Section I:
The Personal Element:
Self-Characterization of the Agitator
Introductory Remarks
The fascist leader characteristically indulges in loquacious statements about himself. In contrast, the liberal as well as the radical propagandist has developed a tendency to avoid any reference to his private existence for the sake of »objective« interests to which he appeals: the former in order to show his matter-of-factness and competence, the latter because his collectivistic attitude would be jeopardized if he should play up his own personality. Whereas this »impersonality« is well grounded within the objective conditions of an industrial society, it has definite weaknesses considering the orator's audience. The detachment from personal relationships involved in any objective discussion presupposes an intellectual freedom and strength which hardly exists within the masses today. Moreover, the »coldness« inherent in objective argumentation intensifies the feeling of despair, isolation, and loneliness under which virtually each individual today suffers – a feeling from which he longs to escape when listening to any kind of public oratory. This situation has been grasped by the fascists. Their talk is personal. Not only does it refer to the most immediate interests of his listeners, but also it encompasses the sphere of privacy of the speaker himself who seems to take his listeners into his confidence and to bridge the gap between person and person.
There are more specific reasons for the attitude, which, though often nourished by the vanity of the leader, is well calculated and forms, in spite of its apparent »subjectivism,« part of a highly objective set of propagandistic devices. The more impersonal our order becomes, the more important personality becomes as an ideology. The more the individual is reduced to a mere cog, the more the idea of the uniqueness of the individual, his autonomy and importance, has to be stressed as a compensation for his actual weakness. Since this cannot be done with each of the listeners individually or only in a rather general and abstract manner, it is done vicariously by the leader. It can even be said that part of the secret of totalitarian leadership is that the leader presents the image of an autonomous personality actually denied his followers.
Furthermore, the self-advertising of a fascist leader is a kind of a confidence trick. Although he occasionally boasts and can bluff in decisive moments, he prefers, especially before having achieved power, to play down the theme of his irresistible strength. He dwells upon his »also being human,« that is to say, being as weak as his prospective adherents. The idea of strength and authority is not sufficient in itself to explain the appeal of fascist leadership. It is rather the idea that the weak can become strong if they surrender their own private existence to the »movement,« the »cause,« the »crusade« or whatever it may be. By referring to himself in an ambivalent way as both human and superhuman, weak and strong, close and far, the fascist leader supplies a model for the very attitude that he intends to affirm in his listeners.
In addition, his confessions, actual or faked, serve to satisfy the listener's curiosity. This is a universal feature in present-day mass culture. It is catered to by the gossip columns of certain newspapers, the inside stories told to innumerable listeners over the radio, or the magazines that promise »true stories.« The structure of this curiosity has not yet been fully explored. It is due partly to the widespread feeling that one has to be »informed« in order to keep up with the conversation, partly to the feeling that the other fellow's life is rich, exciting and colorful, compared with the drudgery of one's own life. Perhaps more fundamentally, it is a function of the attitude of snooping, deep-rooted in the unconscious psychological process which longs for the gratification of catching a glimpse of one's neighbor's private life – an attitude closely akin to fascism. The leader is shrewd enough to realize that it does not make much difference how this curiosity is satisfied. Revelations about briberies or thefts supposedly committed by the foe, or discussions of his wife's illness or his financial difficulties which may even be invented are equally effective. As a practical psychologist, he knows something about ambivalence in action, even if he denounces psychoanalysis as a Jewish racket. The libido of the listener is satisfied when he is treated as an insider; it is a secondary matter whether his curiosity is directed at positive or negative concepts. If a foe fails to pay his bills, the fact may serve as a means to denounce him as a cheat. If Martin Luther Thomas, as he actually did, states in public that he cannot pay his radio expenses, this very Statement may win him new friends.
There is finally an »objective« reason for the fascist's lack of objectivity. It helps either to hide or to obscure his objective aims. In America where, unlike Germany, the idea of democracy has a great tradition and a strong emotional appeal, it would be highly impractical for any fascist leader to attack democracy itself, as the Nazi propagandists freely did. The American fascist is generally prepared to accept democracy as a cloak for his own ends. However, by plugging himself and by applying a technique of high-pressure publicity, he hopes to secure so much power as to build up a tremendous pressure group which may finally overthrow democracy in the name of democracy – the Huey Long prescription. Apart from that, it is a well known technique of fascist propaganda to promise vaguely everything to every group without bothering too much about conflicting group interests. When he speaks about himself, he accumulates confidence for his power of integration; on the other hand he must become so specific about his objective purposes that the self-contradictory features of his program do not become too blatant. Thus the personal touch is efficient camouflage.
Martin Luther Thomas is thoroughly acquainted with the Hitler technique through his affiliations with Deatheradge, Henry Allen, and Mrs. Fry. He knows everything about the manipulation of his own ego for propagandist purposes and has skillfully adapted the Hitlerian technique of revelation and confession to the American scene and to the emotional needs of the group to which he addresses himself – the middle-aged and elderly, lower-middle-class people with a strong fundamentalist or sectarian religious background. The following are some examples of the way in which he talks about himself.
There is first of all the »lone wolf« trick. It is taken from the arsenal of Hitler, who always used to boast about the seven lonely and heroic party comrades who began the movement, and about the fact that others controlled the press, the radio – everything; and that he had nothing. Thomas slightly modifies this by specifically insisting he has no politician's money behind him. He uses innumerable times variations of the statement: »I have no sponsors, and no politicians ever put one dollar into this movement.«1 This modification results from Thomas' playing upon the American distrust of the professional politician who is supposed to profit privately by making a racket of public matters. Since Thomas himself, like his fellow agitators, shows all the characteristics of a political racketeer, he is all the more anxious to shift the onus of such an occupation upon those from whom he claims to be detached. Fewer, he reasons, will believe him a racketeer, if he thus violently attacks racketeering. It is incidentally one of the most outstanding characteristics of fascist and anti-Semitic propagandists that they blame their victims in an almost compulsory way for exactly the things which they themselves are doing or hope to do. Counterpropaganda should consequently point out concretely that they are doing the self-same things about which they profess to be furious. There is practically no category of fascist propaganda to which this rule cannot be applied. It is this pattern through which the mechanism of psychological »projection« makes itself felt throughout fascist ideology.
Apart from playing up one's own courage and integrity in order to win the confidence of those who feel that they are underdogs and alone, there is a deeper calculation implied in the »lone wolf« device. It allays the universal and ever-in-creasing fear of manipulation. This fear grows out of sales resistance and terminates in the semi-conscious belief that no word uttered in public has either objective significance or represents even the speaker's private conviction. It is thought of as propaganda in the broadest sense, serving the interest of some strong agency paying for every public statement that is made. The reason for this attitude lies, of course, in the economic centralization and monopolization of the channels of communication. The claim that »no politician's money is behind me« amounts to the pretention that the statements one makes are spontaneous – not yet directed by monopolistic organization. However, that attitude towards manipulation and, therefore, the psychological function of this device must not be oversimplified. Under present social conditions, people are not only afraid of manipulation, but also, conversely, they long for it and for the guidance of those who they realize are strong and capable of protecting them. The hierarchical nature of our economic organization has increased the desire to be passively manipulated. Moreover, the borderline between »objective statements« and propagandistic devices begins to become more and more fluid. The more power is concentrated in the agencies and individuais who control the channels of communication, the more their propaganda amounts to »truth« insofar as it expresses true power relations. It is highly significant that in Germany the Goebbels office is called the Ministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (ministry of public enlightenment and propaganda) and thus in its very name identifies objective truth, about which one is supposed to be enlightened, with the propaganda words of the party. This ambiguity toward manipulation is to be taken into account by the propagandists who use the »lone wolf« device. They do not expect it to be taken quite seriously, and it probably never is. While they play upon public distrust of manipulation by the present powers within communications and party politics, they suggest with the »lone wolf« trick that in fact very much is behind them, namely the true powers that be, as opposed to the official title holders. In the present phase, stirring up hatred against monopolism is one of the means of promoting the final victory of totalitarianism. The listener who hears daily over a big radio station that the speaker is lonely and working on his own account, realizes that he is not backed by the openly known and established agencies of today but rather by the potential power of the integrated collectivity and the »secret kingdom to come« of which one becomes a citizen by submerging oneself in it as early as possible. Just the defamation of manipulation is the means of manipulation. People are skillfully made to believe that the initiative is with them and their model, the speaker. The more they are stripped of spontaneity, the more their supposed spontaneity is upheld as an ideology.
The speaker's simulation of spontaneity and non-manipulated individuality is underscored by a particular pattern of behavior which he not only exhibits but also recommends. He is consciously and emphatically emotional as part of his technique. He reiterates on many occasions that he »almost cried« when he got a contribution of fifty cents from that poor old widow. Whereas his whole personal build-up is that of the leader, he conspicuously refrains from any attitude of »dignity.« Just this abandonment of dignity is apparently one of the effective stimuli of fascist propaganda everywhere. Hitler himself was always prone to ostentatious, hysterical outbreaks, and one of his favorite phrases was »I should rather shoot myself than ...« In Thomas' speeches the »emotional release« device is derived from his religious attitude, his evangelistic, revivalistic penchant, in contrast to official Presbyterianism.
You know I thank God that I am kind of turning loose of my heart the last three years. You know for a Presbyterian who has been reared in the suppression of the outward manifestation of the heart, you know it is a great thing. Listen, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, and all those schools of stoicism: turn loose of your heart! Oh, I know how hard it is. You kind of feel like I do. You are afraid of fanaticism.2 There is a rightful place for the expression of love for God. You needn't be a fanatic. Remember what St. Augustine said one day: »If you let your heart loose, you will toddle off to God.« Clap your hands just a little bit. Remember over yonder in the Old Testament, remember where it says that the trees have clapped their hands for joy. All nature praised the Creator! That wonderful flower as it blooms and nods in the sun, no human eye will ever see it. No animal will ever notice it. It is praising and smiling for its God. All of the earth is filled with the glory. The prophets cried the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord. My, it is wonderful to know God, isn't it? It is wonderful to know Christ.3
In such passages as this Thomas involuntarily reveals his true intentions. His own emotionalism serves only as a model for the behavior that he wishes his listeners to develop by imitation. He wants them to cry, to gesticulate, to give way to their feelings. They should not behave so well and be so civilized. Under the cloak of Christian ecstasy, there is the encouragement to paganism, to the orgiastic release of one's emotional drives, to regression towards inarticulate nature, which worked so successfully in Nazi propaganda. The ultimate aim of the »emotional release« device is the encouragement and endorsement of excess and violence. As soon as the barriers against crying and self-pity are broken down, one may express unchecked one's suppressed feelings of hatred and fury as well, and the collective religious wantonness of the Holy Rollers may be consummated by the pogrom. Moreover, the more the barriers of self-control within the listeners are broken down by the orator's encouragement, the more easily they are subjected to his will rather than to their own, and to following him blindly wherever he wants them to go.
It has often been pointed out that fascism feeds upon the lack of emotional gratification in an industrial society and that it grants to the people that irrational satisfaction which is denied them by today's social and economic setup. The »emotional release« device primarily corroborates this assumption. The concept ought to be qualified, however, in other respects in order to fit it with reality.
First, ideology and reality must not be confused. The irrational gratifications which fascism offers are themselves planned and handled in an utterly rational way. Such manipulation results in a kind of psycho-technics, borrowed from the modern factory and applied to the population as a whole. It is an extremely pragmatic irrationality, and it is highly characteristic that this irrationality is expressly advertised by Thomas as well as by the German agitators as if it were a kind of a pill which makes life more agreeable. It is important to bear this in mind since this rational aspect of fascist irrational propaganda (as well as, for example, the »escapist« presentations of modern mass culture) is so obvious that it must produce a certain resistance against the permanent insincerity, a resistance which could be used by counterpropaganda. The latter might point out the shrewd soberness behind the drunken words. Such an attack would place the fascists in an inescapable dilemma, for fascist propaganda cannot avoid this rationalism within the sphere of emotional release. The fascist agitator has to reckon with people as they are, sober and practical, and can induce them to irrational attitudes only if he makes them appear as »sensible« according to the psychological economy of their own lives.
Second, the manipulated irrational gratifications are spurious. Manipulation itself is intrinsically opposed to that »release« which it sets in motion. Moreover, fascist propaganda for its own purposes does not touch upon the roots of emotional frustration in our society but rather encourages emotionalism by words. There is no real pleasure or joy, but only the release of the feeling of one's own unhappiness and the achievement of a retrogressive gratification out of the submergence of the self into the community. In short, the emotional release presented by fascism is a mere substitute for the fulfillment of desires. The most drastic example is Father Divine's device of applying an enthusiastic »it's wonderful« to everything – and therewith to nothing. When Thomas dwells on the marvelous weather, the beautiful Southern Californian landscape and the blossoming flowers, his trick is not unlike that of the Negro evangelist, for the beautiful things that he praises and offers as objects of unchecked emotions have little to do with the social world of his listeners, and even less to do with his own objectives.4 One may suspect that any reference to the emotional resources of nature is part of a scheme to distract the audience from actual problems.
Third, the switching on of emotionalism is not altogether a device superimposed upon the listeners. It presupposes a certain disposition within them, and so the shrewdness of a successful agitator actually consists in sensing dispositions which he can use as bait for his own purposes. A strong basis for the desire to escape the rigidity of psychological self-control must exist in the listeners themselves, and hence an adequate idea of this »basis« must be developed. It is in itself a result of the very same process of rationalization from which people want to get away. People want to »give in,« to cease to be individuals in the traditional sense of a self-sustaining and self-controlled unity, because they must. Thomas' negative references to stoicism and to the self-control required by the established denominations are not accidental. This stoicism is part of the attitude of the independent individual of the liberal era of free competition. The strength to control oneself reflects the strength to compete with others and to determine economically and thus also psychologically one's own fate. Today, when this independence begins more and more to dwindle, self-control begins to disappear too. The social forces to which each individual is subject are so tremendous that he has to yield to them not only economically by becoming an employee (rather than remaining a self-sustaining social unit), but also psychologically under the social and cultural pressure put upon him, a pressure which he can bear only by making it his own cause. He must act in terms of adequate conformist behavior rather than in the terms of a unified, integrated personality. The individual becomes not only harder insofar as he is taught to think more and more pragmatically. He also becomes softer insofar as his resistance to the impact of the social world as a whole and industrial technology in particular becomes weaker. The more he ceases to be an ego, a »self,« the less he is capable and willing to fulfill the requirements of self-control. Hysteria is an extreme expression of a psychological configuration spreading rapidly over the whole of society. It is this particular disposition which is met by the »emotional release« device. Stoicism is derided because the individuals neither can nor will be stoical any longer, that is to say, because the final compensation for emotional self-control – an existence firmly established in itself and secure – no longer prevails. The effect of the emotional release device is not so much that it evinces the reactions to which it refers, but rather that it makes them socially acceptable and lifts an already tottering taboo so that people may have the feeling of doing the socially correct thing if they abandon their self-control. This mechanism of a »social affirmation« of attitudes which already operate within the subjects but which they still vaguely feel to be at variance with the rules that they were taught in their youth is an intrinsic element of all fascist and anti-Semitic propaganda.
The selection of the personal qualities the speaker directly or indirectly claims to possess gains significance only with reference to some which are conspicuously absent. He stresses, for example, his personal integrity and honesty, therewith falling in line with old patterns of election propaganda. He also hints at his qualifications as a leader. But he never refers to his particular equipment for doing the rather ill-defined job upon which he embarks. He points out neither his training, his political background, his erudition nor any specific personal features by which he may qualify as a political leader. Instead he is satisfied by vaguely referring to God's call. The configuration of self-advertising and vagueness about himself has a meaning of its own. Apart from possibly calculating upon the widespread aversion to the professional politician and perhaps to any kind of expertness, a feeling based upon the deep-rooted unconscious resistance to the prevailing division of labor, Thomas uses the vagueness of his image of himself to leave room for any kind of fantasy on the part of the audience. He presents himself as a kind of empty frame which can be filled out by the most contradictory conceptions on the part of his listeners. He may be imagined by them as a benevolent and humane clergyman, or as a reckless soldier, as a high-strung, emotional human being or as a shrewd man of practical life, as a keen observer who knows all dubious inside stories and as a pure soul who calls in the wilderness. Vagueness about his own personality is a means of integration concomitant with the vagueness of his political aims. Both serve to herd together most different types of listeners who are willing to follow him the more blindly, the less exactly they know who he is and what he stands for. A certain abstractness, interspersed with petty concrete references to daily life, is characteristic of the pattern of the fascist agitator.
There are, however, some few specific traits which occur again and again. First, the dwelling upon his own innocence. He is not merely an irreproachable and unselfish character, and it is just because of his higher moral qualities that he is subject to permanent persecution – to threats and conspiracies of his enemies. Thomas goes often so far as to say that he may be poisoned at any time or that his church (which, by the way, was his private property) may be burnt. »People will write all kinds of things. They write everything against me. They write that they are going to kill me.«5 Other West Coast fascist agitators, such as [George] A. Phelps, also imply the »persecuted innocence« device which was developed by the Nazis. The latter characteristically called their highly aggressive elite guard (from which the Gestapo members are selected) the SS, Schutzstaffel, that is to say, »protective Corps.« The »persecuted innocence« device serves a double purpose. First, it has to interpret the danger to the leader as one to all and to rationalize aggressiveness under the guise of self-defence.
»Listen Christians, do you remember what he said: if they have persecuted me they will also persecute you.«6 The most pronounced example of this trick is provided by Father [Charles Edward] Coughlin's excuse for Hitlerism in all its aspects by referring to it in terms of a »self-defense mechanism.« It is borrowed from high politics. Ever since Caesar attacked the half-savage Gauls with his highly trained army and explained his war of conquest as a consequence of absolutely necessary protective measures, military aggression has been termed defense. Fascism with its intrinsic affinity to all imperialistic behavior patterns has, for the first time, adapted this device to the purpose of home policy and even to the building up of ideologies for individual actions. There is, however, a deeper psychological implication in the mechanism. It is not expected that it will be taken completely seriously but rather as a stimulus to violence itself. In this connection, psychoanalysis has shown that the aggressive, sadistic tendencies to which Fascist propaganda appeals do not clearly differentiate between the aggressor and the victim; psychologically, both notions are to a certain extent interchangeable, since both date back to a developmental phase where the distinction between subject and object, ego and outer world, is not yet clearly established. This ambivalence is further evidenced by the large role of the concept of self-sacrifice in all fascist propaganda. In the last analysis, such an interchange-ability makes it possible to blame the prospective victim for the very same crime one wants to commit oneself. By »projection« one unconsciously makes events appear real which exist only in one's own imagination. The most blatant example of this mechanism is, of course, the German Reichstag fire. In Germany, the »persecuted innocence« device always was used with a certain cynicism and was received as such. For example, innumerable jokes of the type »Jew peddler bites Aryan shepherd dog« were enjoyed. It is very likely that the same device is applied on the American scene in a parallel way.
While referring to his own persecuted honesty, unselfishness and devotion to the great cause, Thomas rarely forgets to hint at his indefatigability. He reads hundreds of letters a day; he spends his last bit of energy; his hair was turned gray too early because of his ceaseless efforts; he sacrifices, and works, incomparably more than his followers: »Let me repeat that my work is a labor of love. I am asking you only to sacrifice with me. I don't ask you to work as hard as I work.«7 Indefatigability, strangely enough, is also one of the main characteristics he ascribes to his foes. The Bolsheviks are never tired; they are at their subversive work day and night, undermining the structure of American society while the good folks are asleep. »Remember, the Communists never take a vacation. Remember, the devil has a revivial all of the time. You and I must work night and day simply because we have less than a half loaf.«8 The affinity of this device to the »Germany awaken« theme lies at hand. Its psychological implications are manifold and not altogether consistent.
There is, above all, the desire to »stir up,« which may be regarded as the archetype of all aggressiveness. It is one of the innermost drives of fascism to perpetuate actually and ideologically the necessity of hard work, thus obtaining a justification for »discipline« and oppression. This attitude, grounded in socioeconomic tendencies, permeates the whole fascist setup into its last psychological ramifications. Under fascism, psychologically, no one is allowed to sleep: one of the favorite tortures applied by authoritarian governments to their victims is that their sleep is interrupted hourly until their nerves completely break down. The fascist hatred of sleep – in the broadest sense of leaving anything alone – is reflected by the fascist leader's emphasis upon his being indefatigable himself, therewith setting an example for his followers. Indefatigability is a psychological expression of totalitarianism. No rest should be given, unless everything is seized, grasped, organized. And since this aim will never be reached, the ceaseless efforts of every follower are needed.9
Yet, while indefatigability is stressed, the agitator does not actually want to evince a fully »awake,« conscious, lucid attitude in his followers. To be sure, he wants them to be active and to be ready to do things, but only under a kind of spell. There is an element of truth in the reference to »mass hypnotism« in fascism, though this reference often underrates the highly »rational« element in fascist mass movements, the followers' hope for material gain and an improvement of their social status. However, so much may safely be said: It is the activity of the hypnotized which is expected by fascist propaganda rather than that of responsible and conscious individuals. Thus, the insistence upon indefatigability works as a kind of dope. Just because the follower is expected, in a way, to fall asleep and to act while he is asleep, he is told innumerable times that he has to be awake and that he must not sleep. The relationship between sleeping and indefatigability is highly ambivalent and the agitators feed upon this ambivalence. He who is to sleep while he is told that he has to be indefatigable and that he is indefatigable, may offer much less resistance to the will of his leader than he otherwise would. He is made to believe himself vaccinated against the very contagion that threatens him.10
There is one last very specific characteristic Thomas applies to himself – a characteristic which is especially noteworthy since it overtly contradicts the image of the leader, whereas in a deeper sense it is likely to be intrinsically connected with the fascist leader type. It is the idea that the speaker himself is not the savior, but only his messenger. In Thomas' speeches the »messenger« device is borrowed from the theological armory, namely, from the role of St. John the Baptist.
»John had sense enough to know that he could not take this other place. John recognized that he had his own gift, but it was not to step into the light of the cross of Jesus. Here is a tremendous truth that you and I need to recognize and to obey. If this message that I am giving today glorifies Martin Luther Thomas or any other human being, it is bound to fail, but if this message of the great Christian American Crusade lifts up the Son of God, this movement is bound to succeed ... I do not know what your talents in life may be. It may be that you are simply to be a messenger. Now the finest place in the world is to be a messenger. Now, I am a messenger of God to the world; so are you.«11
We are not concerned at this point with the well calculated confusion of worldly and spiritual matters – the cross of Jesus and the Christian American Crusade. We are merely concerned with the idea of the messenger and Thomas' stressing that he is a prophet rather than a fulfiller of the hopes which he elicits. This may appear to be an accidental feature of this particular agitator which has little to do with the essence of fascist propaganda where the leader is primarily expected to play himself up. But it should not be overlooked that Hitler, during the earlier days of Nazism, employed the messenger device too, by calling himself merely the drummer (»Ich bin nur der Trommler«). The obvious reason for this device is, of course, that many fascist leaders were originally propagandists rather than actual politicians – which in itself is a significant feature of our present society where the borderline between advertizing and reality has become so fluent. However, there is a deeper psychological issue involved. Some light may be thrown upon it by an occasional reference of Thomas to his father: »My father was a very brainy man. Unfortunately his son didn't inherit any of his brains.«12 This propagandistic, ironic humility is a thin veil for the speaker's antagonism to his father (an antagonism which becomes apparent at other passages as well, particularly when Thomas contrasts his religious fervor to his father's supposed »agnosticism«). Hitler's Mein Kampf leaves no doubt that he, too, went through severe psychological and practical conflicts with his father. It is hardly too daring a venture to interpret the drummer or messenger device as an expression of the speaker's desire to present himself as the image of the son, of him who is not yet »the man« himself.13 Incidentally, the emphasis upon the concept of the Son as contrasted to that of God the Father is one of the central points of Thomas' theological twists. The Agitator who wishes his followers to identify themselves with him and to imitate him presents himself not only as their superior, as the strong man, but simultaneously as just the opposite. He is as weak as they are; he is the one who needs redemption rather than he who redeems, in short, he is a son subject to paternal authority, dependent on and at the service of something bigger than himself.14 This greater entity is, however, no longer the father. It is vague and utterly undefined, but all the stimuli point to its being the collectivity of all the »sons« gathered around the fascist organization – a collectivity the power of which is supposed to give psychological compensation for the weakness of each component individual. The image of the fascist dictator is no longer a paternalistic one. This fact reflects the decline of the family as a self-sustaining, independent, economic unit in the present phase of social development. As the father ceases to be the guarantor of the life of his family, so he ceases to represent psychologically a superior social agency. The image of Stalin still has something orientally patriarchal, in Mussolini patriarchal features are faintly hinted at, but they are totally absent in the bachelor Hitler and his collective image. Hitler himself represents much more the rebellious, neurotically weak son who succeeds just by his neurotic weakness which enables him to submerge completely with his equals in the movement. The fascist leader is supposed to gain control by »giving himself up« and surrendering himself to the collectivity. It is from the latter that he derives his authority and for which he stands in all his symbolic utterances – hence, the tendency to stress that he is not the savior himself but merely his messenger or representative. Thomas, who mainly appeals to middle-aged people of a strong Christian background, is, as a whole, more patriarchal than the more streamlined fascist leader types. This, by the way, does not make him less dangerous, since his specific qualifications allow him to affect groups which otherwise might be very difficult to reach by propaganda.15 Nevertheless, he cannot entirely dispense with the »son« aspect of Fascism which makes itself felt in his assurance of humility, his devotion to something greater than himself, and his being merely a forerunner of what is to come. The real psychological trick of fascism consists in the fact that the forerunner is transformed by certain unconscious mechanisms into him whom he is supposed to announce.
Apart from its far-reaching unconscious implications, the messenger device belongs to a much more general structure of fascist propaganda. It points into a constellation which is characteristic for the whole relationship between the speaker and his audience. Representing the psychological »integration« of his audience as a totality, he is both weak and strong: weak insofar as each member of the crowd is conceived as being capable of identifying himself with the leader who, therefore, must not be too superior to the follower; strong insofar as he represents the powerful collectivity which is achieved through the unification of those whom he addresses. The image that he presents of himself is that of the »great little man« with a touch of the incognito, of he who walks unrecognized in the same paths as other folks, but who finally is to be revealed as the savior. He calls for both intimate identification and adulating aloofness; hence, his picture is purposely self-contradictory. He reckons with short memories and relies rather on the divergent unconscious dispositions to which he appeals at different times, than on consistent rational convictions.
There are two specific evidences of the great little man device. The first is Thomas' attitude towards money, or the way in which he speaks of his financial worries. As far as is known, Thomas had no powerful financial backing, though the role he played in the Merriam-Sinclair campaign (as well as some other factors) suggests that he was not quite without any important financial sponsors. Even if it is true, however, that he had to rely mainly on the small contributions that he received from his radio listeners, the way in which he discusses money with them is rather unusual. No consideration of dignity inhibits him from asking for money again and again; no religious scruples are in his way to prevent him from mixing up religious and financial issues in a fashion which one would expect to be revolting to any religious person. All his speeches are interspersed with whining and pointedly shameless appeals for funds; one may say that he plays the beggar. This habit was common in the period of the rise of National Socialism, particularly between 1930 and 1933, when the Party, then sometimes at odds with its sponsors, made one street collection after the other. The same technique is applied by other American anti-Semitic agitators as well. It would be shortsighted to underestimate the psychological value of the begging attitude. People are generally ready to attribute a higher value to things for which they made financial sacrifices. Money works as a bond. But this does not sufficiently explain why the prospective leader himself, in blatant contradiction to the idea of his grandeur, plays with the aspect of being a beggar. Ambitious men, such as Thomas or Phelps, are certainly more interested in their political career than in their immediate modest financial gains, and they certainly know what they do when they reiterate their clamor for dollars and cents. A tentative explanation would be the universal feeling of insecurity of the masses in the present economic phase. No one but the very rich feels himself as the master of his economic fate any longer but rather as the object of huge blind economic forces working upon him. Everyone senses that he is somehow at the mercy of society; the spectre of the beggar looms behind the psychological imagery of each individual. The fascist agitator reckons with this disposition. By assuming a begging attitude he not only appears on equal footing with those whom he addresses. He also takes it upon himself psychologically to do the begging himself, to undergo psychologically the very same humilation of which his follower is afraid, and thus to »redeem« him symbolically of the shame of being a beggar by assuming this function vicariously and hallowing it, as it were.
As far as Thomas is concerned, the begging attitude often assumes an aspect of metaphysical blackmail, not altogether unlike the »Ablaß« technique of the Roman Catholic Church at the beginning of the bourgeois age. He suggests at least indirectly that one may buy the heavenly kingdom by helping him to pay his bills.
We keep a very accurate record of every dollar that is given to this movement, and so we know every penny that comes in and exactly, my friends, where the money comes from and where the money goes. I am appealing for the spirit of God to speak to your heart right now that you have a little part in this great movement that is spreading across America. Remember that we must pay our bills, the petty bills, the stamp bills, remote control bills and radio bills and the office bills.16
Evidently Thomas reckons with most peoples' complicated psychological attitude towards money – a streak of bad conscience they feel for everything they own – in his attempts to divert the »tithe of God« into his own pockets. He also appeals to the American sense of a good bargain, that everything has its definite price, that everything can be expressed in terms of its financial equivalent. This is, by the way, a line followed by commercial advertisers who expect housewives to buy their soap as the price for their »soap operas.« In Thomas this idea is combined with the indefatigability device. »I am sacrificing every ounce of brain energy that I have in this great cause. I am wondering if I could appeal to you, a few people to send in $10.«17 Most important, however, not only does he beg for money, but he also speaks all the time about his financial difficulties and does not refrain from describing himself as someone who undertook larger financial obligations than he actually could fulfill. Therefore, he needs help from his followers who may get a tremendous gratification out of being capable of helping the great little man who has the same worries as themselves. They may even consider themselves his financial superiors. Simultaneously, his acknowledgment of a certain financial incorrectness on his part may appeal to the predatory instinct of his followers.
Thomas' line of propaganda is a characteristic mixture of the pompousness of a man who has to direct big affairs and the cry of the despondent. The following quotation is characteristic of his configuration:
I have come to a crisis in the future of this work. My financial secretary presented me yesterday with a printer's bill, contracted during the month of May, alone, of $800. I am frank to say that I had not known how much that bill had accumulated up. I find that during the month of May, we mailed out practically 100,000 copies of all of this literature. All of the printing bills and the postage bills ran during the month of May twelve hundred dollars alone. Now, I have got to come to a decision between one or two things. I have either got to make a very definite appeal to you people to aid me in materially reducing this bill, or stop at once all mailing. Undoubtedly, I will have to stop sending anything further until this bill is paid. I cannot allow this bill to accumulate. I do not think it is the will of God. I didn't know. I didn't realize that the May bill of printing, the highest in the history of the movement had accumulated so much. Of course, we thank God for it. It only indicates the extent of this movement, but it also indicates, beloved, that you and I must get down on our knees this morning and make this the special order of the day.18
He alludes to his having a financial secretary, like an executive, and to his want of $800. Translated into psychological terms, this may mean: I have power rather than money.
The mixture of pettiness and grandeur is not limited to money matters alone. Thomas' whole personal attitude wavers between very small, practical, down-to-earth matters, and grandiose statements which are brought together without any intermediary logical stages. The two are simply identified with each other so that even the poorest listener can feel »elevated« at once from his low status to the realm of ideas. Neither Thomas nor the listener worries about the way that leads from their limited private existence to the spheres of social and religious abstractions. It is a travesty of thought, drawn from an old theological tradition, which is now manipulated in order to profiteer on the narrow-mindedness and disillusioned soberness of the poor by translating high-sounding ideas into their imagery. Thomas' speeches are full of minor technicalities which are linked together with »this great movement« or the spreading of Christianism throughout America. In one of his speeches he gives a circumstantial description of how to reach his church, mentioning even that »officers will be on duty to aid you to and fro across the boulevard« and continues:
Be certain and come tonight. If you are a real Christian and a real American and I know there are thousands of you who are, you are going to be here and we are going to take some action tonight by the blessing of God.19
This technique is applied even to the concept of eternal life. It is conceived in terms of the little ma
n who is afraid of all sorts of illnesses. Eternity becomes a sort of life insurance:
Now do you know what eternal life is? It means forever and forever. It means a life that is unending. It means a life where there will be no death. It means a life where there will never be disease. It means a life where there will never be sorrow.20
As soon as his promises are utterly beyond realization within existing society and, hence, are free from any rational control, they become lavish like the day-dreams of the child into whom he wants to transform his listener.
Eternal life means that you and I and every man and woman that accepts the Son of the living God is going on, tens of thousands of years, ten million years, ten billion years, ten trillion years, and you can multiply each of these by ten. It means the ages of the ages. Isn't it worthwhile?21
It should be noted that Himmler, in a famous speech, predicted that the Third Reich would last from 20,000 to 30,000 years. To boast about trillions of years of life and then to ask humbly »isn't it worthwhile?« is the most perfect expression of the idea of the »great little man« that Thomas wishes to convey. He combines the ideas of trillions of years and of sound investment. He disposes of eternity and is a reliable broker.
The »great little man« device, the mixture of sublimity and soberness, again is combined with the »indefatigability« device in a sentence that shows utter contempt for any sense of proportion:
Pray that God will put it into the heart and mind of this great living audience that they have no peace night and day until they send for this vital literature that we are sending out free of charge.22
He psychologically established an immediate relationship between the demand for his petty pamphlets and the religious peace of the soul. Only if one is indefatigable in asking for »this vital literature« does one have a chance of getting any sleep at all.
The audience which Thomas addresses has to be imagined as consisting largely of elderly, somewhat lonesome, disappointed lower-middle-class people, particularly women. This accounts for one of his favorite personal attitudes: the »human interest« trick, the deliberate fiction of personal closeness, warmth, and intimacy. This attitude has proven its value through, for instance, the tremendous appeal of the key figures in women's serials. Thomas presents himself in a sense as the homespun philosopher, the folksy, good-natured, humble man with the golden heart who, although himself by no means living comfortably, thinks of his neighbor first, brings him comfort, and gives him some sort of help. Though the »human interest« device of Thomas is related to his specific audience, it should be noted that it can also be found among a great many American fascist agitators, such as Phelps, while it was largely absent from German Nazi propaganda. Apparently, the pressure of technology and the highly centralized business culture in this country is so tremendous that those who live under this pressure clamor for »strong dope.« Radio, of course, with its fake immediateness, bringing the distant voice into the little man's own home, is a particularly adequate medium for this device.
Thomas seems to be capable of speaking with perfect ease about the most intimate matters of his own life to perfect strangers – experiences about which anyone who actually had them would be completely reticent.
God called me. He did not call me until my little mother was on her deathbed. When she called me to her side and said »before you were born into this world I dedicated you to God and I dedicated you to be a minister to the Son of God.«23
This experience is supposed to have brought about a complete change in his life, a kind of Augustinian conversion. »My life was immediately changed. The things that I loved from the standpoint of the flesh I immediately hated.«24 His whole family is summoned for propaganda purposes, notwithstanding the fact that his actual family life was by no means happy. He mentions an illness of his wife and asks the community to pray for her, although he hurries to add that »she is not so very ill.«25 When he suffers from a cough, he uses it as a means of achieving a personal touch and appearing as »human,« while at the same time stressing his spirit of boundless sacrifice. »Now if I have to cough today, I know that you will forgive me and realize that I am laboring under a tremendous handicap.«26 Correspondingly, he feigns an intimate interest in the family affairs of his listeners. There are always sick people, always people down the hill, always people who suffer under humiliating conditions, and he advertises his sympathy for all of them. »I trust that everybody had a good night's rest, that you are refreshed, and that you are getting ready for a great day tomorrow, as well as today.«27 He shares in their joys no less than in their sorrows and plays upon the pride they take in junior. »Let any man or woman listening to me this morning hour who is not in reality governed by their emotions look into those blue eyes of that baby of yours.«28
Here the trick is obvious. There are innumerable babies with blue eyes, but to most mothers these eyes appear as an intimate, specific characteristic. By referring to them, Thomas fakes his closeness to those whom he never saw, without any danger of being disavowed.
One particular form of the »human interest« trick may be called the »good old time« device. It consists of placing special emphasis on the old fashioned and the obsolete in one's actions and surroundings. The American cult of novelty is likely to produce a sort of resentment within all those who cannot participate in the latest blessings of technical civilization, whereas even to those who participate in modern technology life appears to become colder and colder by the sweep of progress. Thomas overcompensates for this feeling by emphasizing the old-fashioned and the homely as being genuine and traditional and as having a sort of patina which the novelties lack. Thus, the patina itself falls within the same advertising pattern as the novelties do – a scheme familiar from commercial advertising. In a description of Thomas' church, its lack of glamor is glamorized.
We don't have much of a church here. We don't have any stained glass windows. We don't have a great deal of marble and brick. We just have a little old-fashioned church by this great highway. The total thing did not cost us but $3600, but folks, we love Christ out here and we are trying to serve him to the very best of our ability. If you are worn and tired of life and if you think that God does not live, why don't you come tonight ... suppose you get that old Bible of yours. That old Bible that you have loved and that has come down through the years ... perhaps it belonged to that old father of yours or mother or somebody. Go, get it, won't you?29
Thomas capitalizes on resentment and frustration by confirming the homeliness of those who cannot afford nice things as a morally superior way of life. In addition, the denunciation of »stained glass windows and marble,« which are here a sort of religious substitute for make-up and lipstick, fits in very well with his generally ascetic, anti-sensual, and anti-hedonist attitude, which he has in common with practically all fascist agitators in the whole world.
The ideal that looms behind the »human interest« trick is that of the traditionalistic, anti-liberal poor, who, in spite of their poverty, are content with life as it is and are ready to sacrifice themselves for the maintenance of the very same conditions under which they suffer, being rewarded by the dubious pleasure of some undefined inner superiority over the rich as well as the discontented. All Thomas' maudlin appeals aim at establishing this attitude which he regards as the most promising one to be taken by his peculiar type of listeners.
I see coming before me today a great crowd of little women with hard hands from scrubbing the floors, from going over the washtubs. I see a great host of those who have never bowed the knee to Communism in the world. I see this great host of womanhood. Many of them ... saving, praying, working that this magnificent gospel of the son of God shall continue across the world.30
To sum up the personal attitude that Thomas pretends to take: he stresses the personal element, the similarity between himself and the audience, and the whole sphere of interest, as a sort of emotional compensation for the cold, self-alienated life of most people and particularly of innumerable isolated individuals of the lower middle classes. The very immediateness and warmth of his approach, furthered by radio, helps him to get a firmer grip over them. The substitute for their isolation and loneliness is not solidarity, but obedience. He advocates obsolescent, quasi-precapitalistic forms of human euphoria against the streamlined conditions of today, in order to prepare for their transformation into something even more streamlined, the totalitarian leader-state. The sham individualism, preached by Thomas, only furthers the tendency to dispose of the individual by incorporating him into a collectivity, where he may feel »sheltered« but where he has no say at all.
Fußnoten
1 May 29, 1934.
2 Hitler often spoke about his own »fanatical love for Germany.«
3 July 9, 1935.
4 Some examples: »Our father, we thank you this afternoon for this wonderful day. We thank thee for this beautiful Southern land.« (July 14, 1935) – »Good morning, everybody, everywhere. We are happy to be with you upon this beautiful day with the sunshine pouring out upon your yards.« (July 3, 1935)
5 May 22, 1935.
6 July 13, 1935.
7 May 22, 1935.
8 May 31, 1935.
9 It goes without saying that the praise of indefatigability is deeply rooted throughout middle-class society. It plays a decisive role particularly in Calvinism and Jansenism. Pascal went so far as to define Christianity in terms of indefatigability: the agony of Christ lasts until the end of the world, and no one should sleep any more. The more radical, ascetic Christian movements always emphasized this point, and it may obtain its peculiar weight within Thomas' propaganda through this »revivalist« background. The term revival itself implies hostility against anything that rests quietly. What is new about the indefatigability device in fascism is only that it has been made independent, a sort of fetish. The older bourgeois had to be indefatigable in order to secure a chance of winning the pity of the hidden God and of making a fortune for his family. The fascist is taught to be indefatigable for the sake of indefatigability itself. Self-denial, in this as in all other respects, is interpreted in terms of an end rather than a means. It is regarded as the very same compensation which it forbids. This transformation is one of the deepest psychological changes that have taken place in our time. It would be essential for any counterpropaganda, which really gets at the hub of the problems, to point out the irrational, fetishistic, and absurd characteristics of all the »sacrifices« demanded by fascist propaganda.
10 The question how the »hypnotic« and the »rational« element work together in fascist propaganda may be answered at least tentatively. Above all, fascist propaganda cannot be entirely rational, for objective reasons. Fascism aims at the repressive maintenance of an antagonistic society – an aim which is intrinsically irrational. It is rational only with reference to the interest of single groups or individuals. The discrepancy between such interests and the irrationality of the whole makes itself keenly felt. One may well assume that the hidden awareness of the irrationality of the final goals of the »movement« produces some sort of bad conscience within each individual fascist. Here the hypnotic element comes into play. It helps to overcome that bad conscience. The fascist stops thinking, not because he is stupid and does not see his own interest, but because he does not want to acknowledge the conflict between his particular interest and that of the whole. He gives up his reasoning because it is »rationally« inconvenient to him. There is an element of spitefulness involved in his »belief.« He has to switch it on himself, again and again, in order not to lose his spurious faith. Fascist hypnotism may be characterized as being essentially self-hypnotism.
11 May 23, 1935.
12 May 29, 1935.
13 This idea, which has been developed by the Institute of Social Research for many years, has been printed out independently, and somewhat differently, in Erik Homburger Erikson's study, »Hitler's Imagery and German Youth«: »Psychologists overdo Hitler's father attributes. Hitler is the adolescent who never even aspired to become a father in any connotation, nor, for that matter, a kaiser, or a president. He does not repeat Napoleon's error. He is the Führer: a glorified older brother, who replaces the father, taking over all his prerogatives, without over-identifying with him: he calls his father ›old while still a child‹ and reserves for himself the new position of the one who remains young in possession of supreme power. He is the unbroken adolescent who has chosen a career apart from civilian happiness and ›peace‹; a gang leader who keeps ›the boys‹ together by demanding their admiration, by creating terror, and by shrewdly involving them in crimes from which there is no way back. And he is a ruthless exploiter of parental failure.« (Psychiatry V, 4 [November, 1942], pp. 480–481.)
14 This motive is, strangely enough, to be found at the end of Wagner's Parsifal which, as a whole, is a sort of anti-Semitic cryptogram. The last words of the opera are »Erlösung dem Erlöser.« Paternalistic authority as represented by Titurel is shown as being utterly powerless throughout the opera: Titurel has abdicated for the sake of his son Amfortas and dies for the latter's sin.
15 It may be noted that a kind of psychological »division of labor« also took place among the German fascist leaders. Hitler himself stressed, in his New Year's message of 1934, the diversity of Nazi leader types. Apart from extremely non-paternalistic and even homosexual types such as Hitler, Röhm, Schirach and Goebbels, there are more patriarchal ones, such as the »civil service« man Frick. However, the appeal of the latter group seems to have decreased considerably since the Nazis came into power.
16 May 23, 1935.
17 May 25, 1935.
18 June 4, 1935.
19 April 14, 1935.
20 May 24, 1935.
21 Ibid. The inflationary character of those figures may have something to do with the contempt for any established money value inherent in fascism. This mixture of apparently sober figuring and fantastic expectations is utterly unthinkable for the liberalistic mentality, though it may have its precedents in American sectarianism.
22 Ibid.
23 June 7, 1935.
24 Ibid.
25 June 26, 1935.
26 June 6, 1935.
27 May 25, 1935.
28 May 29, 1935.
29 July 7, 1935.
30 July 12, 1935.