Sunday, January 24, 2016


242. What response to fascism?

Simon Critchley opened my eyes to a terrible insight[i]. He claims that the whole of Western thought, from Judaism, Christianity, and all through the Enlightenment, and in liberalism, has been an audacious saga, hubris, of a subject that is self-identifying, self-possessing, self-constituting, self-legislating, constituted by reflection, in sovereign freedom of reason, with spirit superior to the body and reality. That was also Kant’s ethical project: separation of freedom, in the ethical will, from causal necessity.

In contrast with liberalism, Hitler’s fascism saw the ‘elemental rootedness of the human being, identity of the self and the body, sensitive to the urgings of the blood and appeals to heredity. .. Man’s essence lies no longer in freedom but in bondage, with appeals to sincerity and authority’. [ii] There is a straightforward link from rootedness to nationalism. 

Now I also see more clearly the affinity between Nazism and Heidegger, in the embodiment and rootedness of the self, existing and developing by action in the world.

Much of it also lies in present postmodern philosophy and its modifications. If rootedness, in the body, history, and location, has philosophical justification as well as a deep emotional appeal to people, how can we proceed without falling back into the maws of fascism? It will no longer do to simply condemn the urges as irrational or counterproductive. That is precisely the liberal, Enlightenment view that is up for change.

Now, fascism entails more than just the rootedness. It also entails the rule by a charismatic leader who acts as the voice of the people, without need for intervening democratic procedure, and disdain for the ‘elite’ of elected and appointed officials. More ominously, it also entails, I think, a glorification of the existential kick of violence.[iii]

We witness populist right wing parties appealing to these urges. They have felt well these urges among the population, with fear of foreigners fanned by waves of terrorism and refugees.

I think that underlying this is something more basic. I propose that this lies in an instinct for ‘parochial altruism’ that I discussed in item 205 of this blog. To recall: humans (and several other kinds of animal) have an instinctive, probably genetically embodied, drive to extend altruism within the group, accompanied by suspicion towards outsiders.

Authoritarian leaders exploit these urges of rootedness and parochial altruism to reinforce and maintain their positions of power. Part of that is the classic stratagem of diverting internal discontent by attributing all wrongs to outsiders (preferable recognizable in a different appearance and conduct) and the apparent failure, the inevitable imperfection, of representative democracy. If only all the power goes to the leader as the voice of the people, who cannot be wrong, society would be perfect.   

So, is there a way out that takes into account the combined forces of biological, instinctive and political forces, answers to the philosophical arguments, and does not fall into fascism?

I don’t think we can go back to the illusions, the dreams of liberalism. I have no final solution, between liberalism and fascism. Is there a transformed liberalism that deals with the problems?

My hunch, developed in his blog, is that we may develop a combination of existential rootedness and an ethic of the self as opening itself to the other. Heidegger plus Levinas, so to speak. With a renewed love of the other, to relieve the phantom pain of Christianity cut off. The persistent drive of this blog is to explore that.   





[i] Simon Critchley, The problem with Levinas, Oxford U. Press, 2015. Concerning my quote in this piece, Critchley was inspired by an essay on Hitlerism by Emmanuel Levinas.
[ii] Critchley, p. 35
[iii] The term ‘fascism’ is derived from the Roman ‘fasces’, a bundle of sticks with a hatchet, carried in procession ahead of the magistrate, to be used for corporal punishment or decapitation at his command. It was a symbol for the Spanish fascists under Franco.

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