraudulent Elections. Now, this one is complicated. I will go to my grave knowing that the general election of 2000 was stolen. That is known, it is proven (by the Florida Ballots Project) and it is not up for dispute. The 2004 election, I don't know. The 2006 and 2008 elections clearly weren't stolen but they may have been tampered with. What's more concerning is that the US's use of unaccountable "black box" voting machines makes it impossible to be sure of election results. That such machines are absurdly easy to corrupt is well known and has been demonstrated numerous times but what is less well known is that the state is not even allowed to examine or certify the software they use. It's proprietery software, considered "trade secrets" so the companies that manufacture the machines have to simply say "Trust us".
That's Dr Britt's list. I consider it incomplete. I would add:
- Rural populations are exhorted. Within all Fascist regimes, the simplicity of the common volk is glorified. Granted, this is also a feature of Soviet Communism (to the extent that Soviet artwork has been described as "girl meets tractor"). On this, the American right is clearly guilty. Witness Bachmann's paens to small-town America, "real America, if you will"; Palin's pride at coming from a state with the population of San Bernadino. Fascism always comes from such rural populations or, at least, seeks to identify itself with them.
- Obsession with productivity. In the words of the Nazis "Work will make you free". Work is held to be the reason for living and those unable to contribute are derided as "freeloaders" or "scroungers". The USA is guilty on this one but so is much of the rest of the world. The British ConDem government (evil, evil bastards) have made it the cornerstone of their entire economic policy.
- Looks back to a "glorious" past. "I want my country back!". How often have you heard that in recent months? This is another feature where Fascism and Communism are directly opposed. While Communism always looks forward to a glorious future, Fascism always looks back to a glorious part, a (usually imagined) Golden Age. For Mussolini, it was the Roman Empire. For Hitler, it was the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy, Roman nor an empire). For the American right, it's the 1950s. An era where minorities, women and children knew their place, everyone had a job that paid decent wages and the USA bestrode the world like a collossus. The irony, of course, is that much of their perception of that period is based more on Happy Days than actual history and the Democratic policies they so bitterly oppose are the ones more likely to help get back to that employment level.
So, those are my additions and we're up to 17 points. Taking those into consideration, I would say that the USA is NOT a Fascist nation (yet) but that the country is in danger of becoming so and teh American right, the Teabaggers in particular, very much are Fascists. What I hope I've demonstrated through this essay is that "Fascism" isn't just a nasty name to call someone or a synonym for all authoritarian regimes. It is a specific set of reasons and principles, a defined and identifiable ideaology.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Psychopathology of Ayn Rand
You've probably heard of Ayn Rand. Most people have these days. She was the author of such inexplicably widely-read "novels" (really, barely-disguised political diatribes) as "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged". Her books are currently enjoying something of a boom among those who misguidedly believe they would be in the self-righteous community of "Atlases" at Galt's Gulch. The novels themselves are of only passing interest, being long, melodramatic and mediocrely written. Rather, it is the "philosophy" at the core of the novels which bears attention.
Hear ye, hear ye, I come to bury Rand, not to praise her. While numerous conservative thinkers (and, oddly, Neil Peart) have lauded Rand as a philosopher, few academic institutions include Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical discipline. Conservatives, such as Chris Sciabarra, tend to believe that the academic left decries Rand due to her anti-communist, pro-capitalist slant. Like much of the witterings of conservatives who presume to know what the left things, that presumes firstly, more power than the academic left has had in decades; secondly, assumes that the left was universally pro-communist and anti-capitalist, something which has never been true and thirdly, that Rand was saying anything worth studying. She wasn't. Rand's "philosophy" was the same defence of endless greed which mankind has been engaged in for eternity, the same attempt to place a moral cover on pure selfishness that has long been pursued by any number of exploiters down the centuries. Nietzche was, and is, pilloried for saying "God is dead", Rand is lauded for effectively saying "the self is God". There is nothing new here, save perhaps for the self-delusion that allows so many professed "Christians" to adhere to a philosophy that glorifies greed and athieism. There is also a cult-like deification of Rand by her followers and "swarming" of those who dare criticise her which reminds one very strongly of Scientology (and Glenn Beck followers but that's another matter).
There is another name for those who hold that the only proper moral consideration is the happiness of the self; for those who view empathy and compassion as weakness; who view selfishness as the only virtue: Psychopaths.
Contrary to popular belief, the psychopath is not automatically violent. Rather, the psychopath is defined by a near-complete lack of empathy. Robert Hare (who created the widely used "Hare Psychopathy Checklist") describes psychopaths as "instraspecies predators" who use a combination of charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexuality and violence to satisfy their own desires. The more human qualities of conscience, empathy, remorse or guilt are either completely absent or extremely limited. It must be repeated that the psychopath is not necessarily violent. Indeed, many are not because their lives have never placed them in a position where violence was the only means to satisfy their desires. Many businessmen (and therefore, many politicians) profile as psychopaths because they exhibit the core characteristics or some section thereof. Ayn Rand should also be considered a psychopath.
Hare's checklist lists certain personality factors as indicative of psychopathy. The average person will perhaps exhibit one or, at most, two. The psychopath will exhibit all but on or two. In no particular order, these items are Glibness/superficial charm. After her writings became popular, Rand collected around herself a group of cultists who virtually worshipped her. However, shallow affect, the psychopath's charm is only ever superficial. As one comes to know and understand the psychopath more fully, the charm which initially attracted one to them is revealed as only skin-deep. In this, Rand was entirely textbook. She was described by most who knew her best as a bitter, friendless child who grew into an equally bitter and acidic woman. Grandiose sense of self-worth would certainly fit Rand. A woman who names her beliefs "Objectivism" out of a belief that any reasoning person who observes the objective truths of the world would necessarily come to full agreement with her would probably qualify. The fact that her little cult were required to memorise her works and discounted as "imbecilic" and "anti-life" if they asked questions simply seals the deal. Her sincere belief was that thinking freely would automatically lead to total agreement with her views. The ruthless policing of her cult would also qualify her under the Cunning/manipulative qualifier. Patholigical lying is one that Rand is probably innocent of. So far as we know, there is no reason to believe she was a pathological liar. Lack of remorse or guilt and Callous/lack of empathy could be described as "Ayn Rand syndrome". These two qualifiers are really the core of her books, philosophhy and worldview. In one of her books ([i]The Fountainhead[/i]), her "hero", Howard Roarke, blows up a housing project he designed when a minor alteration is made and then orders the jury to acquit him (the fact that, as an architect, Roarke was presumably contracted for his work and therefore, it wasn't "his" anymore piddles all over the supposed respect for property too). In Atlas Shrugged, her ode to the super-rich which imagines them going on strike against progressive taxation, Rand describes the rest of the world (without whom, let us not forget, the super-rich would be unable to make anything) is such niceties as "savages", "refuse" and "immitations of living beings". When one of the strikers engineers a train crash (because they don't just strike but commit acts of terrorism too), Rand makes it clear that she believes the murdered victims deserved their fate because they supported progressive taxation. A stewing hymn of Nietzchean will-to-power, misanthropy, failure to understand economics, feudalism and sexual politics verging on the obscene, Atlas Shrugged is full of this stuff. Her heroes spend their time both insisting that they are the heroic producers (and without labour, what are they producing exactly?) and bemoaning that others do not worship them as such. In her spare time, Rand was an admirer of serail killer William Hickman (I'll spare you the details of his crimes save to say that they were brutal even by serial killer standards), describing him as "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy"; "other people do not exist for him and he does not see why they should" was her evaluation of his crimes and Rand considered this worthy of praise. Finally, on the personality factor, there is Failure to accept responsibility for one's actions. Since our record of Rand's life isn't fully detailed, it's difficult to say how much she satisfied this one. Certainly, when her lover Nathaniel Branden found another partner, she blamed him rather than herself or her increasingly poisonous views. We shouldn't sympathise with Rand as injured party too much here, she was herslelf married to someone entirely different and cruel enough to carry on the affair without regard to discretion. Indeed, if the only duty of the superman is to please himself, Brendan was acting according to Rand's ideals and she should have applauded him. She once said the the USA should be a "democracy of superiors only" with "superior" being defined as "rich". One scarcely needs to point out that such a system wouldn't be democracy at all but oligarchy and interestingly elitist for all her followers claim to despise elitism.
One doesn't need to work very hard to diagnose Rand. Her life and writings paint a vivid picture of psychopathy so clear and obvious that it is only surprising so many miss it. She was a phonomenally damaged woman for whom one can feel an element of pity (an emotion that disgusted her) even while aware of how terrifically dangerous she and her philosophy was and are. Rand herself died alone except for a hired nurse. Her deranged views had driven away anyone who might have been close to her. Like L. Ron Hubbard, however, her lunatic ideas have spawned a cult that would turn all of us into happy little psychopaths; a cult that includes many of the world's foremost economists, politicians and rabble-rousers (Beck again, although "intellectual terrorist" might be more appropriate). Like George Orwell, Rand imagined a dystopian world characterised by the powerful's exploitation of the powerless. Unlike Orwell, Rand wanted to live there.
Hear ye, hear ye, I come to bury Rand, not to praise her. While numerous conservative thinkers (and, oddly, Neil Peart) have lauded Rand as a philosopher, few academic institutions include Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical discipline. Conservatives, such as Chris Sciabarra, tend to believe that the academic left decries Rand due to her anti-communist, pro-capitalist slant. Like much of the witterings of conservatives who presume to know what the left things, that presumes firstly, more power than the academic left has had in decades; secondly, assumes that the left was universally pro-communist and anti-capitalist, something which has never been true and thirdly, that Rand was saying anything worth studying. She wasn't. Rand's "philosophy" was the same defence of endless greed which mankind has been engaged in for eternity, the same attempt to place a moral cover on pure selfishness that has long been pursued by any number of exploiters down the centuries. Nietzche was, and is, pilloried for saying "God is dead", Rand is lauded for effectively saying "the self is God". There is nothing new here, save perhaps for the self-delusion that allows so many professed "Christians" to adhere to a philosophy that glorifies greed and athieism. There is also a cult-like deification of Rand by her followers and "swarming" of those who dare criticise her which reminds one very strongly of Scientology (and Glenn Beck followers but that's another matter).
There is another name for those who hold that the only proper moral consideration is the happiness of the self; for those who view empathy and compassion as weakness; who view selfishness as the only virtue: Psychopaths.
Contrary to popular belief, the psychopath is not automatically violent. Rather, the psychopath is defined by a near-complete lack of empathy. Robert Hare (who created the widely used "Hare Psychopathy Checklist") describes psychopaths as "instraspecies predators" who use a combination of charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexuality and violence to satisfy their own desires. The more human qualities of conscience, empathy, remorse or guilt are either completely absent or extremely limited. It must be repeated that the psychopath is not necessarily violent. Indeed, many are not because their lives have never placed them in a position where violence was the only means to satisfy their desires. Many businessmen (and therefore, many politicians) profile as psychopaths because they exhibit the core characteristics or some section thereof. Ayn Rand should also be considered a psychopath.
Hare's checklist lists certain personality factors as indicative of psychopathy. The average person will perhaps exhibit one or, at most, two. The psychopath will exhibit all but on or two. In no particular order, these items are Glibness/superficial charm. After her writings became popular, Rand collected around herself a group of cultists who virtually worshipped her. However, shallow affect, the psychopath's charm is only ever superficial. As one comes to know and understand the psychopath more fully, the charm which initially attracted one to them is revealed as only skin-deep. In this, Rand was entirely textbook. She was described by most who knew her best as a bitter, friendless child who grew into an equally bitter and acidic woman. Grandiose sense of self-worth would certainly fit Rand. A woman who names her beliefs "Objectivism" out of a belief that any reasoning person who observes the objective truths of the world would necessarily come to full agreement with her would probably qualify. The fact that her little cult were required to memorise her works and discounted as "imbecilic" and "anti-life" if they asked questions simply seals the deal. Her sincere belief was that thinking freely would automatically lead to total agreement with her views. The ruthless policing of her cult would also qualify her under the Cunning/manipulative qualifier. Patholigical lying is one that Rand is probably innocent of. So far as we know, there is no reason to believe she was a pathological liar. Lack of remorse or guilt and Callous/lack of empathy could be described as "Ayn Rand syndrome". These two qualifiers are really the core of her books, philosophhy and worldview. In one of her books ([i]The Fountainhead[/i]), her "hero", Howard Roarke, blows up a housing project he designed when a minor alteration is made and then orders the jury to acquit him (the fact that, as an architect, Roarke was presumably contracted for his work and therefore, it wasn't "his" anymore piddles all over the supposed respect for property too). In Atlas Shrugged, her ode to the super-rich which imagines them going on strike against progressive taxation, Rand describes the rest of the world (without whom, let us not forget, the super-rich would be unable to make anything) is such niceties as "savages", "refuse" and "immitations of living beings". When one of the strikers engineers a train crash (because they don't just strike but commit acts of terrorism too), Rand makes it clear that she believes the murdered victims deserved their fate because they supported progressive taxation. A stewing hymn of Nietzchean will-to-power, misanthropy, failure to understand economics, feudalism and sexual politics verging on the obscene, Atlas Shrugged is full of this stuff. Her heroes spend their time both insisting that they are the heroic producers (and without labour, what are they producing exactly?) and bemoaning that others do not worship them as such. In her spare time, Rand was an admirer of serail killer William Hickman (I'll spare you the details of his crimes save to say that they were brutal even by serial killer standards), describing him as "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy"; "other people do not exist for him and he does not see why they should" was her evaluation of his crimes and Rand considered this worthy of praise. Finally, on the personality factor, there is Failure to accept responsibility for one's actions. Since our record of Rand's life isn't fully detailed, it's difficult to say how much she satisfied this one. Certainly, when her lover Nathaniel Branden found another partner, she blamed him rather than herself or her increasingly poisonous views. We shouldn't sympathise with Rand as injured party too much here, she was herslelf married to someone entirely different and cruel enough to carry on the affair without regard to discretion. Indeed, if the only duty of the superman is to please himself, Brendan was acting according to Rand's ideals and she should have applauded him. She once said the the USA should be a "democracy of superiors only" with "superior" being defined as "rich". One scarcely needs to point out that such a system wouldn't be democracy at all but oligarchy and interestingly elitist for all her followers claim to despise elitism.
One doesn't need to work very hard to diagnose Rand. Her life and writings paint a vivid picture of psychopathy so clear and obvious that it is only surprising so many miss it. She was a phonomenally damaged woman for whom one can feel an element of pity (an emotion that disgusted her) even while aware of how terrifically dangerous she and her philosophy was and are. Rand herself died alone except for a hired nurse. Her deranged views had driven away anyone who might have been close to her. Like L. Ron Hubbard, however, her lunatic ideas have spawned a cult that would turn all of us into happy little psychopaths; a cult that includes many of the world's foremost economists, politicians and rabble-rousers (Beck again, although "intellectual terrorist" might be more appropriate). Like George Orwell, Rand imagined a dystopian world characterised by the powerful's exploitation of the powerless. Unlike Orwell, Rand wanted to live there.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Now, Let's Do Communism
Having set the record straight on Naziism, it seems an obvious next step is to do Communism and to talk about communism, one must talk about socialism as the latter grew out of the former.
The basic premise of socialism is that the capitalist system concentrates wealth and power within a small ownership class which exploits the worker. That much is undeniable to anyone with functioning eyes but socialism then posits further that, by common or communal ownership of the means of production and distribution, the abuses of the capitalist system can be eliminated or, at least, minimised. The idea is that if the community (usually via the state) owns and operates a service and has no internal competitors (that part's important), then the state, as representative of the people, can allocate wages and rewards fairly. Over time, as these roles become ingrained, the need for the state to administer them gradually withers away and the state itself becomes redundant (as in, both unnecessary and out of work). One may agree or disagree with it but that's the theory.
It's worth pointing out that, on a small scale, socialism can work well. The traditional farmer's collective or British share fishermen (where each take a percentage of the collective catch) are examples of socialism working well on a small scale. They work well because there is an emotional tie between each member of the collective. One may feel that the nameless person collecting Social Security is a lazy scrounger but it's a bit different when it's Bob who you've known your whole life and know is laid up right now with a broken leg. Likewise, Bob himself probably would feel some guilt about ripping off his friends and/or family if he didn't attempt to make up his end of the collective bargain.
No-one really knows who first came up with socialist theory but the term was coined by Henri de Saint-Simon who, along with Friendrich Engels, laid the foundations of modern socialist theory (earlier forms, such as the aforementioned farmer's collective, go back to the Medieval Period). Various governments have experimented with socialism on a limited scale, generally with regard to the essential services too important to be left to the whims of the free market (something I extrapolate on in other essays). Sometimes, they have worked (Social Security in the USA, prior to it's demolition by George W. Bush; the NHS in Britain), other times they have not (the EU's Common Fisheries Policy is still a sore spot for many). Now, few of those are truly socialist as most have internal competitors which force the state-run option into a battle with private industry. For example, while the NHS covers the health needs of all Britons from birth to death, other companies offer health insurance in Britain and some operate entirely private hospitals. The result may be seen as an improvement on pure socialism. Pure socialism, due to it's lack of competitors, has a noted tendancy toward waste and abuse while the whims of an unopposed free market will always operate to maximise profits at the expense of the consumer (see the current health insurance situation in the USA, which resembles a lottery system for health). By having both socialised and private industries compete against one another, one forces the socialised industries to eliminate waste to remain competative but also forces the private firms to minimise the worst abuses to maintain their customer base.
Socialism is an economic theory. It has little to say about politics as the founders of modern socialist thought considered politics merely an extension of economic issues (and one can see their point). When you extend socialism beyond economics, you end up with Communism.
Communism is, in the simplest possible definition, an attempt to create a classless (meaning, lacking social classes rather than just crude), stateless, egalitarian society through the common ownership of not just the means of production and distribution, but all property and, unlike socialism, accepts that revolution may be necessary to bring this about. Whereas, in a socialist system, the worker would get paid for his endevours and then spend his wages on, say, a new pair of shoes; the worker in a Communist system would simply go and request a pair of shoes from the warehouse filled with shoes made by other workers. Again, the state required to administer this would gradually wither away as people adjusted to their roles and, eventually, the state would become entirely unnecessary and disappear. Far from wishing to expand government, communism regards government as simply a short-term necessary evil on the road to an anarchist collective utopia. If you're thinking that avowed Communist states have never worked out that way, you'd be entirely right. For that reason, this form of theoretical Communism is known as "pure Communism" or, more often, simply as Marxism.
Karl Marx was the man who, in conjunction with Friendrich Engels, essentially invented Communism. Contrary to popular belief, Marx wasn't some cackling psychopath but a man with a rather kindly, if also naive, view of human nature. Marx believed that the primary motivator in human history had been the struggle between social classes or, as we would define them, between the Haves and the Have-Nots (Like many men of his time, Marx defined social class purely in terms of wealth). By instituting a system whereby everyone held everything in common, that cause of conflict would be eliminated and peace would reign. Or, at least, that was the theory. Marx himself would have been appalled at what his ideas led to.
No nation in history has ever achieved Marx's form of "pure" Communism. Many observers (including myself) think that vision, although noble, is utterly unworkable for several reasons. Primarily, Marxism makes no accounting for human greed or laziness. The assumption is that the worker will want only that which they require and that everyone will do their fair share and yet, all of us know someone who lives only by the goodwill of others (and I'm not talking about those who have no choice such as the severely disabled). It doesn't account for the human capacity for stupidity and bad judgement that leads a man to squander his life savings on some addictive drug. While in many ways noble, Marxism was not very wise.
Those nations which have attempted to reach Marxist Communism have given birth to several variations. The form which most of us are most familiar with is the form which arose in the Soviet Union during the 1920s: Leninism or Bolshevism. Leninism may have been a genuine attempt to use violent revolution to achieve Marxist ends. It is primarily remembered for Lenin's belief that socialism was merely a middle form which would inevitibly lead to Communism. In this, he was entirely wrong but we'll get to that later. It's difficult for us to say how effective Leninism might have been because that period of Soviet history led directly, in 1928, to Joseph Stalin and the ideaology named after him. Stalinism had very little in common with Marxist thought. Rather, it embodied the worst excesses of both Communism and capitalism: An opressed working class kept deliberately ignorant; cults of personality and an intrusive police state. In every practical sense, Stalinism was an enlightened (for a given value of "enlightened" anyway) dictatorship. Far from the egalitarian vision of Marx, Stalinism led to an ever deepening chasm between rich and poor; the only difference was that the rich were also now the elite of the only political party allowed to exist. Some commentators have described Stalinism as a form of left-wing fascism but that's a perversion of the word. While both were highly authoritarian, fascism and communism are specific and quite different sets of reasons for being so.
There were and are many different minor variations of Communist theory; from Trotskyism to Maoism and Luxemburgism (named after Rosa Luxemburg and nothing to do with the country) to even forms of Christian Communism (contrary to popular belief, athieism, while the official position, was never a very major part of Marxist thought), but to spend much time dealing with them would be folly. Communism has been proven by history to be unworkable and to lead to undesireable and unpleasent results when it is employed on any kind of mass scale. The vision of Marx and Engels can be marked down as a classic case of "did not think this through enough".
I mentioned earlier that Lenin was quite wrong in his assertion that socialism was merely an intermediate step between capitalism and communism. I say this because history has proven it to be the case. In my own Britain, the Labour Party was explicitely socialist for most of it's existence. Clause Four of the Labour Party manifesto called for collective ownership of the means of production and distribution, a section that was only removed with Tony Blair's leadership of the party in 1994 (Blairites described it as the "new" Labour Party for exactly this reason). During it's time as a socialist party, Labour ruled Britain several times. Some administrations were good (Clement Attlee), others were bad and one (that of James Calaghan) was a disaster, but none turned Britain into the UKSR or even attempted to do so. The NHS ticks along year after year, decade after decade but it's staff have never mentioned a Bolshevik uprising. In the USA, Social Security operates as a partially socialised system. As does the Veteran's Association but neither have ever led to tanks in the streets and an all powerful police state (and, as mentioned above, that would be a perversion of Communism anyway). In fact, given the Constitution of the USA, it's citizens general attitude of "live free or fuck off" and the prevelence of firearms, it's difficult to see why the average American citizen is so terrified of socialism. Americans tend to treat socialism as something akin to a zombie-causing virus; a nightmare which, once admitted even slightly, will inevitibly transport the entire nation to 1955 Moscow. History, and the attitudes of most Americans say that not only will that not happen but that, absent a sea change in public values and morality, it cannot happen. And yet, we have, at time of writing, a whole cottage industry in the USA dedicated to describing the current president as a Communist. This is not just a perversion of the term but such wilfull and deliberate stupidity that one is tempted to suggest steralisation to avoid further pollution of the gene pool. Taking equity in a miniscule part of the economic structure cannot be described as socialism in any rational way, especially when there are still competing private companies. Rather, this assertion seems to be based entirely on the very short memory of many Americans and the fact that the administration preceding (that of George W. Bush) was inarguably the most right-wing in US history. Over the eight years of Bush's reign of error, the centre of political discourse seems to have been reset to somewhere around Attila the Hun. When the standard for political discourse is set by Dick Cheney, a man so cartoonishly evil that parody becomes impossible, even the moderate Obama looks like a raving radical of the left.
Finally, a brief word about the author's own preferences. I am not a socialist. I consider socialism to lead to waste and abuse. Nor am I anti-capitalist. I am anti-corporatist. I believe that corporations are, as Bierce said, "an ingeneous device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility". I shan't speak further on that here, see my other essays for elaboration. Which I am, in relation to this essay, is a believer in a socialised option in certain essential services (again, defined further elsewhere) whereby, the competition between private and socialised options benefits the consumer and keeps the abuses of both to a minimum.
ADDENDUM: In contrast to the delusional theories which Foxwood replied to my last entry with, Communism hasn't been "fashionable" in the USA since the mid-sixties and wasn't all that popular then. The hippies and flower children of the Sixties weren't Communists (unless, like Foxwood, you consider Joe McCarthy to be a role model), they were just pissed off with a political system which alternatively marginalised them or tried to send them to Vietnam to be killed. Contrary to the McCarthyite ramblings of Foxwood and his overlord, Glenn Beck, the president isn't a Communist, a socialist or even especially liberal; there aren't hordes of "godless commies" in the Obama administration or the schools, colleges or universities; the overwhelming majority of teachers and students at any level of education in the USA hold fairly conventional political beliefs and your country is about as far from Communism as it's possible to be and still be a functional democracy. Newsflash guys: McCarthy is dead, he was an evil monster when he was alive and he was and you remain, just plain wrong about absolutely everything.
The basic premise of socialism is that the capitalist system concentrates wealth and power within a small ownership class which exploits the worker. That much is undeniable to anyone with functioning eyes but socialism then posits further that, by common or communal ownership of the means of production and distribution, the abuses of the capitalist system can be eliminated or, at least, minimised. The idea is that if the community (usually via the state) owns and operates a service and has no internal competitors (that part's important), then the state, as representative of the people, can allocate wages and rewards fairly. Over time, as these roles become ingrained, the need for the state to administer them gradually withers away and the state itself becomes redundant (as in, both unnecessary and out of work). One may agree or disagree with it but that's the theory.
It's worth pointing out that, on a small scale, socialism can work well. The traditional farmer's collective or British share fishermen (where each take a percentage of the collective catch) are examples of socialism working well on a small scale. They work well because there is an emotional tie between each member of the collective. One may feel that the nameless person collecting Social Security is a lazy scrounger but it's a bit different when it's Bob who you've known your whole life and know is laid up right now with a broken leg. Likewise, Bob himself probably would feel some guilt about ripping off his friends and/or family if he didn't attempt to make up his end of the collective bargain.
No-one really knows who first came up with socialist theory but the term was coined by Henri de Saint-Simon who, along with Friendrich Engels, laid the foundations of modern socialist theory (earlier forms, such as the aforementioned farmer's collective, go back to the Medieval Period). Various governments have experimented with socialism on a limited scale, generally with regard to the essential services too important to be left to the whims of the free market (something I extrapolate on in other essays). Sometimes, they have worked (Social Security in the USA, prior to it's demolition by George W. Bush; the NHS in Britain), other times they have not (the EU's Common Fisheries Policy is still a sore spot for many). Now, few of those are truly socialist as most have internal competitors which force the state-run option into a battle with private industry. For example, while the NHS covers the health needs of all Britons from birth to death, other companies offer health insurance in Britain and some operate entirely private hospitals. The result may be seen as an improvement on pure socialism. Pure socialism, due to it's lack of competitors, has a noted tendancy toward waste and abuse while the whims of an unopposed free market will always operate to maximise profits at the expense of the consumer (see the current health insurance situation in the USA, which resembles a lottery system for health). By having both socialised and private industries compete against one another, one forces the socialised industries to eliminate waste to remain competative but also forces the private firms to minimise the worst abuses to maintain their customer base.
Socialism is an economic theory. It has little to say about politics as the founders of modern socialist thought considered politics merely an extension of economic issues (and one can see their point). When you extend socialism beyond economics, you end up with Communism.
Communism is, in the simplest possible definition, an attempt to create a classless (meaning, lacking social classes rather than just crude), stateless, egalitarian society through the common ownership of not just the means of production and distribution, but all property and, unlike socialism, accepts that revolution may be necessary to bring this about. Whereas, in a socialist system, the worker would get paid for his endevours and then spend his wages on, say, a new pair of shoes; the worker in a Communist system would simply go and request a pair of shoes from the warehouse filled with shoes made by other workers. Again, the state required to administer this would gradually wither away as people adjusted to their roles and, eventually, the state would become entirely unnecessary and disappear. Far from wishing to expand government, communism regards government as simply a short-term necessary evil on the road to an anarchist collective utopia. If you're thinking that avowed Communist states have never worked out that way, you'd be entirely right. For that reason, this form of theoretical Communism is known as "pure Communism" or, more often, simply as Marxism.
Karl Marx was the man who, in conjunction with Friendrich Engels, essentially invented Communism. Contrary to popular belief, Marx wasn't some cackling psychopath but a man with a rather kindly, if also naive, view of human nature. Marx believed that the primary motivator in human history had been the struggle between social classes or, as we would define them, between the Haves and the Have-Nots (Like many men of his time, Marx defined social class purely in terms of wealth). By instituting a system whereby everyone held everything in common, that cause of conflict would be eliminated and peace would reign. Or, at least, that was the theory. Marx himself would have been appalled at what his ideas led to.
No nation in history has ever achieved Marx's form of "pure" Communism. Many observers (including myself) think that vision, although noble, is utterly unworkable for several reasons. Primarily, Marxism makes no accounting for human greed or laziness. The assumption is that the worker will want only that which they require and that everyone will do their fair share and yet, all of us know someone who lives only by the goodwill of others (and I'm not talking about those who have no choice such as the severely disabled). It doesn't account for the human capacity for stupidity and bad judgement that leads a man to squander his life savings on some addictive drug. While in many ways noble, Marxism was not very wise.
Those nations which have attempted to reach Marxist Communism have given birth to several variations. The form which most of us are most familiar with is the form which arose in the Soviet Union during the 1920s: Leninism or Bolshevism. Leninism may have been a genuine attempt to use violent revolution to achieve Marxist ends. It is primarily remembered for Lenin's belief that socialism was merely a middle form which would inevitibly lead to Communism. In this, he was entirely wrong but we'll get to that later. It's difficult for us to say how effective Leninism might have been because that period of Soviet history led directly, in 1928, to Joseph Stalin and the ideaology named after him. Stalinism had very little in common with Marxist thought. Rather, it embodied the worst excesses of both Communism and capitalism: An opressed working class kept deliberately ignorant; cults of personality and an intrusive police state. In every practical sense, Stalinism was an enlightened (for a given value of "enlightened" anyway) dictatorship. Far from the egalitarian vision of Marx, Stalinism led to an ever deepening chasm between rich and poor; the only difference was that the rich were also now the elite of the only political party allowed to exist. Some commentators have described Stalinism as a form of left-wing fascism but that's a perversion of the word. While both were highly authoritarian, fascism and communism are specific and quite different sets of reasons for being so.
There were and are many different minor variations of Communist theory; from Trotskyism to Maoism and Luxemburgism (named after Rosa Luxemburg and nothing to do with the country) to even forms of Christian Communism (contrary to popular belief, athieism, while the official position, was never a very major part of Marxist thought), but to spend much time dealing with them would be folly. Communism has been proven by history to be unworkable and to lead to undesireable and unpleasent results when it is employed on any kind of mass scale. The vision of Marx and Engels can be marked down as a classic case of "did not think this through enough".
I mentioned earlier that Lenin was quite wrong in his assertion that socialism was merely an intermediate step between capitalism and communism. I say this because history has proven it to be the case. In my own Britain, the Labour Party was explicitely socialist for most of it's existence. Clause Four of the Labour Party manifesto called for collective ownership of the means of production and distribution, a section that was only removed with Tony Blair's leadership of the party in 1994 (Blairites described it as the "new" Labour Party for exactly this reason). During it's time as a socialist party, Labour ruled Britain several times. Some administrations were good (Clement Attlee), others were bad and one (that of James Calaghan) was a disaster, but none turned Britain into the UKSR or even attempted to do so. The NHS ticks along year after year, decade after decade but it's staff have never mentioned a Bolshevik uprising. In the USA, Social Security operates as a partially socialised system. As does the Veteran's Association but neither have ever led to tanks in the streets and an all powerful police state (and, as mentioned above, that would be a perversion of Communism anyway). In fact, given the Constitution of the USA, it's citizens general attitude of "live free or fuck off" and the prevelence of firearms, it's difficult to see why the average American citizen is so terrified of socialism. Americans tend to treat socialism as something akin to a zombie-causing virus; a nightmare which, once admitted even slightly, will inevitibly transport the entire nation to 1955 Moscow. History, and the attitudes of most Americans say that not only will that not happen but that, absent a sea change in public values and morality, it cannot happen. And yet, we have, at time of writing, a whole cottage industry in the USA dedicated to describing the current president as a Communist. This is not just a perversion of the term but such wilfull and deliberate stupidity that one is tempted to suggest steralisation to avoid further pollution of the gene pool. Taking equity in a miniscule part of the economic structure cannot be described as socialism in any rational way, especially when there are still competing private companies. Rather, this assertion seems to be based entirely on the very short memory of many Americans and the fact that the administration preceding (that of George W. Bush) was inarguably the most right-wing in US history. Over the eight years of Bush's reign of error, the centre of political discourse seems to have been reset to somewhere around Attila the Hun. When the standard for political discourse is set by Dick Cheney, a man so cartoonishly evil that parody becomes impossible, even the moderate Obama looks like a raving radical of the left.
Finally, a brief word about the author's own preferences. I am not a socialist. I consider socialism to lead to waste and abuse. Nor am I anti-capitalist. I am anti-corporatist. I believe that corporations are, as Bierce said, "an ingeneous device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility". I shan't speak further on that here, see my other essays for elaboration. Which I am, in relation to this essay, is a believer in a socialised option in certain essential services (again, defined further elsewhere) whereby, the competition between private and socialised options benefits the consumer and keeps the abuses of both to a minimum.
ADDENDUM: In contrast to the delusional theories which Foxwood replied to my last entry with, Communism hasn't been "fashionable" in the USA since the mid-sixties and wasn't all that popular then. The hippies and flower children of the Sixties weren't Communists (unless, like Foxwood, you consider Joe McCarthy to be a role model), they were just pissed off with a political system which alternatively marginalised them or tried to send them to Vietnam to be killed. Contrary to the McCarthyite ramblings of Foxwood and his overlord, Glenn Beck, the president isn't a Communist, a socialist or even especially liberal; there aren't hordes of "godless commies" in the Obama administration or the schools, colleges or universities; the overwhelming majority of teachers and students at any level of education in the USA hold fairly conventional political beliefs and your country is about as far from Communism as it's possible to be and still be a functional democracy. Newsflash guys: McCarthy is dead, he was an evil monster when he was alive and he was and you remain, just plain wrong about absolutely everything.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Nazis - Let's Get This Straight
OK, I'm now officially wanting to execute conservatives who keep rewriting the historical record with regard the the Nazi party, usually in hopes of proclaiming them far-left. This is both wrong and a lie. Normally, I'd allow the option of being misinformed but our history has been so heavily influenced by the Nazis (via WW2) and the history is so freely available that someone would have to go out of their way to avoid know the basic facts. Ergo, anyone who tells you this is lying, either explicitely or by omission.
First off, let's deal with the political ideaology of the Nazi party, since this might explain how an extreme-right party came to have the word "Socialist" in it's name (which is the one and only reason to even entertain the idea that the party was on the left). Essentially, the party was founded as the German Worker's Party in 1918 as a unification of the various German nationalist groups that grew up in the chaotic end of World War I. The original leader, Anton Drexler, formed a party platform which included social support to middle-class Germans of Aryan origin (which was the ONLY socialist part of the agenda), nationalism (which included, at that time, anti-semitic views), fierce opposition to both lasseiz-faire capitalism and communism and the glorification of the common "volk" (German for "folk" but carrying connotations of noble farmers and rural manual labour. The way Michelle Bachman uses "real Americans" has similar connotations). While explicitly opposed to communism, the DAP (German Worker's Party) also considered international capitalism as a tool of "international Jewry". From the very beginning, the DAP was opposed to any political ideaology which was non-nationalist and especially those on the left and fought bitterly with the DSP (Social Democrat Party) and KPD (German Communist Party).
Initially, the DAP was tiny. Perhaps to attract new members, the group changed it's name to the "National Socialist German Worker's Party" in 1920. Adolf Hitler was the 55th member. Through a combination of fiery oratory and ruthlessness, Hitler quickly became the dominant figure in the party and became chairman in 1921 whereupon virtually the entire socialist aspect of the party's ideaology was dropped. Thereafter, the party would be governed by the furherprinzip ("leader principle"). In short, what Hitler said was what happened. And Hitler was uninterested in the social welfare aspect of the platform (although it was left in the party manifesto to attract working-class members). Hitler's interests were German nationalism and Antisemitism. When the National Fascist Party rose to power in Italy under Mussolini, Hitler promptly stole a lot of their schtick, such as the brown shirts (the Italian's wore black) and the straight-arm Roman salute. The party continued to grow until they launched the disastrous "Beer Hall Putsch" (an attempted coup) in 1923, after which Hitler was imprisoned and the party was banned.
Hitler was released around Christmas of 1924 and the following year, he refounded the NSDAP. This time around, the party made a great pretence of disavowing force (although, like the British BNP, this was a transparent charade) and admitting women. It was around this time that the SA (stormtroopers") and SS (originally Hitler's personal bodyguard) were formed. Eventually, due to a coup in 1932 and the splintering of the opposition, the NSDAP essentially held power in the Rechstag (although not a majority, the intricacies of Reichstag politics meant that if the Nazis acted in conjunction with other nationalist parties, they could excercise power). In 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg and the rest is history.
Hopefully, that's somewhat clear now. Fascism is slightly difficult to define but some of the traits which are always included are that it always starts as a working-class, populist phonomena preaching a return to a glorious (and often mythical) past. It usually makes heavy use of whatever the dominant religion is and it is always violently nationalist. Naziism is right-fringe, is that clear?
Right, now for the religious element. This one has two main offenders: Christians who claim that the Nazis were athiests and athiests who claim they were Christians. The truth, as always, is rather more complex. There were four main strands of religious thought within the NSDAP. The first thought of themselves as "good Christians". To do this, they reimagined Jesus as an Aryan, threw out the entire Old Testament as a "Jewish book" and had some very creative interpretations of the New testament but nevertheless, they thought of themselves as good Christians. That faction was probably the majority of the parties rank-and-file, it's functionaries and pavement-pounders, it was certainly the majority of the German army under Nazi control. The second faction, which was probably the majority of the party elite, felt no real religious faith themselves but were more than happy to manipulate the faith of the masses to their advantage. It was probably this faction which was responsible for things like trying to "Nazify" Christmas by putting swastikas atop the tree and on ornaments (yes, that really happened; no, it didn't have much success outside the party). A third faction wished to destroy Christianity and replace it with a kind of pot-pouri paganism, stealing elements of Germanic and Nordic mythologies and relics and collecting and performing rituals with no real understanding of the underlying belief structure of those rituals. Finally, there was a faction of athiests who thought religion was a refuge for the weak. This lot were somewhat influenced by the philosophies of Nietzsche although those philosophies were twisted to adhere to Nazi ideaology (sadly, Nazi propoganda on this front has led to the majority of the public misunderstanding what Neitzsche was actually saying).
Now, Hitler himself made a great many remarks. Some (especially those in "Main Kampf" which was intended for public consumption) were supportive of the Nazi interpretation of Christianity. Others seemed to support paganism, attack Christianity or attack religion in general. Hitler never consistently supported any of the religious factions, instead manipulating and supporting whichever one fitted his purposes best at the time. The upshot is that we now have little idea what, if anything, Hitler actually believed. For every quotation one can find showing a disdain for Christianity, one can also be found supporting it. In the end, we have no idea.
So neither the Christians nor athiests are right to blame the other for Naziism. Both also fail to consider that, as in any fascist structure, understanding of Christianity or athiesm was always filtered through the lens of party ideaology.
EDIT: To reply to Foxwood's dimwitted comment. Obama is neither a Communist or a socialist. The only way to call him either is to completely ignore the actual meanings of the bloody words. Obama isn't even especially liberal, let alone a communist. And it isn't "in" to be a communist or even a socialist (Michael Moore no more represents the left than Ann Coulter represents the right). Fox News and Rush are lying to you. Obama is a very slightly left-of-centre moderate.
First off, let's deal with the political ideaology of the Nazi party, since this might explain how an extreme-right party came to have the word "Socialist" in it's name (which is the one and only reason to even entertain the idea that the party was on the left). Essentially, the party was founded as the German Worker's Party in 1918 as a unification of the various German nationalist groups that grew up in the chaotic end of World War I. The original leader, Anton Drexler, formed a party platform which included social support to middle-class Germans of Aryan origin (which was the ONLY socialist part of the agenda), nationalism (which included, at that time, anti-semitic views), fierce opposition to both lasseiz-faire capitalism and communism and the glorification of the common "volk" (German for "folk" but carrying connotations of noble farmers and rural manual labour. The way Michelle Bachman uses "real Americans" has similar connotations). While explicitly opposed to communism, the DAP (German Worker's Party) also considered international capitalism as a tool of "international Jewry". From the very beginning, the DAP was opposed to any political ideaology which was non-nationalist and especially those on the left and fought bitterly with the DSP (Social Democrat Party) and KPD (German Communist Party).
Initially, the DAP was tiny. Perhaps to attract new members, the group changed it's name to the "National Socialist German Worker's Party" in 1920. Adolf Hitler was the 55th member. Through a combination of fiery oratory and ruthlessness, Hitler quickly became the dominant figure in the party and became chairman in 1921 whereupon virtually the entire socialist aspect of the party's ideaology was dropped. Thereafter, the party would be governed by the furherprinzip ("leader principle"). In short, what Hitler said was what happened. And Hitler was uninterested in the social welfare aspect of the platform (although it was left in the party manifesto to attract working-class members). Hitler's interests were German nationalism and Antisemitism. When the National Fascist Party rose to power in Italy under Mussolini, Hitler promptly stole a lot of their schtick, such as the brown shirts (the Italian's wore black) and the straight-arm Roman salute. The party continued to grow until they launched the disastrous "Beer Hall Putsch" (an attempted coup) in 1923, after which Hitler was imprisoned and the party was banned.
Hitler was released around Christmas of 1924 and the following year, he refounded the NSDAP. This time around, the party made a great pretence of disavowing force (although, like the British BNP, this was a transparent charade) and admitting women. It was around this time that the SA (stormtroopers") and SS (originally Hitler's personal bodyguard) were formed. Eventually, due to a coup in 1932 and the splintering of the opposition, the NSDAP essentially held power in the Rechstag (although not a majority, the intricacies of Reichstag politics meant that if the Nazis acted in conjunction with other nationalist parties, they could excercise power). In 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg and the rest is history.
Hopefully, that's somewhat clear now. Fascism is slightly difficult to define but some of the traits which are always included are that it always starts as a working-class, populist phonomena preaching a return to a glorious (and often mythical) past. It usually makes heavy use of whatever the dominant religion is and it is always violently nationalist. Naziism is right-fringe, is that clear?
Right, now for the religious element. This one has two main offenders: Christians who claim that the Nazis were athiests and athiests who claim they were Christians. The truth, as always, is rather more complex. There were four main strands of religious thought within the NSDAP. The first thought of themselves as "good Christians". To do this, they reimagined Jesus as an Aryan, threw out the entire Old Testament as a "Jewish book" and had some very creative interpretations of the New testament but nevertheless, they thought of themselves as good Christians. That faction was probably the majority of the parties rank-and-file, it's functionaries and pavement-pounders, it was certainly the majority of the German army under Nazi control. The second faction, which was probably the majority of the party elite, felt no real religious faith themselves but were more than happy to manipulate the faith of the masses to their advantage. It was probably this faction which was responsible for things like trying to "Nazify" Christmas by putting swastikas atop the tree and on ornaments (yes, that really happened; no, it didn't have much success outside the party). A third faction wished to destroy Christianity and replace it with a kind of pot-pouri paganism, stealing elements of Germanic and Nordic mythologies and relics and collecting and performing rituals with no real understanding of the underlying belief structure of those rituals. Finally, there was a faction of athiests who thought religion was a refuge for the weak. This lot were somewhat influenced by the philosophies of Nietzsche although those philosophies were twisted to adhere to Nazi ideaology (sadly, Nazi propoganda on this front has led to the majority of the public misunderstanding what Neitzsche was actually saying).
Now, Hitler himself made a great many remarks. Some (especially those in "Main Kampf" which was intended for public consumption) were supportive of the Nazi interpretation of Christianity. Others seemed to support paganism, attack Christianity or attack religion in general. Hitler never consistently supported any of the religious factions, instead manipulating and supporting whichever one fitted his purposes best at the time. The upshot is that we now have little idea what, if anything, Hitler actually believed. For every quotation one can find showing a disdain for Christianity, one can also be found supporting it. In the end, we have no idea.
So neither the Christians nor athiests are right to blame the other for Naziism. Both also fail to consider that, as in any fascist structure, understanding of Christianity or athiesm was always filtered through the lens of party ideaology.
EDIT: To reply to Foxwood's dimwitted comment. Obama is neither a Communist or a socialist. The only way to call him either is to completely ignore the actual meanings of the bloody words. Obama isn't even especially liberal, let alone a communist. And it isn't "in" to be a communist or even a socialist (Michael Moore no more represents the left than Ann Coulter represents the right). Fox News and Rush are lying to you. Obama is a very slightly left-of-centre moderate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
