Sidebar
Browse Our Articles & Podcasts

Defining “The F-Word”

Fascism:  The Career of a Concept
Paul Gottfried
Northern Illinois University Press, 2016
207 pages
$45.00

A brief anecdote in the author’s introduction makes clear why tradition-conscious Catholics may find interesting this work by Jewish intellectual Paul Gottfried:

As a young, impressionable person, I was told by a family friend that an opera singer whose voice I greatly admired had become a “fascist.”  When I asked whether this singer was a devotee of Mussolini or José Antonio, I was told that the opera singer had recently converted to Catholicism.  Our family friend, who was a militant atheist, equated a singer’s religious conversion with an affirmation of the most extreme form of fascist enthusiasm.

2016-09-21_10-21-40Although he has no personal commitment to defend the Church, as a serious scholar Gottfried strenuously objects to emotive abuse of “the f-word,” and he does not believe things have gotten better since his youth.  Vladimir Putin is a fascist, say the Russian leader’s Western critics, because he jailed feminist activists for protesting before the altar inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the King.  Yet from hate speech laws in Europe to civil rights laws in America, the 21st-Century West likewise sees fit to impose limits on citizens’ behavior, choices, and freedom of expression.  So too did the governments of imperial China, the Plymouth Rock colony, and ancient Athens.  Maybe it is order as such which is “fascist”?

One of the most pertinent chapters of Fascism: The Career of a Concept deals not with fascism itself but with the concept’s weaponization by propagandists and social engineers.  At the highly influential Frankfurt School, Freudian and Marxist thought merged to produce antifascism, something Gottfried regards as an ideology – an “ism” – in its own right.  In their 1950 book The Authoritarian Mind, Frankfurt School luminaries like Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm took for granted that deference to authority represents a perilous first step toward a fascist state, and then took it upon themselves to liberate Americans from ostensibly proto-fascist ways of thinking, from deference to parents, pastors, and so on.  (In one study which appears to reveal more about its author than about its subject, Adorno saw fit to label a man “semifascist” for having questioned socialized medicine and the New Deal.)

How well the resultant atmosphere of political-correctness protects us from tyranny is debatable.  But it is certain that it stifles intelligent discussion, says Gottfried:

I think the term fascism has a specific historical meaning and should not be hurled at anyone who holds what are now unpopular opinions.  As a historic phenomenon, fascism has nothing to do with advocating an isolationist foreign policy, trying to restrict Third World immigration, or favoring significant income redistribution in order to achieve greater social equality.  I mention these associations because all of them are characteristic of recent, divergent attempts to identify fascism with whatever the speaker happens to dislike – and then belaboring his or her target with the accusation of sympathizing with Nazi atrocities.

While the reader hopefully already realizes that Catholic traditionalism is not synonymous with fascism, he is still likely to find this book informative.  Without glossing over the sinister turn Italy later took once it fell under German hegemony, or excusing colonialist aggression in Ethiopia, Gottfried reminds the reader that Mussolini at one time played a role on the international scene quite different from the one we would normally imagine for him:

Foreign admiration for the Italian national revolution reached a crescendo in the mid -1930’s when Mussolini took center stage as the leader of the anti-Nazi Stresa Front.  This united front under Italian initiative consisted of countries that opposed Nazi German belligerence, and it took shape after Hitler tried to topple the Austrian government in 1934 with internal assistance in Vienna.  Mussolini also created a helpful anti-Nazi image for himself by publicly deploring Hitler’s anti-Semitism.  At the same time he offered asylum to German Jews and allowed the Revisionist Zionists, who were well disposed to his rule, to train their forces on Italian soil.

Yet given the erratic nature of Mussolini’s administration, an understanding of fascism is best attained by considering not specific decisions but the movement’s underlying ideas.  In Gottfried’s analysis, the “generic fascism” of Mussolini may be distinguished from Nazism by what is absent, just as it is clearly distinguished from liberalism and socialism by what is present.  Fascist thinker par excellence Giovanni Gentile had no particular interest in eugenics or scientific racism, and was not only not attracted to anti-Semitism but actively opposed it.  What did drive fascism was a vision of history as a perpetual cycle, one comprised of periods of decadence punctuated by revolutions.  Like his leftist counterpart Karl Marx, Gentile drew inspiration from the notoriously opaque work of Hegel.  Where Marx dismissed Hegel’s pantheism in favor of atheism and materialism, Gentile advocated a politicized spirituality; where Marx predicted that class struggle would culminate in a utopian end of history, Gentile rejected the idea of progress altogether, forecasting instead the rise and fall of nations ad infinitum.  There is an inherent restlessness in Gentile’s doctrine.  “The nation as the state is only an ethical reality to whatever extent it can develop,” he proclaimed.  “A state that ceases to develop is doomed to death.”

Like most other modern ideologies, fascism included neopagan elements.  As Gottfried notes, both this neopaganism and Gentile’s Hegelianism “were seen as equally poisonous from the standpoint of the Catholic Right.”  Gentile was particularly enthusiastic about the Risorgimento, the revolutionary metamorphosis of Italy from a patchwork of independent principalities to a modern, centralized nation-state.  As those familiar with the history of Italian revolutionary hero Giussepe di Garibaldi are well aware, the emergence of the modern nation-state was also a triumph for anti-clericalism.

At best, then, the relationship between the Church and Mussolini’s regime would be a wary truce:

Gentile viewed the state, particularly once fortified with his philosophical work, as fully able to provide for the educational needs of the young.  He chafed at what he thought were the unjustified pretensions of the Church following the Lateran Pacts in 1929, particularly the Church’s insistence that it should be responsible for the moral formation of Italian children […] The Church and “the ethical fascist state” each claimed for itself the right to be the primary source of public moral education.  Either one or the other would have to yield, and there was no doubt whom Mussolini’s minister of education and chief ideologue thought should give ground.

Thus it is easy to see why Gentile is characterized as “a quintessentially modernist thinker,” someone who sought to create “a modern alternative to older, Catholic traditions of thought.”

If fascism is a distinct, modernist, neopagan ideology that proclaims an eternal cycle of decay, struggle, and renewal, contends Gottfried, then neither pragmatic anticommunist strongmen like General Franco nor “clerical fascists” like Engelbert Dolfuss or Antonio Salazar were true fascists.  Especially relevant to this point is the story of Dolfuss, the pious authoritarian Austrian chancellor who fought to maintain his homeland’s independence and identity.  Dolfuss used every power at his disposal to battle Anglo-American liberalism, the Communist organizations which sought to overthrow his government, and pro-Nazi groups which wanted to see Austria absorbed into the Third Reich.

Nazi agents assassinated him in 1934, a year which deserves more attention in modern-day history classes, especially Catholic ones, for it was only the ruthless elimination of Dolfuss that made possible the Anschluss – the portentous 1938 annexation of Austria by Hitler’s Germany.  Whatever we may think of his policies there can be little doubt that Dolfuss was a devoted son of the Church, or that he tried to preserve his native Austria by promoting subsidiarity and economic justice as best he knew how.  Far from being guided by Hegel or neopagan ideology, he relied instead upon Thomist thought, Catholic corporate theory, and the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI.  His character lies well beyond the limits of the liberal imagination, which cannot possibly conceive of someone rejecting both liberalism and Nazism.

The preceding has only addressed a few of the important themes and questions which appear in Gottfried’s book.  In Chapter Two, for instance, he introduces the reader to Hannah Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism, a theory which suggests that “radically antitraditional” Nazism had more in common with Marxist dictatorships than with fascists.  In Chapter Five he discusses efforts to form a Fascist Internationale to rival that of the Communists, and explains why such efforts failed.  In Chapter Six he discusses scholarship on the Falange.  Clearly Gottfried has investigated at length what “the f-word” actually means, which is more than one can say for the politicians and journalists who hurl it at one another.

 

18 thoughts on “Defining “The F-Word””

      • I surely wouldn’t, but I’d hardly consider a city-state-system or monarchy based on divine law to be realistic alternatives to the modern masonic state

        Reply
        • Yes, why? Especially considering the modern states pretty much operate like oligarchies anyway and replace the Divine law with a Freemasonic one.

          If you mean modern people won’t like it because Americanism, like Islam, has long psychologically conditioned them to hate Monarchies like Muslims hate the Trinity… Then well that’s really not an excuse…

          Prophecy indicates that we’ll return to monarchies in due time once the liberal democracies vote themselves into de-facto dictatorships and police states.

          Reply
          • Though you may object that he had little or no power, I have to remind you that from the beginning to the end of the fascist Ventennio, Italy was actually a monarchy. However, the mere fact that there’s a king on a throne (even if he does have power) is no guarantee of the Social Kingship of Christ. And the very St.Thomas Aquinas describes the best form of government as the balance point of the three natural forms (that is – democracy, oligarchy, monarchy). So, although I’m well aware of the prophecies about the coming of a just King and a Kingdom (just to name one, that of Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser), I frankly doubt he would come packed with knights, castles and moats (God operates miracles, not absurdities: there’s no simple going back to the past); and, what’s more, that king could well come into a fascist-like state. But as to that, for those of you who can, read the article, which explains it way better then I could.

          • Nobody said it would guarantee the Social Kingship of Christ. We can see this strictly from observing the Kingdom of Israel in Biblical times with its ups and downs

            Neither is anyone imagining the caricature you painted towards the end from Monty Python.

            We’re all for a modern version of Monarchy that has democratic representation etc. And I specify here that nobody elects the King, but rather that they elect representatives for them in the King’s court.

            The point being that fascism is not the sole alternative. And at the end of the day the Church chosen Monarchy as the best form of government because it represents the natural order of the world and of Heaven.

            Since the article you link to is in Italian, I unfortunately can’t read it.

          • Would you mind posting some links to saints’ prophecies concerning this? Also, would it be possible to get in touch with you through e-mail?

          • Yves DuPont’s book Catholic Prophecy is a good start. TAN Books published it a long time ago but I don’t know if they still do. Try googling it.

          • Yes, I am sorry, I just now saw this. They should be easy to find online, eg, if you search for “Great Catholic Monarch Catholic prophecy” usually it is found alongside the prophevies of the Church-restoring Angelic Pope. Anyway, there is a slew of documents on these prophecies in the book “Prophecy for Today”, a Catholic book you can find at Amazon.com. How can I send you my e-mail?

          • Nobody’s suggesting knights, castles, and moats. It’s very true that a just kingdom could emerge from a fascist-like state – that’s a possibility I think is more likely than any other route. Imagine if Franco had enthroned Xavier or Sixtus Henry, and the U.S. had permitted it (God knows how).

            Johnno: Democratic representation before the king, having no native authority apart from what the king may be accustomed to give – yes, this is a good thing. But the necessity to make a clean break with the present liberalism is so overwhelming that it seems expedient to have no democratic element at all at least for a time, so that it is perfectly clear that the civil power does not derive from the consent of the people.

  1. I’ve been saying for sometime that Hillary is a fascist for fascism is

    a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives

    of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government

    : very harsh control or authority

    Trump is far from being a fascist.

    Reply
  2. As a Catholic Falangist, this is timely for me. What does he have to say about the Falange, José Antonio Primo de Riviera, and Franco?

    Reply
  3. I will paraphrase Jonah Goldberg’s definition of Fascism, “A political system where the State and or a Party seeks to replace religious institutions (including the family).”

    I like Goldberg’s definition mainly because of his long historical treatise on the subject (Liberal Fascism). Fascism, he argues is mainly an American invention. Having its roots ultimately in the religious activism of late 19th Century Protestantism, Fascism was both an intellectual and political movement, which attempted to circumvent our slogging Constitutional Republic. In order to achieve their ends, the original theorists like Ely argued, that the State must co-opt religious belief, and eventually replace it. For, what is needed is the intensity and Faith of the believer as applied to our political system. And to achieve this, many if not most of the Bill of Rights would have to be abrogated. The very idea of Federalsim (the separations of powers) is anathema to Fascism. The State and the Party would dictate to the “people”. Life, its meaning, it’s raison d’etre would revolve around the State. The family would be transformed and the rights of parents would be superseded by an all powerful yet benevolent State. All of this was prophesied by the early Progressives. Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Benito Mussolini were the first major political figures to put these ideas into action. Mussolini dubbed it not Progressivism, but Fascism. Until Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, Fascism was considered a good thing by many political intellectuals and politicians.

    Classical Liberal thought, which taught to separate and dilute powers, prevented radical changes either Left or Right to our way of life. The Bill of Rights were another layer of protection. For Libertarian Conservatives, the rise of Fascism has been a disaster. The expansion of the federal government at the expense of the states and individual rights has been the trend since Woodrow Wilson.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Popular on OnePeterFive

Share to...