{"id":339,"date":"2009-08-11T16:32:33","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T16:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/08\/paganism-fascism-and-america-part-i-of-2.html"},"modified":"2009-08-11T16:32:33","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T16:32:33","slug":"paganism-fascism-and-america-part-i-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/08\/paganism-fascism-and-america-part-i-of-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Paganism, Fascism, and America, Part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

This will be a two-part mini essay
\ngiving a Pagan perspective on Fascism. Part II in particular will present arguments not likely to be made by either secularists or Christians,
\nalthough Pagans do not have a monopoly on the points I have in mind.
\nPart I will also address the relationship of Paganism to Fascism, although in a
\nmore traditional way.  It lays the foundation for Part 2.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nPeople who don’t know much history,
\nor are blinded by their ideological preconceptions, have often argued that
\nPagan religion has a tendency towards devolving into Fascism.  <\/span>I’ve encountered such stuff over the
\nyears, and had a debate with Peter Staudenmaier <\/a>in the journal Pomegranate<\/a>   <\/span><\/span>on this issue with special reference to environmentalism. <\/p>\n

Frosting and Cakes
<\/b>As examples to buttress their case,
\nour critics point to the Nazi use of the swastika <\/a>an ancient and (before the Nazis) very popular symbol. Some Nazis were also
\nintrigued by the Pagan Germanic deities, with Heinrich Himmler<\/a>,  <\/span><\/span>head of the SS, being the most important. There are continual
\nreports of Hitler’s being interested in the occult, and while to the best of my
\nknowledge these reports are grotesque exaggerations, to the degree they are
\ntrue, because many contemporary Pagans (including this one) <\/span>came to this path by way of the occult,
\nsome people claim there is a connection. 
\n<\/span>To these examples we can add some explicitly racist Aasatru groups (NOT
\nall by ANY means) <\/span>and nationalist
\nPagan movements in eastern Europe examples where Paganism and fascism might
\npotentially reinforce one another.  <\/p>\n

But those who point to these
\nfactors completely confuse the frosting with the cake.  <\/span>We would make the same mistake today
\nwere we to associate Christianity, or even groups like Fundamentalists, with
\nthe Fascist rumblings now emerging from the radical right and their many
\nenablers. America’s right-wing fascists and proto-fascists are about as
\nChristian in the traditional sense of the term as Heinrich Himmler was a Pagan.  <\/span>Something else is going on.  <\/p>\n

Ritual, Symbol, and Resentment
<\/b>There is most definitely a
\nquasi-religious redemptive appeal to fascism for many people, but what this
\nappeal is to is not religious in the Christian sense, and only by a very strange
\nroute, in a Pagan sense.  <\/span>Part 2
\nwill explore this issue.<\/p>\n

In an earlier post I brought my readers’
\nattention to a post on Alternet <\/a>by Sara Robinson.  <\/span>I agree with her that Robert
\nPaxton’s book The Anatomy of Fascism<\/a>,  <\/span>is the best general study of this
\nproblem.  <\/span>With her, I quote his
\nbrief definition of the thing. 
\n<\/span>Fascism is
 <\/p>\n

a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandon democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span>In this post I want to emphasize
\nthis obsession with victimhood, humiliation, and decline of the community.  <\/span>This complex of beliefs provides the
\nemotional basis for fascism.  <\/span>It is
\nthe frame of mind able to so fill people with resentment and anger that their
\nreasonable faculties are overwhelmed. 
\n<\/span>All that needs doing then is to push the appropriate buttons.  <\/span>This is why fascist movements are so
\ncompletely irrational.<\/p>\n

Because they are irrational their
\nleaders need other means to instill loyalty, preferably fanatical loyalty. And
\nas any experienced Pagan knows, ritual moves the mind from rational analysis
\ntowards other kinds of experience.<\/p>\n

Fascist movements of the past have
\ninvested heavily in ritual events that give a sense of energetic unity and
\npower that overwhelms people’s critical faculties.  <\/span>They make use of symbols for the same reason, especially
\npowerful symbols that do not have to be religious at all.  <\/span>Mussolini’s symbol for fascism, the
\nfasces<\/a>,
\nhearkened back to Roman power, when the Italian peninsula ruled much of the
\nworld around it, not to Roman religion. 
\n<\/span>In Romania the fascist party was named the “Legion of the Archangel
\nMichael” and Belgium’s fascist movement of the 1930s grew out of an
\norganization of Catholic students and a Catholic publishing house. (Paxton, p.
\n73).<\/p>\n

The contemporary emphasis on flags,
\ncrosses, collective prayer, and the Founding Fathers as symbols of a lost American
\npurity and nobility (while ignoring what they actually believed) are a hint of
\nwhat is to come in pageantry and theater if America’s fascist rumblings develop
\ninto a full fledged fascist movement. 
\n<\/span>Note that flags, crosses, and collective prayer are not Pagan
\nsymbols.  <\/span>Fascism makes use of
\nwhatever symbols a society has that elicit unthinking loyalty. So long as
\nAmerican fascists use swastikas, they will be irrelevant except for acts of
\nviolence. When they do, as they are now, start using crosses, flags, and public
\nprayers, then they are finally beginning to merge with the  elements
\nof American society vulnerable to their appeal.<\/p>\n

Who Is Attracted?
<\/b>Fascism is first and foremost a philosophy
\nof victimization.  <\/span>It’s emotional
\nappeal is to victims, and its style of appeal is focused on the powerless, not
\nthe powerful.  <\/span>But they are a
\nspecial kind of victim.<\/p>\n

A while ago a very interesting article<\/a> appeared demonstrating that feelings of powerlessness led to a greater tendency towards superstition, conspiracy theories, and false conclusions.  I think these findings shed considerable light on the root causes of America’s fascist rumblings.<\/p>\n

As our institutions have become increasingly removed from sensitivity towards real people we increasingly feel utterly powerless in society.  While often not as powerless as we feel, our actual influence is often indirect and takes a long time to manifest.  And often we are as powerless as we feel.  The conservative and mainstream media encourage this perception for various reasons.  But one result is to gradually build a social powder keg of people who feel powerless and filled with resentment over it.  What is especially significant is that they are not the traditionally exploited.  <\/p>\n

While full of complaints about how they have been mistreated by other groups, almost without exception the people attracted to fascism are not Black, Hispanic, Native American, or non-Christian.  And they are disproportionately male.  They are part of what had traditionally been considered the mainstream.<\/p>\n

The groups they accuse of
\noppressing them have historically been very weak, and only recently began to
\nachieve greater acceptance.  <\/span>Jews
\nin Germany were such a case, as are Blacks and Hispanics in America.  <\/span>In both countries women were also achieving
\ngreater independence, threatening traditional male fantasies.  <\/span>Here is where we as a community need to
\nbe very aware.  <\/span>We and other
\nnon-Christians are rapidly becoming more accepted and visible, and as we do we
\ncan expect similar attention.<\/p>\n

The rank and file fascist has been
\nvictimized, but does not look very closely at where their oppression is coming
\nfrom.  <\/span>While fascists make
\nrhetorical flourishes against bankers and big businessmen, no where have
\nfascists ever really taken them on, even when in power.  <\/span>Rather, they focus on groups weaker
\nthan they who seem to be gaining strength.  <\/span>Since they are being victimized while some other group is
\ngrowing in power, obviously the group growing in power is the villain.<\/p>\n

With this observation we dig to a
\ndeeper level of the fascist appeai.<\/p>\n

Future fascists do not so much
\nresent being subordinated by others as from losing their sense that others are subordinated
\nto them, so they are not at the bottom of the pecking order.  <\/span>They accept their place with ‘their
\nbetters’ but resent not being recognized by inferiors who also accept their
\nplace.<\/p>\n

This gives us a clue to what I
\nbelieve the real “religion” of fascism is: unity in hierarchy devoted to Power
\nand Domination.  <\/span>Power and Domination
\nare their Gods.  <\/span>Part 2 will
\nexplore this issue further.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b>: I have made very small grammatical improvements from when this was first posted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This will be a two-part mini essay giving a Pagan perspective on Fascism. Part II in particular will present arguments not likely to be made by either secularists or Christians, although Pagans do not have a monopoly on the points I have in mind. 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