Pacific Views

Fascism and Sexuality

Orcinus speaks about the youthful Republican shock troops, those to whom Democrat=Communist. Whose rhetoric borders dangerously on fascism. It's curious to see this mindset develop in people, especially those who seem otherwise intelligent and well educated.

The still highly controversial "Mass Psychology of Fascism" by Wilhelm Reich was published in the original German in 1933. Whatever your opinions of him, presuming you've even heard of him, he was an eyewitness to the rise of fascism in Germany. He called it for what it was, and made no bones about the incredible similarity in authoritarian tactics being used by both the Stalinists in Russia and the Nazis in his native Germany.

He pinned the rise of this inimical mindset mainly on the pathologizing of human sexuality, and the use of sexual guilt as a means of control. But rather than elaborating further at this point, I offer you selected readings from a youth pamphlet handed out in Germany during the rise of National Socialism, as quoted in the "Mass Psychology of Fascism":

To Land or to Strand

Tho rocks are placed in the life of each man. he can land on them or be stranded on them, set himself right or be dashed to pieces: God and - the opposite sex. Countless young men are stranded or fail in life, not because they did not learn enough, but because they fail to gain clarity about God and because they cannot cope with the instinct which can bring man ineffable happiness, but also unfathomable misery: the sexual instinct.

Clarity. Failure not through lack of learning, otherwise known as ignorance, but a lack of what the Victorians liked to call 'continence.'

...Do you want to live your life as an animal or as a man of God?

We live in sick times. In earlier times, one demanded that eros be disciplined and made responsible. Today we are of the opinion that modern man no longer has need of discipline. In this regard, however, we fail to see that present-day man living in the big city is much more nervous and weaker of will and therefore requires more discipline.

Cast your eyes around you: It is not mind that rules in our fatherland. Unbridled drives have the upperhand, and omong our youth it is chiefly the undisciplined sexual drive, which degenerates into immorality. In the factory and in the office, on the stage and in public life, it is the spirit of the falf-world that holds sway; obscenity is the order of the day. and who can say how much joyous youthful pleasure goes to ruin in the plague-palaces of the big city, in the dance-halls and cabarets, pin-ball galleries and obscene moievs! The young man of today considers himself pretty clever when he adheres to the hedonist theory. in truth, however, the words of Goethe's Mephistopheles apply to him:

"He calls it Reason, using light celestial
Just to outdo the beasts in being bestial."

Two things, yes, two things render difficult the process of attaining manhood: the metropolis with its abnormal conditions and the demon in ourselves.

The country mouse went to visit the city mouse... Is it just me, or could this last have come from the mouths of any charismatic 'heartland' religious leader?

...Do you want, for the sake of a few moments of transitory pleasure, to ruin your body, character and soul - now and forever - or be saved, as long as there is still time?

I beg you - answer these questions honestly and have the courage to do what God has made clear to your conscience!

Chose honestly! Half-world or Over-world? Animal or Man of Spirit? Land or Strand?

It was Reich's premise that sexual rectitude (calling Senator Santorum) wasn't merely a quirky side dish of fascist and authoritarian governance, but its central underpinning. That it arises in a populace brainwashed into feelings of deep sexual guilt and dissatisfaction, people who would then judge all actions by the paradigm of sexual morality.

And how else do you explain a society who sees a sex act as a mortal sin, and the deaths of thousands as hardly worthy of notice? In what other type of social model is Clinton a rogue and Kissinger a statesman?

This is not to say that proponents of authoritarianism, are all sexually
upright, only that they favor it in others. People who've learned to repress themselves without the need of constant oversight make the best footsoldiers. And if they fall short of that impossible mark in thought or deed, their guilt only binds them more tightly to the cause.

Reich did not significantly address the role of violence and force in producing similar results, even though he barely escaped Germany after a 'shoot on sight' order was issued for him to the Gestapo. He appeared genuinely to regard violence and authoritarianism as mere symptoms of this unnatural character structure.

Religion Without Soul

It's unfortunate that religion gets dragged into these things, though as Stalinism would demonstrate, it isn't absolutely necessary. Yet a perverse conception of God as Big Brother produces a mental construct that regulates the individual's loyalties as surely as if an authority figure were physically present. If you don't have a SuperCop deity, the need for constant supervision becomes expensive in secret police and informants.

As perverse as it would be to argue that religion is the cause of fascism, it seems equally perverse to argue that it isn't appropriated as a convenient vehicle when the need arises. And it isn't about the teaching, but the sense of compulsion about it. A compulsion promoted by those who too often reject 'love your neighbor' as very difficult, and try to take the easy road to spiritual virtue by focusing on 'thou shalt not commit adultery'.

Another easy road to virtue in this warped system becomes the role of social enforcer. The original idea of working on one's own qualities becomes projected outwards, and is immediately corrupted, mistaken as a sign of high moral accomplishment.

This corruption of religion and demonization of sexuality transfers directly into an authoritarian social structure. In a society not physically afraid of secret police, their psychic terror is able to rein them in. Which is great if you're a proto-fascist looking to govern on the cheap.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should remark that I'm fully aware that Reich was considered something of a loon. But the way I see it, someone whose books the US government considered sufficiently dangerous to burn in the 1950's has something to say.

GP: Maybe you are just crazy.

Malaclypse the Younger: Indeed! But do not reject these teachings as false because I am crazy. The reason that I am crazy is because they are true.

    - The Principia Discordia