(I guessing my earliar post didnt get through?
I'm not going to re-write the whole thing over again. That was a waste of time!)
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Two points I will make.

1. The asatru pagan movement acts a lightning rod for fascist groups.

2. Many Asatru groups plays a passive complacent role that allows crypto fascist propaganda to be promoted.


(Keep in mind not all Asatru groups are fascist outfit although some are fronts for fascist groups.)

Theres more about Asatru that can be found over the net by yourselves.

[altreligion.about.com]

crypto-fascist propaganda could mean anything you take it to mean.

There is usually an underline message.

Do any of the messeges hit on any of these points.

(source)
[www.themodernword.com]

Eternal Fascism:
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt

By Umberto Eco
Writing in New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15. Excerpted in Utne Reader, November-December 1995, pp. 57-59.

The following version follows the text and formatting of the Utne Reader article, and in addition, makes the first sentence of each numbered point a statement in bold type. Italics are in the original.

For the full article, consult the New York Review of Books, purchase the full article online; or purchase Eco's new collection of essays: Five Moral Pieces.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
* * *

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.

Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.

In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.

Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.

That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

* * *

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

Umberto Eco (c) 1995

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Theodor W. Adorno | Textz.com | November 30, 1999
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Theodor W. Adorno

Anti-Semitism and Fascist Propaganda

The observations contained in this paper are based upon three studies made by the Research Project on Anti-Semitism<1> under the auspices of the Institute of Social Research at Columbia University. These studies analyze an extensive body of antidemocratic and anti-Semitic propaganda, consisting mainly of shorthand transcriptions of radio addresses by some West Coast agitators, pamphlets, and weekly publications. They are primarily of a psychological nature, although they often touch upon economic, political and sociological problems. Consequently, it is the psychological aspect of propaganda analysis rather than the objective content of this propaganda which is here under consideration. Neither a comprehensive treatment of the methods employed, nor an enunciation of a full-fledged psychoanalytic theory of anti-democratic propaganda has been aimed at. Further, facts and interpretations, generally known to those familiar with psychoanalysis have been omitted. The goal has been, rather, to point out some findings, which, however preliminary and fragmentary, may suggest further psychoanalytic evaluation.

The material studied itself evinces a psychological approach. It is conceived in psychological rather than in objective terms. It aims at winning people over by playing upon their unconscious mechanisms rather than by presenting ideas and arguments. Not only is the oratorical technique of the fascist demagogues of a shrewdly illogical, pseudo-emotional nature; more than that, positive political programs, postulates, nay any concrete political ideas play but a minor role compared with the psychological stimuli applied to the audience. It is from these stimuli and from other information rather than from the vague, confused platforms of the speeches that we can identify them as fascist at all.

Let us consider three characteristics of the predominantly psychological approach of current American fascist propaganda.

1. It is personalized propaganda, essentially non-objective. The agitators spend a large part of their time in speaking either about themselves or about their audiences. They present themselves as lone wolves, as healthy, sound American citizens with robust instincts, as unselfish and indefatigable; and they incessantly divulge real or fictitious intimacies about their lives and those of their families. Moreover, they appear to take a warm human interest in the small daily worries of their listeners, whom they depict as poor but honest, common-sense but non-intellectual, native Christians. They identify themselves with their listeners and lay particular emphasis upon being simultaneously both modest little men and leaders of great calibre. They often refer to themselves as mere messengers of him who is to come - a trick already familiar in Hitler's speeches. This technique is probably closely related to the substitution of a collective ego for paternal imagery.<2> Another favorite scheme of personalization is to dwell upon petty financial needs and to beg for small amounts of money. The agitators disavow any pretense to superiority, implying that the leader to come is one who is as weak as his brethren but who dares to confess his weakness without inhibition, and is consequently going to be transformed into the strong man.

2. All these demagogues substitute means for ends. They prate about this great movement’, about their organization, about a general American revival they hope to bring about, but they very rarely say anything about what such a movement is supposed to lead to, what the organization is good for or what the mysterious revival is intended positively to achieve. Here is a typical example of a redundant description of the revival idea by one of the most successful West Coast agitators: My friend, there is not but one way to get a revival and all America has got to get that revival, all of the churches. The story of the great Welsh revival is simply this. Men became desperate for the holiness of God in the world, and they began to pray, and they began to ask to send a revival (!) and wherever men and women went the revival was on’. The glorification of action, of something going on, simultaneously obliterates and replaces the purpose of the so-called movement. The end is that we might demonstrate to the world that there are patriots, God-fearing Christian men and women who are yet willing to give their lives to the cause of God, home and native land.’<3>

3. Since the entire weight of this propaganda is to promote the means, propaganda itself becomes the ultimate content. In other words, propaganda functions as a kind of wish-fulfillment. This is one of its most important patterns. People are let in’, they are supposedly getting the inside dope, taken into confidence, treated as of the elite who deserve to know the lurid mysteries hidden from outsiders. Lust for snooping is both encouraged and satisfied. Scandal stories, mostly fictitious, particularly of sexual excesses and atrocities are constantly told; the indignation at filth and cruelty is but a very thin, purposely transparent rationalization of the pleasure these stories convey to the listener. Occasionally a slip of the tongue occurs by which scandal mongering can easily be identified as an end in itself. Thus a certain West Coast demagogue once promised to give in his next speech full details about a phony decree of the Soviet Government organizing the prostitution of Russian womanhood. In announcing this story, the speaker said that there was not a real he-man whose backbone would not tingle upon hearing these facts. The ambivalence implied in this tingling backbone’ device is evident.

To a certain extent, all these patterns can be explained rationally. Very few American agitators would dare openly to profess fascist and anti-democratic goals. In contrast to Germany, the democratic ideology in this country has evolved certain taboos, the violation of which might jeopardize people engaging in subversive activities. Thus the fascist demagogue here is much more restricted in what he can say, for reasons of both political censorship and psychological tactics. Moreover, a certain vagueness with regard to political aims is inherent in Fascism itself. This is partly due to its intrinsically untheoretical nature, partly to the fact that its followers will be cheated in the end and that therefore the leaders must avoid any formulation to which they might have to stick later. It should also be noted that with regard to terror and repressive measures, Fascism habitually goes beyond what it has announced. Totalitarianism means knowing no limits, not allowing for any breathing spell, conquest with absolute domination, complete extermination of the chosen foe. With regard to this meaning of fascist dynamism’, any clear-cut program would function as a limitation, a kind of guarantee even to the adversary. It is essential to totalitarian rule that nothing shall be guaranteed, no limit is set to ruthless arbitrariness.

Finally we should bear in mind that totalitarianism regards the masses not as self-determining human beings who rationally decide their own fate and are therefore to be addressed as rational subjects, but that it treats them as mere objects of administrative measures who are taught, above all, to be self-effacing and to obey orders.

However, just this last point requires a somewhat closer scrutiny if it is to mean more than the hackneyed phrase about mass hypnosis under Fascism. It is highly doubtful whether actual mass hypnosis takes place at all in Fascism, or whether it is not a handy metaphor that permits the observer to dispense with further analysis. Cynical soberness is probably more characteristic of the fascist mentality than psychological intoxication. Moreover, no one who has ever had an opportunity to observe fascist attitudes can overlook the fact that even those stages of collective enthusiasm to which the term mass hypnosis’ refers have an element of conscious manipulation, by the leader and even by the individual subject himself, which can hardly be regarded as a result of mere passive contagion. Speaking psychologically, the ego plays much too large a role in fascist irrationality to admit of an interpretation of the supposed ecstasy as a mere manifestation of the unconscious. There is always something self-styled, selfordained, spurious about fascist hysteria which demands critical attention if the psychological theory about Fascism is not to yield to the irrational slogans which Fascism itself promotes.

What, now, does the fascist, and in particular, the anti-Semitic propaganda speech wish to achieve? To be sure, its goal is not rational’, for it makes no attempt to convince people, and it always remains on a non-argumentative level. In this connection two facts deserve detailed investigation:

1. Fascist propaganda attacks bogies rather than real opponents, that is to say, it builds up an imagery of the Jew, or of the Communist, and tears it to pieces, without caring much how this imagery is related to reality.

2. It does not employ discursive logic but is rather, particularly in oratorical exhibitions, what might be called an organized flight of ideas. The relation between premises and inferences is replaced by a linking-up of ideas resting on mere similarity, often through association by employing the same characteristic word in two propositions which are logically quite unrelated. This method not only evades the control mechanisms of rational examination, but also makes it psychologically easier for the listener to follow’. He has no exacting thinking to do, but can give himself up passively to a stream of words in which he swims.

In spite of these patterns of retrogression, however, anti-Semitic propaganda is by no means altogether irrational. The term, irrationality, is much too vague to describe sufficiently so complex a psychological phenomenon. We know, above all, that fascist propaganda, with all its twisted logic and fantastic distortions, is consciously planned and organized. If it is to be called irrational, then it is applied rather than spontaneous irrationality, a kind of psycho-technics reminiscent of the calculated effect conspicuous in most presentations of today's mass culture, - such as in movies and broadcasts. Even if it is true, however, that the mentality of the fascist agitator resembles somewhat the muddle-headedness of his prospective followers, and that the leaders themselves are hysterical or even paranoid types’, they have learned, from vast experience and from the striking example of Hitler, how to utilize their own neurotic or psychotic dispositions for ends which are wholly adapted to the principle of reality, (realit‰tsgerecht). Conditions prevailing in our society tend to transform neurosis and even mild lunacy into a commodity which the afflicted can easily sell, once he has discovered that many others have an affinity for his own illness. The fascist agitator is usually a masterly salesman of his own psychological defects. This is possible only because of a general structural similarity between followers and leader, and the goal of propaganda is to establish a concord between them rather than to convey to the audience any ideas or emotions which were not their own from the very beginning. Hence, the problem of the true psychological nature of fascist propaganda may be formulated: Of what does this rapport between leader and followers in the propaganda situation consist?

A first lead is offered by our observation that this type of propaganda functions as a gratification. We may compare it with the social phenomenon of the soap opera. Just as the housewife, who has enjoyed the sufferings and the good deeds of her favorite heroine for a quarter of an hour over the air, feels impelled to buy the soap sold by the sponsor, so the listener to the fascist propaganda act, after getting pleasure from it, accepts the ideology represented by the speaker out of gratitude for the show. Show’ is indeed the right word. The achievement of the selfstyled leader is a performance reminiscent of the theater, of sport, and of so-called religious revivals. It is characteristic of the fascist demagogues that they boast of having been athletic heroes in their youth. This is how they behave. They shout and cry, fight the Devil in pantomime, and take off their jackets when attacking those sinister powers’.

The fascist leader types are frequently called hysterical. No matter how their attitude is arrived at, their hysterical behavior fulfills a certain function. Though they actually resemble their listeners in most respects, they differ from them in an important one: they know no inhibitions in expressing themselves. They function vicariously for their inarticulate listeners by doing and saying what the latter would like to, but either cannot or dare not. They violate the taboos which middle-class society has put upon any expressive behavior on the part of the normal, matter-of-fact citizen. One may say that some of the effect of fascist propaganda is achieved by this breakthrough. The fascist agitators are taken seriously because they risk making fools of themselves.

Educated people in general found it hard to understand the effect of Hitler's speeches because they sounded so insincere, ungenuine, or, as the German word goes, verlogen. But it is a deceptive idea, that the so-called common people have an unfailing flair for the genuine and sincere, and disparage fake. Hitler was liked, not in spite of his cheap antics, but just because of them, because of his false tones and his clowning. They are observed as such, and appreciated. Real folk artists, such as Girardi with his Fiakerlied, were truly in touch with their audiences and they always employed what strikes us as false tones’. We find similar manifestations regularly in drunkards who have lost their inhibitions. The sentimentality of the common people is by no means primitive, unreflecting emotion. On the contrary, it is pretense, a fictitious, shabby imitation of real feeling, often self-conscious and slightly contemptuous of itself. This fictitiousness is the life element of the fascist propagandist performances.

The situation created by this exhibition may be called a ritual one. The fictitiousness of the propagandist oratory, the gap between the speaker's personality and the content and character of his utterances are ascribable to the ceremonial role assumed by and expected of him. This ceremony, however, is merely a symbolic revelation of the identity that he verbalizes, an identity the listeners feel and think, but cannot express. This is what they actually want him to do, neither being convinced nor, essentially, being whipped into a frenzy, but having their own minds expressed to them. The gratification they get out of propaganda consists most likely in the demonstration of this identity, no matter how far it actually goes, for it is a kind of institutionalized redemption of their own inarticulateness through the speaker's verbosity. This act of revelation, and the temporary abandonment of responsible, self-contained seriousness is the decisive pattern of the propagandist ritual. To be sure, we may call this act of identification a phenomenon of collective retrogression. It is not simply a reversion to older, primitive emotions but rather the reversion toward a ritualistic attitude in which the expression of emotions is sanctioned by an agency of social control. In this context it is interesting to note that one of the most successful and dangerous West Coast agitators again and again encouraged his listeners to indulge in all sorts of emotions, to give way to their feelings, to shout and to shed tears, persistently attacking the behavior pattern of rigid self-control brought about by the established religious denominations and by the whole Puritan tradition.

This loosening of self-control, the merging of one's impulses with a ritual scheme is closely related to the universal psychological weakening of the self-contained individual.

A comprehensive theory of fascist propaganda would be tantamount to a psychoanalytic deciphering of the more or less rigid ritual performed in each and every fascist address. The scope of this paper permits only brief reference to some characteristics of this ritual.

1. There is, above all, the amazing stereotypy of all the fascist propaganda material known to us. Not only does each individual speaker incessantly repeat the same patterns again and again, but different speakers use the same clichÈs. Most important, of course, is the dichotomy of black and white, foe and friend. Stereotypy applies not only to the defamation of the Jews or to political ideas, such as the denunciation of Communism or of banking capital, but also to apparently very remote matters and attitudes. We have summarized a list of typical psychological devices employed by practically all fascist agitators, which could be boiled down to no more than thirty formulas. Many of them have already been mentioned, such as the lone wolf device, the idea of indefatigability, of persecuted innocence, of the great little man, the praise of the movement as such, and so forth. Of course, the uniformity of these devices can in part be accounted for by reference to a common source, such as Hitler's Mein Kampf, or even by an organizational linking of all the agitators, as was apparently the case on the West Coast. But the reason must be sought elsewhere if the agitators in many different parts of the country employ the same specific assertions, e.g., their lives have been threatened and their listeners will know who is responsible if the threat is carried out - an incident that never occurs. These patterns are standardized for psychological reasons. The prospective fascist follower craves this rigid repetition, just as the jitterbug craves the standard pattern of popular songs and gets furious if the rules of the game are not strictly observed. Mechanical application of these patterns is one of the essentials of the ritual.

2. It is not accidental that many persons with a fake religious attitude are found among the fascist agitators. This, of course, has a sociological aspect which will be discussed later. Psychologically, however, the carry-overs of by-gone religion, neutralized and void of any specific dogmatic content, are put to the service of the fascist ritualistic attitude. Religious language and religious forms are utilized in order to lend the impression of a sanctioned ritual that is performed again and again by some community’.

3. The specific religious content as well as the political one is replaced by something which may briefly be designated the cult of the existent. The attitude which Else Brunswik has called identification with a status quo’ is closely related to this cult. The devices pointed out in McClung Lee's book on Father Coughlin, such as the band wagon idea or the testimony trick, implying the support of famous or successful people, are only elements of a much farther-reaching pattern of behavior. It signifies explicitly that whatever is, and thus has established its strength, is also right, - the sound principle to be followed. One of the West Coast agitators occasionally even directed his listeners generally to follow the advice of their leaders without specifying what kind of leaders he meant. Leadership as such, devoid of any visible idea or aim is glorified. Making a fetish of reality and of established power relationships is what tends, more than anything else, to induce the individual to give himself up and to join the supposed wave of the future.

4. One of the intrinsic characteristics of the fascist ritual is innuendo, sometimes followed by the actual revelation of the facts hinted at, but more often not. Again a rational reason for this trend can easily be given: either the law or at least prevailing conventions preclude open statements of a pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic character, and the orator who wants to convey such ideas has to resort to more indirect methods. It seems likely, however, that innuendo is employed, and enjoyed, as a gratification per se. For example, the agitator says those dark forces, you know whom I mean’, and the audience at once understands that his remarks are directed against the Jews. The listeners are thus treated as an in-group who already know everything the orator wishes to tell them and who agree with him before any explanation is given. Concord of feeling and opinion between speaker and listener, which was mentioned before, is established by innuendo. It serves as a confirmation of the basic identity between leader and followers. Of course, the psychoanalytic implications of innuendo go far beyond these surface observations. Reference is made here to the role attributed by Freud to allusions in the interplay between the conscious and the unconscious. Fascist innuendo feeds upon this role.

5. The performance of the ritual as such functions to a very large extent as the ultimate content of fascist propaganda. Psychoanalysis has shown the relatedness of ritual behavior to compulsion neurosis; and it is obvious that the typical fascist ritual of revelation is a substitute for sexual gratification. Beyond this, however, some speculation may be allowed with regard to the specific symbolic meaning of the fascist ritual. It is not wide off the mark to interpret it as the offering of a sacrifice. If the assumption is correct that the overwhelming majority of accusations and atrocity stories with which the fascist propaganda speeches abound, are projections of the wishes of the orators and their followers, the whole symbolic act of revelation celebrated in each propaganda speech expresses, however much concealed, the sacramental killing of the chosen foe. At the hub of the fascist, anti-Semitic propaganda ritual is the desire for ritual murder. This can be corroborated by a piece of evidence from the everyday psychopathology of fascist propaganda. The important role played by the religious element in American fascist and anti-Semitic propaganda has been mentioned earlier. One of the fascist West Coast radio priests said in a broadcast: Can you not see that unless we exalt the holiness of our God, that unless we proclaim the justice of God in this world of ours, unless we proclaim the fact of a heaven and of a hell, unless we proclaim the fact that without the remission, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin? Cannot you see that only Christ and God are dominant and that revolution will ultimately take this nation of ours?’ The transformation of Christian doctrine into slogans of political violence could not be cruder than in this passage. The idea of a sacrament, the shedding of blood’ of Christ, is straight-forwardly interpreted in terms of shedding of blood’ in general, with an eye to a political upheaval. The actual shedding of blood is advocated as necessary because the world has supposedly been redeemed by the shedding of Christ's blood. Murder is invested with the halo of a sacrament. Thus the ultimate reminder of the sacrificed Christ in fascist propaganda is Judenblut mu flie en’. Crucifixion is transformed into a symbol of the pogrom. Psychologically, all fascist propaganda is simply a system of such symbols.

At this point attention must be paid to destructiveness as the psychological basis of the fascist spirit. The programs are abstract and vague, the fulfillments are spurious and illusory because the promise expressed by fascist oratory is nothing but destruction itself. It is hardly accidental that all fascist agitators dwell upon the imminence of catastrophes of some kind. Whereas they warn of impending danger, they and their listeners get a thrill out of the idea of inevitable doom, without even making a clear-cut distinction between the destruction of their foes and of themselves. This mental behavior, by the way, could be clearly observed during the first years of Hitlerism in Germany, and has a deep archaic basis. One of the West Coast demagogues once said: I want to say that you men and women, you and I are living in the most fearful time of the history of the world. We are living also in the most gracious and most wonderful time’. This is the agitator's dream, a union of the horrible and the wonderful, a delirium of annihilation masked as salvation. The strongest hope for effectively countering this whole type of propaganda lies in pointing out its self-destructive implications. The unconscious psychological desire for self-annihilation faithfully reproduces the structure of a political movement which ultimately transforms its followers into victims.

<1> Authors: T. W. Adorno, Leo Lowenthal, Paul W. Massing.

<2> See Max Horkheimer, Sociological Background of the Psychoanalytic Approach’, Anti-Semitism: A Social Disease, ed. Ernst Simmel (New York, 1946), pp. 8 f.

<3> All quotations are taken literally, without any change, from shorthand transcriptions.
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Quote
Keir
2. Many Asatru groups plays a passive complacent role that allows crypto fascist propaganda to be promoted.

Most of the ones that I know want nothing to do with fascist groups. Maybe come up with a list of the ones that are fascist-friendly?

Quote
prozak

Quote
Keir
2. Many Asatru groups plays a passive complacent role that allows crypto fascist propaganda to be promoted.

Most of the ones that I know want nothing to do with fascist groups. Maybe come up with a list of the ones that are fascist-friendly?

I said "...PASSIVE COMPLACENT"
It does not neccesarily mean they are fascist friendly.

I'm sure there are fascist friendly asatru groups one can easily look up over the net themselves.

Quote
Noble9
"Complacency" implies there is an obligation to do something about factions within a belief group. Most members of a religion, however, probably don't get too heavily involved in the politics. Most just try to live their lives according to whatever doctrines are prescribed by their church, synagogue, etc. Radicals who identify themselves with a certain faith or political party generally are not representative of the larger organizations they claim to be a part of.

Does the average Christian speak out in protest against abortion clinic bombings? Do all Muslims demonstrate against suicide bombers? Does every Jew loudly condemn the actions of some of the Hasidic West Bank settlers? No, and neither do most of the organizations within these religions. But it would be foolish to think that their "passive complacency" implies that they support the extremists.

Passive complacency is only a problem when an extremist faction becomes very vocal and threatens to become representative of the ideology as a whole for outsiders. This happens simply because the extremists get more press coverage, not because they are a majority. Even still, you'd have to be pretty naive to think that every Muslim is a terrorist, for example. Or that all Voudun (Voodoo) practitioners practice human sacrifice. Likewise, racism certainly exists within the Asatru groups, but it is hardly representative of or condoned by the majority of its adherents.

Noble9

Many average Christians do have an opinion about abortion bombings though. Infact some have been vocal & stated it hurts their cause. The same could be said of Muslims & Jews.
No where did I say or believe every Muslim is a terrorist your words not mine.
No where do I say EVERY person who is passive compliant supports extremists. (I said "many". I didnt say "all")



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2010 03:11AM by Keir.

Quote
Noble9
Likewise, racism certainly exists within the Asatru groups, but it is hardly representative of or condoned by the majority of its adherents.
Noble9

READ what I also wrote "(Keep in mind not all Asatru groups are fascist outfit although some are fronts for fascist groups.) "


According to a study by professor Mattias Gardell (a Swedish expert on right-wing extremism at the University of Stockholm )

To qoute:
IR: How do you assess the relative size of these positions?
GARDELL: The racist position has grown tremendously fast in the last four or five years. The militant racists today probably make up between 40% and 50% of Odinists and Asatrúers. And I would say the anti-racist position makes up another 30%. And the remainder goes to the ethnics.

We are talking about somewhere around 40,000 people in the militant racist position. More than half of young people coming into the racist right are now pagans. Young people are not being drawn in by Christian Identity. Racist paganism is the most important radical religion today.
Intelligence Report, Spring 2001, Issue Number: 101



"The militant racists today probably make up between 40% and 50% of Odinists and Asatrúers."
Not a small number of adherents me think.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2010 03:23AM by Keir.