Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda1
During the past decade the nature and content of the speeches and pamphlets of American fascist agitators have been subjected to intensive research by social scientists. Some of these studies, undertaken along the lines of content analysis, have finally led to a comprehensive presentation in the book, Prophets of Deceit, by L. Lowenthal and N. Guterman.2 The over-all picture obtained is characterized by two main features. First, with the exception of some bizarre and completely negative recommendations: to put aliens into concentration camps or to expatriate Zionists, fascist propaganda material in this country is little concerned with concrete and tangible political issues. The overwhelming majority of all agitators' statements are directed ad hominem. They are obviously based on psychological calculations rather than on the intention to gain followers through the rational statement of rational aims. The term »rabble rouser,« though objectionable because of its inherent contempt of the masses as such, is adequate insofar as it expresses the atmosphere of irrational emotional aggressiveness purposely promoted by our would-be Hitlers. If it is an impudence to call people »rabble,« it is precisely the aim of the agitator to transform the very same people into »rabble,« i.e., crowds bent to violent action without any sensible political aim, and to create the atmosphere of the pogrom. The universal purpose of these agitators is to instigate methodically what, since Gustave Le Bon's famous book, is commonly known as »the psychology of the masses.«
Second, the agitators' approach is truly systematical and follows a rigidly set pattern of clear-cut »devices.« This does not merely pertain to the ultimate unity of the political purpose: the abolition of democracy through mass support against the democratic principle, but even more so to the intrinsic nature of the content and presentation of propaganda itself. The similarity of the utterances of various agitators, from much-publicized figures such as Coughlin and Gerald Smith to provincial small-time hate mongers, is so great that it suffices in principle to analyze the statements of one of them in order to know them all.3 Moreover, the speeches themselves are so monotonous that one meets with endless repetitions as soon as one is acquainted with the very limited number of stock devices. As a matter of fact, constant reiteration and scarcity of ideas are indispensable ingredients of the entire technique.
While the mechanical rigidity of the pattern is obvious and itself the expression of certain psychological aspects of fascist mentality, one cannot help feeling that propaganda material of the fascist brand forms a structural unit with a total common conception, be it conscious or unconscious, which determines every word that is said. This structural unit seems to refer to the implicit political conception as well as to the psychological essence. So far, only the detached and in a way isolated nature of each device has been given scientific attention; the psychoanalytic connotations of the devices have been stressed and elaborated. Now that the elements have been cleared up sufficiently, the time has come to focus attention on the psychological system as such – and it may not be entirely accidental that the term summons the association of paranoia – which comprises and begets these elements. This seems to be the more appropriate since otherwise the psychoanalytic interpretation of the individual devices will remain somewhat haphazard and arbitrary. A kind of theoretical frame of reference will have to be evolved. Inasmuch as the individual devices call almost irresistibly for psychoanalytic interpretation, it is but logical to postulate that this frame of reference should consist of the application of a more comprehensive, basic psychoanalytic theory to the agitator's over-all approach.
Such a frame of reference has been provided by Freud himself in his book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, published in English as early as 1922, and long before the danger of German fascism appeared to be acute.4 It is not an overstatement if we say that Freud, though he was hardly interested in the political phase of the problem, clearly foresaw the rise and nature of fascist mass movements in purely psychological categories. If it is true that the analyst's unconscious perceives the unconscious of the patient, one may also presume that his theoretical intuitions are capable of anticipating tendencies still latent on a rational level but manifesting themselves on a deeper one. It may not have been perchance that after the first World War Freud turned his attention to narcissism and ego problems in the specific sense. The mechanisms and instinctual conflicts involved evidently play an increasingly important role in the present epoch, whereas, according to the testimony of practicing analysts, the »classical« neuroses such as conversion hysteria, which served as models for the method, now occur less frequently than at the time of Freud's own development when Charcot dealt with hysteria clinically and Ibsen made it the subject matter of some of his plays. According to Freud the problem of mass psychology is closely related to the new type of psychological affliction so characteristic of the era which for socio-economic reasons witnesses the decline of the individual and his subsequent weakness. While Freud did not concern himself with the social changes, it may be said that he developed within in the monadological confines of the individual the traces of its profound crisis and willingness to yield unquestioningly to powerful outside, collective agencies. Without ever devoting himself to the study of contemporary social developments, Freud has pointed to historical trends through the development of his own work, the choice of his subject matters, and the evolution of guiding concepts.
The method of Freud's book constitutes a dynamic interpretation of Le Bon's description of the mass mind and a critique of a few dogmatic concepts – magic words, as it were – which are employed by Le Bon and other pre-analytic psychologists as though they were keys for some startling phenomena. Foremost among these concepts is that of suggestion which, incidentally, still plays a large role as a stopgap in popular thinking about the spell exercised by Hitler and his like over the masses. Freud does not challenge the accuracy of Le Bon's well-known characterizations of masses as being largely de-individualized, irrational, easily influenced, prone to violent action and altogether of a regressive nature. What distinguishes him from Le Bon is rather the absence of the traditional contempt for the masses which is the thema probandum of most of the older psychologists. Instead of inferring from the usual descriptive findings that the masses are inferior per se and likely to remain so, he asks in the spirit of true enlightenment: what makes the masses into masses? He rejects the easy hypothesis of a social or herd instinct, which for him denotes the problem and not its solution. In addition to the purely psychological reasons he gives for this rejection one might say, that he is on safe ground also from the sociological point of view. The straightforward comparison of modern mass formations with biological phenomena can hardly be regarded as valid since the members of contemporary masses are, at least prima facie individuals, the children of a liberal, competitive and individualistic society, and conditioned to maintain themselves as independent, self-sustaining units; they are continuously admonished to be »rugged« and warned against surrender. Even if one were to assume that archaic, pre-individual instincts survive, one could not simply point to this inheritance but would have to explain why modern men revert to patterns of behavior which flagrantly contradict their own rational level and the present stage of enlightened technological civilization. This is precisely what Freud wants to do. He tries to find out which psychological forces result in the transformation of individuals into a mass. »If the individuals in the group are combined into a unity, there must surely be something to unite them, and this bond might be precisely the thing that is characteristic of a group.«5 This quest, however, is tantamount to an exposition of the fundamental issue of fascist manipulation. For the fascist demagogue, who has to win the support of millions of people for aims largely incompatible with their own rational self-interest, can do so only by artificially creating the bond Freud is looking for. If the demagogues' approach is at all realistic – and their popular success leaves no doubt that it is – it might be hypothesized that the bond in question is the very same the demagogue tries to produce synthetically; in fact, that it is the unifying principle behind his various devices.
In accordance with general psychoanalytic theory, Freud believes that the bond which integrates individuals into a mass, is of a libidinal nature. Earlier psychologists have occasionally hit upon this aspect of mass psychology. »In McDougall's opinion men's emotions are stirred in a group to a pitch that they seldom or never attain under other conditions; and it is a pleasurable experience for those who are concerned to surrender themselves so unreservedly to their passions and thus to become merged in the group and to lose the sense of the limits of their individuality.«6 Freud goes beyond such observations by explaining the coherence of masses altogether in terms of the pleasure principle, that is to say, the actual or vicarious gratifications individuals obtain from surrendering to a mass. Hitler, by the way, was well aware of the libidinal source of mass formation through surrender when he attributed specifically female, passive features to the participants of his meetings, and thus also hinted at the role of unconscious homosexuality in mass psychology.7 The most important consequence of Freud's introduction of libido into group psychology is that the traits generally ascribed to masses lose the deceptively primordial and irreducible character reflected by the arbitrary construct of specific mass or herd instincts. The latter are effects rather than causes. What is peculiar to the masses is, according to Freud, not so much a new quality as the manifestation of old ones usually hidden. »From our point of view we need not attribute so much importance to the appearance of new characteristics. For us it would be enough to say that in a group the individual is brought under conditions which allow him to throw off the repressions of his unconscious instincts.«8 This does not only dispense with auxiliary hypotheses ad hoc but also does justice to the simple fact that those who become submerged in masses are not primitive men but display primitive attitudes contradictory to their normal rational behavior. Yet, even the most trivial descriptions leave no doubt about the affinity of certain peculiarities of masses to archaic traits. Particular mention should be made here of the potential short cut from violent emotions to violent actions stressed by all authors on mass psychology, a phenomenon which in Freud's writings on primitive cultures leads to the assumption that the murder of the father of the primary horde is not imaginary but corresponds to prehistoric reality. In terms of dynamic theory the revival of such traits has to be understood as the result of a conflict. It may also help to explain some of the manifestations of fascist mentality which could hardly be grasped without the assumption of an antagonism between varied psychological forces. One has to think here above all of the psychological category of destructiveness with which Freud dealt in his Civilization and its Discontent. As a rebellion against civilization fascism is not simply the reoccurrence of the archaic but its reproduction in and by civilization itself. It is hardly adequate to define the forces of fascist rebellion simply as powerful id energies which throw off the pressure of the existing social order. Rather, this rebellion borrows its energies partly from other psychological agencies which are pressed into the service of the unconscious.
Since the libidinal bond between members of masses is obviously not of an uninhibited sexual nature, the problem arises as to which psychological mechanisms transform primary sexual energy into feelings which hold masses together. Freud copes with the problem by analyzing the phenomena covered by the terms suggestion and suggestibility. He recognizes suggestion as the »shelter« or »screen« concealing »love relationships.« It is essential that the »love relationship« behind suggestion remains unconscious.9 Freud dwells on the fact that in organized groups such as the Army or the Church there is either no mention of love whatsoever between the members, or it is expressed only in a sublimated and indirect way, through the mediation of some religious image in the love of whom the members unite and whose all-embracing love they are supposed to imitate in their attitude towards each other. It seems significant that in today's society with its artificially integrated fascist masses reference to love is almost completely excluded.10 Hitler shunned the traditional role of the loving father and replaced it entirely by the negative one of threatening authority. The concept of love was relegated to the abstract notion of Germany and seldom mentioned without the epithet of »fanatical« through which even this love obtained a ring of hostility and aggressiveness against those not encompassed by it. It is one of the basic tenets of fascist leadership to keep primary libidinal energy on an unconscious level so as to divert its manifestations in a way suitable to political ends. The less an objective idea such as religious salvation plays a role in mass formation, and the more mass manipulation becomes the sole aim, the more thoroughly uninhibited love has to be repressed and moulded into obedience. There is too little in the content of fascist ideology that could be loved.
The libidinal pattern of fascism and the entire technique of fascist demagogues are authoritarian. This is where the techniques of the demagogue and the hypnotist coincide with the psychological mechanism by which individuals are made to undergo the regressions which reduce them to mere members of a group.
By the measures that he takes, the hypnotist awakens in the subject a portion of his archaic inheritance which had also made him compliant towards his parents and which had experienced an individual re-animation in his relation to his father: what is thus awakened is the idea of a paramount and dangerous personality, towards whom only a passive-masochistic attitude is possible, to whom one's will has to be surrendered, – while to be alone with him, ›to look him in the face‹, appears a hazardous enterprise. It is only in some such way as this that we can picture the relation of the individual member of the primal horde to the primal father ... The uncanny and coercive characteristics of group formations, which are shown in their suggestion phenomena, may therefore with justice be traced back to the fact of their origin from the primal horde. The leader of the group is still the dreaded primal father; the group still wishes to be governed by unrestricted force; it has an extreme passion for authority; in Le Bon's phrase, it has a thirst for obedience. The primal father is the group ideal, which governs the ego in the place of the ego ideal. Hypnosis has a good claim to being described as a group of two; there remains as a definition for suggestion – a conviction which is not based upon perception and reasoning but upon an erotic tie.11
This actually defines the nature and content of fascist propaganda. It is psychological because of its irrational authoritarian aims which cannot be attained by means of rational convictions but only through the skillful awakening of »a portion of the subject's archaic inheritance.« Fascist agitation is centered in the idea of the leader, no matter whether he actually leads or is only the mandatary of group interests, because only the psychological image of the leader is apt to reanimate the idea of the all-powerful and threatening primal father. This is the ultimate root of the otherwise enigmatic personalization of fascist propaganda, its incessant plugging of names and supposedly great men, instead of discussing objective causes. The formation of the imagery of an omnipotent and unbridled father figure, by far transcending the individual father and therewith apt to be enlarged into a »group ego,« is the only way to promulgate the »passive-masochistic attitude ... to whom one's will has to be surrendered,« an attitude required of the fascist follower the more his political behavior becomes irreconcilable with his own rational interests as a private person as well as those of the group or class to which he actually belongs.12 The follower's reawakened irrationality is, therefore, quite rational from the leader's viewpoint: it necessarily has to be »a conviction which is not based upon perception and reasoning but upon an erotic tie.«
The mechanism which transforms libido into the bond between leader and followers, and between the followers themselves, is that of identification. A great part of Freud's book is devoted to its analysis.13 It is impossible to discuss here the very subtle theoretical differentiation, particularly the one between identification and introjection. It should be noted, however, that the late Ernst Simmel, to whom we owe valuable contributions to the psychology of Fascism, took up Freud's concept of the ambivalent nature of identification as a derivative of the oral phase of the organization of the libido,14 and expanded it into an analytic theory of anti-Semitism.
We content ourselves with a few observations on the relevancy of the doctrine of identification to fascist propaganda and fascist mentality. It has been observed by several authors and by Erik Homburger Erikson in particular, that the specifically fascist leader type does not seem to be a father figure such as for instance the king of former times. The inconsistency of this observation with Freud's theory of the leader as the primal father, however, is only superficial. His discussion of identification may well help us to understand, in terms of subjective dynamics, certain changes which are actually due to objective historical conditions. Identification is »the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person,« playing »a part in the early history of the Oedipus complex.«15 It may well be that this pre-oedipal component of identification helps to bring about the separation of the leader image as that of an all-powerful primal father, from the actual father image. Since the child's identification with his father as an answer to the Oedipus complex is only a secondary phenomenon, infantile regression may go beyond this father image and through an »anaclitic« process reach a more archaic one. Moreover, the primitively narcissistic aspect of identification as an act of devouring, of making the beloved object part of oneself, may provide us with a clue to the fact that the modern leader image sometimes seems to be the enlargement of the subject's own personality, a collective projection of himself, rather than the image of the father whose role during the later phases of the subject's infancy may well have decreased in present-day society16. All these facets call for further clarification.
The essential role of narcissism in regard to the identifications which are at play in the formation of fascist groups, is recognized in Freud's theory of idealization. »We see that the object is being treated in the same way as our own ego, so that when we are in love a considerable amount of narcissistic libido overflows on the object. It is even obvious, in many forms of love choice, that the object serves as a substitute for some unattained ego ideal of our own. We love it on account of the perfections which we have striven to reach for our own ego, and which we should now like to procure in this roundabout way as a means of satisfying our narcissism.«17 It is precisely this idealization of himself which the fascist leader tries to promote in his followers, and which is helped by the Führer ideology. The people he has to reckon with generally undergo the characteristic, modern conflict between a strongly developed rational, self-preserving ego agency18 and the continuous failure to satisfy their own ego demands. This conflict results in strong narcissistic impulses which can be absorbed and satisfied only through idealization as the partial transfer of the narcissistic libido to the object. This, again, falls in line with the semblance of the leader image to an enlargement of the subject: by making the leader his ideal he loves himself, as it were, but gets rid of the stains of frustration and discontent which mar his picture of his own empirical self. This pattern of identification through idealization, the caricature of true, conscious solidarity, is, however, a collective one. It is effective in vast numbers of people with similar characterological dispositions and libidinal leanings. The fascist community of the people corresponds exactly to Freud's definition of a group as being »a number of individuals who have substituted one and the same object for their ego ideal and have consequently identified themselves with one another in their ego.«19 The leader image, in turn, borrows as it were its primal father-like omnipotence from collective strength.
Freud's psychological construction of the leader imagery is corroborated by its striking coincidence with the Fascist leader type, at least as far as its public build-up is concerned. His descriptions fit the picture of Hitler no less than idealizations into which the American demagogues try to style themselves. In order to allow narcissistic identification, the leader has to appear himself as absolutely narcissistic, and it is from this insight that Freud derives the portrait of the »primal father of the horde« which might as well be Hitler's.
He, at the very beginning of the history of mankind, was the Superman20 whom Nietzsche only expected from the future. Even today the members of a group stand in need of the illusion that they are equally and justly loved by their leader; but the leader himself need love no one else, he may be of a masterly nature, absolutely narcissistic, but self-confident and independent. We know that love puts a check upon narcissism, and it would be possible to show how, by operating in this way, it became a factor of civilization.21
One of the most conspicuous features of the agitators' speeches, namely the absence of a positive program and of anything they might »give,« as well as the paradoxical prevalence of threat and denial, is thus being accounted for: the leader can be loved only if he himself does not love. Yet, Freud is aware of another aspect of the leader image which apparently contradicts the first one. While appearing as a superman, the leader must at the same time work the miracle of appearing as an average person, just as Hitler posed as a composite of King-Kong and the suburban barber. This, too, Freud explains through his theory of narcissism. According to him,
the individual gives up his ego ideal and substitutes for it the group ideal as embodied in the leader. [However,] in many individuals the separation between the ego and the ego ideal is not very far advanced; the two still coincide readily; the ego has often preserved its earlier self-complacency. The selection of the leader is very much facilitated by this circumstance. He need only possess the typical qualities of the individuals concerned in a particularly clearly marked and pure form, and need only give an impression of greater force and of more freedom of libido; and in that case the need for a strong chief will often meet him half-way and invest him with a predominance to which he would otherwise perhaps have had no claim. The other members of the group, whose ego ideal would not, apart from this, have become embodied in his person without some correction, are then carried away with the rest by ›suggestion,‹ that is to say, by means of identification.22
Even the fascist leader's startling symptoms of inferiority, his resemblance to ham actors and asocial psychopaths, is thus anticipated in Freud's theory. For the sake of those parts of the follower's narcissistic libido which have not been thrown into the leader image but remain attached to the follower's own ego, the superman must still resemble the follower and appear as his »enlargement.« Accordingly, one of the basic devices of personalized fascist propaganda is the concept of the »great little man,« a person who suggests both omnipotence and the idea that he is just one of the folks, a plain, red-blooded American, untainted by material or spiritual wealth. Psychological ambivalence helps to work a social miracle. The leader image gratifies the follower's twofold wish to submit to authority and to be the authority himself. This fits into a world in which irrational control is exercised though it has lost its inner conviction through universal enlightenment. The people who obey the dictators also sense that the latter are superfluous. They reconcile this contradiction through the assumption that they are themselves the ruthless oppressor.
All the agitators' standard devices are designed along the line of Freud's exposé of what became later the basic structure of fascist demagoguery, the technique of personalization23, and the idea of the great little man. We limit ourselves to a few examples picked at random.
Freud gives an exhaustive account of the hierarchical element in irrational groups. »It is obvious that a soldier takes his superior, that is, really, the leader of the army, as his ideal, while he identifies himself with his equals, and derives from this community of their egos the obligations for giving mutual help and for sharing possessions which comradeship implies. But he becomes ridiculous if he tries identify himself with the general,«24 to wit, consciously and directly. The Fascists, down to the last smalltime demagogue, continuously emphasize ritualistic ceremonies and hierarchical differentiations. The less hierarchy within the setup of a highly rationalized and quantified industrial society is warranted, the more artificial hierarchies with no objective raison d'être are built up and rigidly imposed by Fascists for purely psycho-technical reasons. It may be added, however, that this is not the only libidinous source involved. Thus hierarchical structures are in complete keeping with the wishes of the sadomasochistic character. Hitler's famous formula, Verantwortung nach oben, Autorität nach unten, (responsibility towards above, authority towards below) nicely rationalizes this character's ambivalence.25
The tendency to tread on those below, which manifests itself so disastrously in the persecution of weak and helpless minorities, is as outspoken as the hatred against those outside. In practice, both tendencies quite frequently fall together. Freud's theory sheds light on the all-pervasive, rigid distinction between the beloved in-group and the rejected out-group. Throughout our culture this way of thinking and behaving has come to be regarded as self-evident to such a degree that the question of why people love what is like themselves and hate what is different, is rarely asked seriously enough. Here as in many other instances, the productivity of Freud's approach lies in his questioning that which is generally accepted. Le Bon had noticed that the irrational crowd »goes directly to extremes«26. Freud expands this observation and points out that the dichotomy between in- and out-group is of so deep-rooted a nature that it affects even those groups whose »ideas« apparently exclude such reactions. Already in 1921 he was therefore able to dispense with the liberalistic illusion that the progress of civilization would automatically bring about an increase of tolerance and a lessening of violence against out-groups.
Even during the kingdom of Christ those people who do not belong to the community of believers, who do not love him, and whom he does not love, stand outside this tie. Therefore a religion, even if it calls itself the religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it. Fundamentally indeed every religion is in this same way a religion of love for all those whom it embraces; while cruelty and intolerance towards those who do not belong to it are natural to every religion. However difficult we may find it personally, we ought not to reproach believers too severely on this account: people who are unbelieving or indifferent are so much better off psychologically in this respect. If to-day that intolerance no longer shows itself so violent and cruel as in former centuries, we can scarcely conclude that there has been a softening in human manners. The cause is rather to be found in the undeniable weakening of religious feelings and the libidinal ties which depend upon them. If another group tie takes the place of the religious one – and the socialistic tie seems to be succeeding in doing so –, then there will be the same intolerance towards outsiders as in the age of the Wars of Religion.27
Freud's error in political prognosis, his blaming the »socialists« for what their German arch enemies did, is as striking as his prophecy of fascist destructiveness, the drive to eliminate the out-group28. As a matter of fact, neutralization of religion seems to have led to just the opposite of what the enlightener Freud anticipated: the division between believers and nonbelievers has been maintained and reified. However, it has become a structure in itself, independent of any ideational content, and is even more stubbornly defended since it lost its inner conviction. At the same time, the mitigating impact of the religious doctrine of love vanished. This is the essence of the »buck and sheep« device employed by all fascist demagogues. Since they do not recognize any spiritual criterion in regard to who is chosen and who is rejected, they substitute a pseudo-natural criterion such as the race,29 which seems to be inescapable and can therefore be applied even more mercilessly than was the concept of heresy during the Middle Ages. Freud has succeeded in identifying the libidinal function of this device. It acts as a negatively integrating force. Since the positive libido is completely invested in the image of the primal father, the leader, and since few positive contents are available, a negative one has to be found. »The leader or the leading idea might also, so to speak, be negative; hatred against a particular person or institution might operate in just the same unifying way, and might call up the same kind of emotional ties as positive attachment.«30 It goes without saying that this negative integration feeds on the instinct of destructiveness to which Freud does not explicitly refer in his Group Psychology, the decisive role of which he has, however, recognized in his Civilization and Its Discontent. In the present context, Freud explains the hostility against the out-group with narcissism:
In the undisguised antipathies and aversions which people feel towards strangers with whom they have to do we may recognize the expression of self-love – of narcissism. This self-love works for the self-assertion of the individual, and behaves as though the occurrence of any divergence from his own particular lines of development involved a criticism of them and a demand for their alteration.31
The narcissistic gain provided by fascist propaganda is obvious. It suggests continuously and sometimes in rather devious ways, that the follower, simply through belonging to the in-group, is better, higher and purer than those who are excluded. At the same time, any kind of critique or self-awareness is resented as a narcissistic loss, and elicits rage. It accounts for the violent reaction of all fascists against what they deem zersetzend, that which debunks their own stubbornly maintained values, and it also explains the hostility of prejudiced persons against any kind of introspection. Concomitantly, the concentration of hostility upon the out-group does away with intolerance in one's own group to which one's relation would otherwise be highly ambivalent.
But the whole of this intolerance vanishes, temporarily or permanently, as the result of the formation of a group, and in a group. So long as a group formation persists or so far as it extends, individuals behave as though they were uniform, tolerate other people's peculiarities, put themselves on an equal level with them, and have no feeling of aversion towards them. Such a limitation of narcissism can, according to our theoretical views, only be produced by one factor, a libidinal tie with other people.32
This is the line pursued by the agitators' standard »unity trick.« They emphasize their being different from the outsider but play down such differences within their own group and tend to level out distinctive qualities among themselves with the exception of the hierarchical one. »We are all in the same boat;« nobody should be better off; the snob, the intellectual, the pleasure seeker are always attacked. The undercurrent of malicious egalitarianism, of the brotherhood of all-comprising humiliation, is a component of fascist propaganda and Fascism itself. It found its symbol in Hitler's notorious command of the Eintopfgericht. The less they want the inherent social structure changed, the more they prate about social justice, meaning that no member of the »community of the people« should indulge in individual pleasures. Repressive egalitarianism instead of realization of true equality through the abolition of repression, is part and parcel of the fascist mentality and reflected in the agitators' »If-you-only-knew« device which promises the vindictive revelation of all sorts of forbidden pleasures enjoyed by others. Freud interprets this phenomenon in terms of the transformation of individuals into members of a psychological »brother horde.« Their coherence is a reaction formation against their primary jealousy of each other, pressed into the service of group coherence.
What appears later on in society in the shape of Gemeingeist, esprit de corps, ›group spirit‹, etc. does not belie its derivation from what was originally envy. No one must want to put himself forward, every one must be the same and have the same. Social justice means that we deny ourselves many things so that others may have to do without them as well, or, what is the same thing, may not be able to ask for them.33
It may be added that the ambivalence towards the brother has found a rather striking, ever-recurring expression in the agitators' technique. Freud and Rank have pointed out that in fairy tales small animals such as bees and ants »would be the brothers in the primal horde, just as in the same way in dream symbolism insects or vermin signify brothers and sisters (contemptuously, considered as babies).«34 Since the members of the in-group have supposedly »succeeded in identifying themselves with one another by means of similar love for the same object,«35 they cannot admit this contempt for each other. Thus, it is expressed by completely negative cathexis of these low animals, fused with hatred against the out-group, and projected upon the latter. Actually it is one of the favorite devices of Fascist agitators – examined in great detail by Leo Lowenthal36 – to compare out-groups, all foreigners and particularly refugees and Jews, with low animals and vermin.
If we are entitled to assume a correspondence of Fascist propagandist stimuli to the mechanisms elaborated in Freud's Group Psychology, we have to ask ourselves the almost inevitable question: how did the fascist agitators, crude and semi-educated as they were, obtain knowledge of these mechanisms? Reference to the influence exercised by Hitler's Mein Kampf upon the American demagogues would not lead very far, since it seems impossible that Hitler's theoretical knowledge of group psychology went beyond the most trivial observations derived from a popularized Le Bon. Neither can it be maintained that Goebbels was a mastermind of propaganda and fully aware of the most advanced findings of modern depth psychology. Perusal of his speeches and selections from his recently published diaries give the impression of a person shrewd enough to play the game of power politics but utterly naive and superficial in regard to all societal or psychological issues below the surface of his own catchwords and newspaper editorials. The idea of the sophisticated and »radical« intellectual Goebbels is part of the devil's legend associated with his name and fostered by eager journalism; a legend, incidentally, which itself calls for psychoanalytic explanation. Goebbels himself thought in stereotypes and was completely under the spell of personalization. Thus we have to seek for sources other than erudition, for the much advertised fascist command of psychological techniques of mass manipulation. The foremost source seems to be the already mentioned basic identity of leader and follower which circumscribes one of the aspects of identification. The leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than by any intrinsic superiority. The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance, functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds. Since this very quality of uninhibited but largely associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it may well indicate weakness rather than strength. The fascist agitators' boasting of strength is indeed frequently accompanied by hints at such weakness, particularly when begging for monetary contributions – hints which, to be sure, are skillfully merged with the idea of strength itself. In order successfully to meet the unconscious dispositions of his audience, the agitator so to speak simply turns his own unconscious outward. His particular character syndrome makes it possible for him to do exactly this, and experience has taught him consciously to exploit this faculty, to make rational use of his irrationality, similarly to the actor, or a certain type of journalist who knows how to sell their innervations and sensitivity. Without knowing it, he is thus able to speak and act in accord with psychological theory for the simple reason that the psychological theory is true. All he has to do in order to make the psychology of his audience click, is shrewdly to exploit his own psychology.
The adequacy of the agitators' devices to the psychological basis of their aim is further enhanced by another factor. As we know, fascist agitations has by now come to be a profession, as it were, a livelihood. It had plenty of time to test the effectiveness of its various appeals and, through what might be called natural selection, only the most catchy ones have survived. Their effectiveness is itself a function of the psychology of the consumers. Through a process of »freezing,« which can be observed throughout the techniques employed in modern mass culture, the surviving appeals have been standardized, similarly to the advertising slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business. This standardization, in turn, falls in line with stereotypical thinking, that is to say, with the »stereopathy« of those susceptible to this propaganda and their infantile wish for endless, unaltered repetition. It is hard to predict whether the latter psychological disposition will prevent the agitators' standard devices from becoming blunt through excessive application. In national-socialist Germany, everybody used to make fun of certain propagandistic phrases such as »blood and soil,« (Blut und Boden), jokingly called Blubo, or the concept of the nordic race from which the parodistic verb aufnorden, (to »northernize«) was derived. Nevertheless, these appeals do not seem to have lost their attractiveness. Rather, their very »phonyness« may have been relished cynically and sadistically as an index for the fact that power alone decided one's fate in the Third Reich, that is, power unhampered by rational objectivity.
Furthermore, one may ask: why is the applied group psychology discussed here peculiar to Fascism rather than to most other movements that seek mass support? Even the most casual comparison of fascist propaganda with that of liberal, progressive parties will show this to be so. Yet, neither Freud nor Le Bon envisaged such a distinction. They spoke of crowds »as such,« similar to the conceptualizations used by formal sociology, without differentiating between the political aims of the groups involved. As a matter of fact, both thought of traditional socialistic movements rather than of their opposite, though it should be noted that the Church and the Army – the examples chosen by Freud for the demonstration of his theory – are essentially conservative and hierarchical. Le Bon, on the other hand, is mainly concerned with nonorganized, spontaneous, ephemeral crowds. Only an explicit theory of society, by far transcending the range of psychology, can fully answer the question raised here. We content ourselves with a few suggestions. First, the objective aims of Fascism are largely irrational in so far as they contradict the material interests of great numbers of those whom they try to embrace, notwithstanding the prewar boom of the first years of the Hitler regime. The continuous danger of war inherent in Fascism spells destruction and the masses are at least preconsciously aware of it. Thus, Fascism does not altogether speak the untruth when it refers to its own irrational powers, however faked the mythology which ideologically rationalizes the irrational may be. Since it would be impossible for Fascism to win the masses through rational arguments, its propaganda must necessarily be deflected from discursive thinking; it must be oriented psychologically, and has to mobilize irrational, unconscious, regressive processes. This task is facilitated by the frame of mind of all those strata of the population who suffer from senseless frustrations and therefore develop a stunted, irrational mentality. It may well be the secret of fascist propaganda that it simply takes men for what they are: the true children of today's standardized mass culture, largely robbed of autonomy and spontaneity, instead of setting goals the realization of which would transcend the psychological status quo no less than the social one. Fascist propaganda has only to reproduce the existent mentality for its own purposes; – it need not induce a change – and the compulsive repetition which is one of its foremost characteristics will be at one with the necessity for this continuous reproduction. It relies absolutely on the total structure as well as on each particular trait of the authoritarian character which is itself the product of an internalization of the irrational aspects of modern society. Under the prevailing conditions, the irrationality of fascist propaganda becomes rational in the sense of instinctual economy. For if the status quo is taken for granted and petrified, a much greater effort is needed to see through it than to adjust to it and to obtain at least some gratification through identification with the existent – the focal point of fascist propaganda. This may explain why ultra-reactionary mass movements use the »psychology of the masses« to a much greater extent than do movements which show more faith in the masses. However, there is no doubt that even the most progressive political movement can deteriorate to the level of the »psychology of the crowd« and its manipulation, if its own rational content is shattered through the reversion to blind power.
The so-called psychology of Fascism is largely engendered by manipulation. Rationally calculated techniques bring about what is naively regarded as the »natural« irrationality of masses. This insight may help us to solve the problem of whether Fascism as a mass phenomenon can be explained at all in psychological terms. While there certainly exists potential susceptibility for Fascism among the masses, it is equally certain that the manipulation of the unconscious, the kind of suggestion explained by Freud in genetic terms, is indispensable for actualization of this potential. This, however, corroborates the assumption that Fascism as such is not a psychological issue and that any attempt to understand its roots and its historical role in psychological terms still remains on the level of ideologies such as the one of »irrational forces« promoted by Fascism itself. Although the Fascist agitator doubtlessly takes up certain tendencies within those he addresses, he does so as the mandatory of powerful economic and political interests. Psychological dispositions do not actually cause Fascism; rather, Fascism defines a psychological area which can be successfully exploited by the forces which promote it for entirely nonpsychological reasons of self-interest. What happens when masses are caught by Fascist propaganda is not a spontaneous primary expression of instincts and urges but a quasi-scientific revitalization of their psychology – the artificial regression described by Freud in his discussion of organized groups. The psychology of the masses has been taken over by their leaders and transformed into a means for their domination. It does not express itself directly through mass movements. This phenomenon is not entirely new but was foreshadowed throughout the counterrevolutionary movements of history. Far from being the source of Fascism, psychology has become one element among others in a superimposed system the very totality of which is necessitated by the potential of mass resistance – the masses' own rationality. The content of Freud's theory, the replacement of individual narcissism by identification with leader images, points into the direction of what might be called the appropriation of mass psychology by the oppressors. To be sure, this process has a psychological dimension, but it also indicates a growing tendency towards the abolition of psychological motivation in the old, liberalistic sense. Such motivation is systematically controlled and absorbed by social mechanisms which are directed from above. When the leaders become conscious of mass psychology and take it into their own hands, it ceases to exist in a certain sense. This potentiality is contained in the basic construct of psychoanalysis inasmuch as for Freud the concept of psychology is essentially a negative one. He defines the realm of psychology by the supremacy of the unconscious and postulates that what is it should become ego. The emancipation of man from the heteronomous rule of his unconscious would be tantamount to the abolition of his »psychology.« Fascism furthers this abolition in the opposite sense through the perpetuation of dependence instead of the realization of potential freedom, through expropriation of the unconscious by social control instead of making the subjects conscious of their unconscious. For, while psychology always denotes some bondage of the individual, it also presupposes freedom in the sense of a certain self-sufficiency and autonomy of the individual. It is not accidental that the nineteenth century was the great era of psychological thought. In a thoroughly reified society, in which there are virtually no direct relationships between men, and in which each person has been reduced to a social atom, to a mere function of collectivity, the psychological processes, though they still persist in each individual, have ceased to appear as the determining forces of the social process. Thus the psychology of the individual has lost what Hegel would have called its substance. It is perhaps the greatest merit of Freud's book that though he restricted himself to the field of individual psychology and wisely abstained from introducing sociological factors from outside, he nevertheless reached the turning point where psychology abdicates. The psychological »impoverishment« of the subject that »surrendered itself to the object« which »it has substituted for its most important constituent;«37 i.e., the superego, anticipates almost with clairvoyance the postpsychological de-individualized social atoms which form the fascist collectivities. In these social atoms the psychological dynamics of group formation have over-reached themselves and are no longer a reality. The category of »phonyness« applies to the leaders as well as to the act of identification on the part of the masses and their supposed frenzy and hysteria. Just as little as people believe in the depth of their hearts that the Jews are the devil, do they completely believe in the leader. They do not really identify themselves with him but act this identification, perform their own enthusiasm, and thus participate in their leader's performance. It is through this performance that they strike a balance between their continuously mobilized instinctual urges and the historical stage of enlightenment they have reached, and which cannot be revoked arbitrarily. It is probably the suspicion of this fictitiousness of their own »group psychology« which makes fascist crowds so merciless and unapproachable. If they would stop to reason for a second, the whole performance would go to pieces, and they would be left to panic.
Freud came upon this element of »phonyness« within an unexpected context, namely, when he discussed hypnosis as a retrogression of individuals to the relation between primal horde and primal father.
As we know from other reactions, individuals have preserved a variable degree of personal aptitude for reviving old situations of this kind. Some knowledge that in spite of everything hypnosis is only a game, a deceptive renewal of these old impressions, may however remain behind and take care that there is a resistance against any too serious consequences of the suspension of the will in hypnosis.38
In the meantime, this game has been socialized, and the consequences have proved to be very serious. Freud made a distinction between hypnosis and group psychology by defining the former as taking place between two people only. However, the leaders' appropriation of mass psychology, the streamlining of their technique, has enabled them to collectivize the hypnotic spell. The Nazi battle cry of »Germany awake« hides its very opposite. The collectivization and institutionalization of the spell, on the other hand, have made the transference more and more indirect and precarious so that the aspect of performance, the »phonyness« of enthusiastic identification and of all the traditional dynamics of group psychology, have been tremendously increased. This increase may well terminate in sudden awareness of the untruth of the spell, and eventually in its collapse. Socialized hypnosis breeds within itself the forces which will do away with the spook of regression through remote control, and in the end awaken those who keep their eyes shut though they are no longer asleep.
1951
Fußnoten
1 This article forms part of the author's continuing collaboration with Max Horkheimer.
2 Harper Brothers, New York, 1949. Cf. also: Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman, »Portrait of the American Agitator,« Public Opinion Quart., (Fall) 1948, pp. 417ff.
3 This requires some qualification. There is a certain difference between those who, speculating rightly or wrongly on large-scale economic backing, try to maintain an air of respectability and deny that they are anti-Semites before coming down to the business of Jew baiting – and overt Nazis who want to act on their own, or at least make believe that they do, and indulge in the most violent and obscene language. Moreover, one might distinguish between agitators who play the old-fashioned, homely, Christian conservative and can easily be recognized by their hostility against the »dole,« and those who, following a more streamlined modern version, appeal mostly to the youth and sometimes pretend to be revolutionary. However, such differences should not be overrated. The basic structure of their speeches as well as their supply of devices is identical in spite of carefully fostered differences in overtones. What one has to face is a division of labor rather than genuine divergencies. It may be noted that the National Socialist Party shrewdly maintained differentiations of a similar kind, but that they never amounted to anything nor led to any serious clash of political ideas within the Party. The belief that the victims of June 30, 1934 were revolutionaries is mythological. The blood purge was a matter of rivalries between various rackets and had no bearing on social conflicts.
4 The German title, under which the book was published in 1921, is Massenpsychologie und Ichanalyse. The translator, James Strachey, rightly stresses that the term group here means the equivalent of Le Bon's foule and the German Masse. It may be added that in this book the term ego does not denote the specific psychological agency as described in Freud's later writings in contrast to the id and the superego; it simply means the individual. It is one of the most important implications of Freud's Group Psychology that he does not recognize an independent, hypostatized »mentality of the crowd,« but reduces the phenomena observed and described by writers such as Le Bon and McDougall to regressions which take place in each one of the individuals who form a crowd and fall under its spell.
5 S. Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, London, 1922, p. 7.
6 Ibid., p. 27.
7 Freud's book does not follow up this phase of the problem but a passage in the addendum indicates that he was quite aware of it. »In the same way, love for women breaks through the group ties of race, of national separation, and of the social class system, and it thus produces important effects as a factor in civilization. It seems certain that homosexual love is far more compatible with group ties, even when it takes the shape of uninhibited sexual tendencies« (p. 123). This was certainly borne out under German Fascism where the borderline between overt and repressed homosexuality, just as that between overt and repressed sadism, was much more fluent than in liberal middle-class society.
8 L. c., pp. 9 and 10.
9 » ... love relationships ... also constitute the essence of the group mind. Let us remember that the authorities make no mention of any such relations.« (Ibid., p. 40.)
10 Perhaps one of the reasons for this striking phenomenon is the fact that the masses whom the fascist agitator – prior to seizing power – has to face, are primarily not organized ones but the accidental crowds of the big city. The loosely knit character of such motley crowds makes it imperative that discipline and coherence be stressed at the expense of the centrifugal uncanalized urge to love. Part of the agitator's task consists in making the crowd believe that it is organized like the Army or the Church. Hence the tendency towards over-organization. A fetish is made of organization as such; it becomes an end instead of a means and this tendency prevails throughout the agitator's speeches.
11 L. c., pp. 99–100. This key statement of Freud's theory of group psychology incidentally accounts for one of the most decisive observations about the Fascist personality: the externalization of the superego. The term »ego ideal« is Freud's earlier expression for what he later called superego. Its replacement through a »group ego« is exactly what happens to fascist personalities. They fail to develop an independent autonomous conscience and substitute for it an identification with collective authority which is as irrational as Freud described it, heteronomous, rigidly oppressive, largely alien to the individuals' own thinking and, therefore, easily exchangeable in spite of its structural rigidity. The phenomenon is adequately expressed in the Nazi formula that what serves the German people is good. The pattern reoccurs in the speeches of American fascist demagogues who never appeal to their prospective followers' own conscience but incessantly invoke external, conventional, and stereotyped values which are taken for granted and treated as authoritatively valid without ever being subject to a process of living experience or discursive examination. As pointed out in detail in the book, The Authoritarian Personality, by T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford (Harper Brothers, New York, 1950), prejudiced persons generally display belief in conventional values instead of making moral decisions of their own and regard as right »what is being done.« Through identification they too tend to submit to a group ego at the expense of their own ego ideal which becomes virtually merged with external values.
12 The fact that the fascist follower's masochism is inevitably accompanied by sadistic impulses is in harmony with Freud's general theory of ambivalence, originally developed in connection with the oedipus complex. Since the fascist integration of individuals into masses satisfies them only vicariously, their resentment against the frustrations of civilization survives but is canalized to become compatible with the leader's aims; it is psychologically fused with authoritarian submissiveness. Though Freud does not pose the problem of what was later called »sado-masochism,« he was nevertheless well aware of it, as evidenced by his acceptance of Le Bon's idea that »since a group is in no doubt as to what constitutes truth or error, and is conscious, moreover, of its own great strength, it is as intolerant as it is obedient to authority. It respects force and can only be slightly influenced by kindness, which it regards merely as a form of weakness. What it demands of its heroes is strength, or even violence. It wants to be ruled and oppressed and to fear its masters.« (Freud, op. cit., p. 17.)
13 Op. cit., pp. 58ff.
14 Ibid., p. 61.
15 Ibid., p. 60.
16 Cf. Max Horkheimer, »Authoritarianism and the Family Today,« The Family: Its Function and Destiny, ed., R. N. Anshen (Harper Brothers, New York, 1949).
17 Freud, op. cit., p. 74.
18 The translation of Freud's book renders his term »Instanz« by »faculty,« a word which, however, does not carry the hierarchical connotation of the German original. »Agency« seems to be more appropriate.
19 Freud, l. c., p. 80.
20 It may not be superfluous to stress that Nietzsche's concept of the Superman has as little in common with this archaic imagery as his vision of the future with Fascism. Freud's allusion is obviously valid only for the »Superman« as he became popularized in cheap slogans.
21 L. c., p. 93.
22 Ibid., p. 102.
23 For further details on personalization cf. Freud, l. c., p. 44, footnote, where he discusses the relation between ideas and leader personalities; and p. 53, where he defines as »secondary leaders« those essentially irrational ideas which hold groups together. In technological civilization, no immediate transference to the leader, unknown and distant as he actually is, is possible. What happens is rather a regressive re-personalization of impersonal, detached social powers. This possibility was clearly envisaged by Freud. » ... A common tendency, a wish in which a number of people can have a share, may ... serve as a substitute. This abstraction, again, might be more or less completely embodied in the figure of what we might call a secondary leader.«
24 L. c., p. 110.
25 German folklore has a drastic symbol for this trait. It speaks of Radfahrernaturen, bicyclist's characters. Above they bow, they kick below.
26 Freud, l. c., p. 16.
27 L. c., pp. 50–51.
28 With regard to the role of »neutralized,« diluted religion in the make-up of the Fascist mentality, cf. The Authoritarian Personality. Important psychoanalytic contributions to this whole area of problems are contained in Theodor Reik's Der eigene und der fremde Gott, and in Paul Federn's Die vaterlose Gesellschaft.
29 It may be noted that the ideology of race distinctly reflects the idea of primitive brotherhood revived, according to Freud, through the specific regression involved in mass formation. The notion of race shares two properties with brotherhood, it is supposedly »natural,« a bond of »blood,« and it is de-sexualized. In Fascism this similarity is kept unconscious. It mentions brotherhood comparatively rarely, and usually only in regard to Germans living outside the borders of the Reich (»Our Sudeten brothers«). This, of course, is partly due to recollections of the ideal of fraternité of the French Revolution, taboo to the Nazis.
30 L. c., p. 53.
31 L. c., pp. 55–56.
32 L. c., p. 56.
33 L. c., pp. 87–88.
34 L. c., p. 114.
35 L. c., p. 87.
36 Cf. Prophets of Deceit.
37 L. c., p. 76.
38 L. c., p. 99.