The Economic crisis and the fascist
ideology from the perspective of consciousness
Giannis
Ninos
(Technical
University of Crete, Greece)
E-mail: giannis_ninos@hotmail.com
Dimitris Koulos
(Technical
University of Crete, Greece)
E-mail: dkoulos@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
This presentation is an attempt to describe the
fundamental process of the emergence of the fascist ideology in the era of
economic crisis. Fascist ideology is a political ideology and, as every
political ideology, it is a product of the ethic form of consciousness. In our
approach we will investigate the specific connection of the forms of social
consciousness (Ethic, Aesthetic, Philosophy) within
the fascist ideology and the way this connection reveals itself when specific
social circumstances exist. In this context, we will also exam fascism as a
form of national consciousness. We will support that one of the fundamental ideas of
fascism is the concept of nation.
The concept of nation is understood
as an imaginary hyper-class community of
private owners. The fact that people, especially in the era of
the economic crisis when their social and economic status is in danger and
their future is uncertain, are turning to the nation,
as the only
possible and authentic collectivity,
is something that
stems mainly through the everyday
empirical character, consciousness of certain section of petty bourgeois strata and
by certain section of workers that lack class
consciousness. From the perspective of this type of consciousness, the
nation is considered as an entity which lies outside the history process, and
based on this, in the context of fascism, this anti-historicism manifests
itself as naturalization of the nation. This is the groundwork of the
foundation of concepts such as genetic unity, common blood, race, and generally
the reduction of social relationships to physical relationships. Exactly in
this context, the content of fascist communalism,
appears as solidarity between different classes under the fictitious identity
of race. This means that the class hierarchy and inequality is something
physical and something that we must maintain. Our approach is based on the
heritage of Soviet Psychology and specifically: on L. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical approach of the subject,
on A.N. Leontiev’s theory of activity and on V.A. Vazulin’s study on consciousness in his book “Logic of
History”, where he creatively used all the scientific results of the Soviet Psychology.
Key words:
activity, class, fascism, ideology, nation, race,
social forms of consciousness
During an economic and -more generally speaking- social crisis, where the
current ideological and political stereotypes as well as their organizational
forms fail to handle the social reality, a great part of social power rush to
get together ready to fight for nationalism and embrace its various political
representatives, including neo-fascists-neonazi
variations. But, what is fascism and how does it result in the context of an
economic crisis? Which are the basic characteristics of fascism?
In the context of capitalism, politics seems to be a mass of
contradicting points of view, contradicting interests and believes, while the
single person-carrier of his own interests seems to be the basic form of politics.
Humans, since they are social beings - not just biological creatures - have
personalities. As V.A.Vazulin points out, “what
determines a personality (the personal aspect) is the particularly human aspect
in humans (Vazulin 2004, 229), i.e. the conscious and
on-purpose transformation of nature by humans. In other words, the effect of
human’s work and productivity on nature aiming to produce specific consumable
products.
Consciousness is a natural-historical process. It results in the
framework of the working effort and production process. Here we need to point out that by the term
“production process” we mean the unity of all production forces (the subject,
the object, the means and the outcomes of labour)
with the relations of production (relations that are generated in the framework
of the production process). Consciousness, which, as already mentioned,
results in the framework of the working effort and the production process, and
exists exactly due to the production process, is actually a single whole made
of two distinctive parts:
The first part of consciousness is actually the “outrunning conception
resembling a show, i.e. ideally the outcome of the transformation of the object
of labour, using the means and tools of labour. Here, we refer to scientia (Vazulin
2004, 233).
The second part of consciousness is actually the “show-like ideal
outrunning conception of its relationship with the humans and the relationship
of humans with their inner self, as well as the relationships of humans with
one another co-scientia»
(Vazulin
2004,233).
The first part, scientia ,results from the mutual relationship of humans with nature
and the interaction between humans and nature.
The second part results from the mutual relations of humans during production,
i.e. it results from the human interaction.
Social consciousness is the reflection of objects and processes that
result from human activity, mainly the one of production, aiming to the
potentials of transforming them. The transformation potentials are always
determined by the specific connection of production forces and production
relations. We believe that, as we examine consciousness considering it as a
natural-historical process, the essence that results is the following: the
production process is the main part of the process.
The production process,
within the whole set of activities, is inevitable but not unique. In human history,
production process dominates the day, while time for leisure is very limited. Human
activity, seen as the interaction of man - nature and man – society, is actually
the unity of the two. Therefore,
social consciousness is the reflection of objects and processes that result from
human interaction with society and nature. This very reflection is actualized through
the following three basic forms: The ethical, the aesthetic and the
philosophical form of social consciousness.
The ethical form of consciousness is
formed by the refraction of the social Being, mainly through
the prism of the actions of the conscious individuals. Categories that play a key role in this specific
form of social consciousness are those that represent the essence of the
actions. For example: Good, Evil, Beneficial, Harmful content etc. The ethical form
of social consciousness has got two more, historically temporary, manifestations:
Politics and Right. Politics, seen in the light of Logic of History, “constitutes mainly of
actions directed by the consciousness of the substantial difference, antithesis
and antiphasis between the acting person and the
receiver. These actions aim to satisfy material benefits. (It is based on the substantial difference, antithesis and
contradiction of material interests)(Vazulin 2004,261).
Politics means fight,
politics means a confrontational battle field in the framework of which the
fight happens for some material interest against another substantially
different and confronting interest.
In the context of
this very fight, a never ending struggle as long as the contradictions and
antithesis are not resolved, the winners impose their own specific interests
claiming that they are for the benefit of the society and hence of the losers
too.
This is exactly where
Right appears as a form of social consciousness. Therefore, “the consciousness
of Right and Wrong is the consciousness of the interests of the dominant part;
it is imposed on the losers, whose interests are opposite.” (Vazulin 2004, 263).
The second form of
social consciousness is the aesthetic one. It is the reflection of the essence
of humans and the inevitabilities that govern the social Being in the midst of aesthetic
equivalents. The categories that play a leading role in this specific form of social
consciousness are the following: beauty, harmony, asymmetry etc
Two more
manifestations arise in this second form of social consciousness: Religion and
Art.
Regarding the present
presentation, what interests us, and is worth noting, is Vazulin’s
reference to religious conscience.
“The religious
conscience typically consists of those natural and social powers that have not
given in to humans, are not dominated by humans, are
destructive and harmful. Therefore these powers are unknown to a certain extent,
since diagnosis is sufficient only when the perceived object can be transformed
to the desired direction that satisfies the needs of the perceiver” (Vazulin
2004, 266).
Finally, we have the third
form of social consciousness, the philosophical one. It is mainly formed by the refraction of the
social Being through the prism of thoughts of the individuals in the
process of becoming conscious and self-conscious.
Philosophy is the deepest
and most intermediated by social Being form of social
consciousness. This form of social consciousness, in contrast to the two fore
mentioned ones, possesses one additional particularity: The examination of the
relation, (of the mutual relation, of the interaction), between conscience and
material world, resulting to the realization of nature, society, conscience and
scientia.” (Vazulin 2004,
271-272).
Within the framework
of capitalism, the division of labour is growing fast
and is acquiring the essence of antithesis between executive-mental and
task-manual labour. A common characteristic of the developed division
of labour is the specialization. The working subjects
in the production process are specialized on specific, small monotonous and
repeating tasks, aiming to achieve the best productivity and efficiency that
serve the extended capital reproduction.
Specialization, being
a specific historical form of labour that happens
wherever production forces are developed to a certain extent, is mainly an
interaction. The main content of
specialization is the interaction of man and nature, namely the
scientia.
As a result, co-scientia, which can be described as the essential
reflection of mutual interrelations between people, is gradually reduced both quantitatively
and qualitatively. This situation
combined to the capitalistic discount of man to an object to be exploited as
well as to a use value that will be consumed in the production process, leads
to a certain conscience. A conscience, considered as a reflection of the social
Being through the activity of the subject-person, is
nothing else but an alienated conscience. It is an alienated conscience, where
the human relations are replaced by the objects relations, as Marx has
typically shown in “THE CAPITAL”, analyzing the phenomenon of fetishism of
merchandise. (Marx 2006, 84-97).
Therefore in a framework of such a conscience that has been established
on the basis of a manual, monotonous and repeated character of labour, the state and the authorities express the means to
implement the specific demands of the specific political representative.
At this point, where the dominant role belongs to the ethical
conscience, politics is considered a matter that refers to will and just to
will. The ethical form of consciousness obtains a static nature where good and
evil appear once and for all, as given. Therefore,
“the personalities in question are influenced in their judgment of
reality. They judge on the basis of the
symbolic impact of the actions, i.e. on the basis of what others do, what
others think and feel”. In the light of the aesthetic form of such a
conscience, a basic characteristic is the idealization of certain people as
special creatures, while a philosophical consciousness is in fact the
voluntarism which always ends up to conspiracy
talk and metaphysics.
On the basis of the fore mentioned argumentation, let us now consider
fascism as a political ideology, examining it in a more analytical way. Every
ideology is a phenomenon of the conscience, and is derived from the interaction
of the forms of the social consciousness within the division of labour. The ethics of fascism is a sort of ethics, with a
totally static and metaphysic character, where the good is identical with the
good of the nation and of the clan, while the evil is anything foreign to the
nation. The notion of the nation is crucial for fascism. From the point of view
of fascism, the notion of nation can be understood as an “imaginary classless
community of individuals-landlords, within which they can expect the protection
of their interests and the solidarity against internal and external enemies,
while the centralized state is in charge” (Pavlidis
2013). For fascism nation is a history-less and time-less notion. Our
understanding is that this characteristic proves the fact that bourgeois
consciousness has an inner trend to perceive its own world as forever given and
unchangeable. The anti-historism of fascism is manifested
by the naturalization of the nation. In other words, the social relations that develop
in the context of the nation-state are apprehended as natural, biological
relations, a fact that leads to the legalization of the exploitation, of the
class hierarchy and of the inequality, by reducing these relations to natural
relations.
The aesthetic consciousness of fascism, has mainly a religious form as
it idealizes persons (e.g. the leader, the father, the ancestors etc.), persons
that must be obeyed as they represent the common benefit.
Finally, the philosophical consciousness of fascism is the conspiracy
talk. A typical characteristic of fascism is the credit given to the conspiracy
of some powers which a priori are hostile to the nation and the clan. Based on
this very consciousness all mass executions are legalized, as well as violence
of any sort applied for the extermination of those considered “anti-nation”
persons.
To conclude, we would only like to note that today, the era of techno-sciences,
the era of bio-sciences, the era of gradual automation of production forces, today,
the potential of revolutionary emancipation of labour
is more mature than ever. After all, throughout history, the efforts for
improvement – development of social relations and production means (that arose
by human work in order to satisfy to the best possible level the material,
mental, social and individual needs), played a key role to the social
evolution, as opposed to the nationalistic and fascist deliria regarding the
existence of some hyper nature.
Thereafter, today, in the context of an unprecedented immense crisis of
capitalism and in the context of an uncertain transition era, social progress
and social evolution will be evaluated based on the procession of the class
struggle and the level of success in extorting the means of production from the
power of capitalists and in building a society where freedom reigns not the need.
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