Desire and a New Fascism
There were numerous attempts to understand and clarify President Trump’s
phenomenon. One of them was undertaken recently by Bifo Berardi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvej59cNi78
According to Berardi, we are now experiencing conditions similar to those in Germany
and Italy in 1920s. Berardi compares the frustration of the German masses with
those of “angry white men” in America who are deprived of basic existential conditions. Berardi argued that similar to Hitler, Trump tries to restore confidence and identity of
a deplorable mass of people. Berardi predicted in December 2016 that like Hitler, the Trump administration will fail to fulfill its promises and will eventually start a new global war – so far these predictions have not came true. Furthermore, the concept of the so called “new fascism”, attributed to Tramp’s presidency, probably
is more an expression of those who hate Trump than a solid analytical tool.
Yet, following Berardi's lead, we can likely conceptualize
Trump’s phenomenon by applying the concept of desire. What is Trump’s true
motivation? What is the true motivation of his supporters? How are they related? How different his self-constructed image of politician from others? Why is Trump hated
by so many? Is Deleuze and Gvattari stressing of Reich's importance still actual: “he is at his profoundest as thinker when he refuses to accept ignorance or illusion on the part of the masses as an
explanation of fascism, and demands an explanation that will take their desires into
account, an explanation formulated in terms of desire: no, the masses were not innocent
dupes; at a certain point, under a certain set of conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is
this perversion of the desire of the masses that needs to be accounted for”?
phenomenon. One of them was undertaken recently by Bifo Berardi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvej59cNi78
According to Berardi, we are now experiencing conditions similar to those in Germany
and Italy in 1920s. Berardi compares the frustration of the German masses with
those of “angry white men” in America who are deprived of basic existential conditions. Berardi argued that similar to Hitler, Trump tries to restore confidence and identity of
a deplorable mass of people. Berardi predicted in December 2016 that like Hitler, the Trump administration will fail to fulfill its promises and will eventually start a new global war – so far these predictions have not came true. Furthermore, the concept of the so called “new fascism”, attributed to Tramp’s presidency, probably
is more an expression of those who hate Trump than a solid analytical tool.
Yet, following Berardi's lead, we can likely conceptualize
Trump’s phenomenon by applying the concept of desire. What is Trump’s true
motivation? What is the true motivation of his supporters? How are they related? How different his self-constructed image of politician from others? Why is Trump hated
by so many? Is Deleuze and Gvattari stressing of Reich's importance still actual: “he is at his profoundest as thinker when he refuses to accept ignorance or illusion on the part of the masses as an
explanation of fascism, and demands an explanation that will take their desires into
account, an explanation formulated in terms of desire: no, the masses were not innocent
dupes; at a certain point, under a certain set of conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is
this perversion of the desire of the masses that needs to be accounted for”?
Comments (53)
Just after the 2016 election I had this conversation with a friend at my house to do with riots erupting as a reaction to Trump’s victory by mobs of angry anti-Trumpers where shop fronts were smashed and looting occurred.
He: Those riots show how divisive he is.
Me: So as you and I have a different political opinion and after this conversation you leave feeling pissed off with me about that, on your way down my street you break the windows of a nearby shop and some neighbors houses.
Is you doing those acts a consequence of me “being divisive” or just you being a vandal?
I need to rephrase that opening sentence:
If a “global war” OCCURS during a Trump presidency, such a thing could be invoked by his political opposition
If a government makes attempts at de-escalation of a public mania, outright tyranny is only more likely.
You referring to he of The Mass Psychology of Fascism? Long time since I read it. It's a seductive game, the psychologising of politics, and one of the best of recent times was David Smail.
Anyways, there is a problem with such analysis of the zeitgeist, which you need to be constantly aware of - that it applies to the analyser too. Thus Bernardi talks about his own loss of income, though he is doubtless insulated compared to the average white worker.
But let me put things more brutally in economic terms, avoiding the mess of both politics and psychology. Mass production required mass consumption, and so we had the worker/consumer with a modicum of power subject to the manipulations of propaganda and advertising. But once we have perfected 3d printing, along with robotics, mass production, and therefore the masses, are surplus to the requirements of capital. Economics dictates the extinction of the working (and middle) class and peasantry.
You fighting with or against your friend, or with or against @raza or me is just part of the process. Desire, impotence, humiliation, these are the personal symptoms that explain, justify, make sense of, an impersonal force of destruction. They are mere epiphenomena.
While breaking out the popcorn.
"But let me put things more brutally in economic terms, avoiding the mess of both politics and psychology. Mass production required mass consumption, and so we had the worker/consumer with a modicum of power subject to the manipulations of propaganda and advertising. But once we have perfected 3d printing, along with robotics, mass production, and therefore the masses, are surplus to the requirements of capital. Economics dictates the extinction of the working (and middle) class and peasantry." All of these are right, but can we use here a kind of cause and effect chain to explain Tramp's phenomenon? Can you answer the question about Tramp's true motivation by "the extinction of the working class"? According to Deleuze and Gvattari, desire is not "mere psychological epiphenomena.
Desire is both social and individual, it is a basic and resulting factor, working through a complex assemblage. Reich's point is that under certain conditions desire, uniting mass with its leader, can become fascistic and absolutely destructive. So, what kind of desire are we dealing with now?
Well by hypothesis, his motivation is irrelevant. Perhaps he is interested in self-aggrandisement, or perhaps he is selflessly saving America from whatever he sees as the threats to it. Either way, what he does is - as you say - divisive. But divisive forces are at work, and whatever anyone did would be divisive. That is to say, if one (a president) had unifying policies, one would find oneself in conflict with the economic necessities, and thus in conflict with everyone. Money is bigger than government, and money is not democratic, or even humane.
I think Reich missed this angle completely, and gave too much importance to psychological failings. The way it goes, the leader makes impossible promises to unify at least a voting bloc, and then has to blame someone - the forces of darkness - the press, the Mexicans, the Marxist liberals, the Jews, the deep state, for the failure to deliver. The mistake is to think that Trump, or Hitler, or even the collective psyche of their supporters are in control in any way. They are riding a wave, and trying to stay on the board. On this view, desire is manufactured by the economy at need, and conflict likewise.
Exactly - they are riding a wave (this wave actually is true desire!) - and under some circumstances this wave, taking all working factors
together in the explosive cumulative effect, can take over all acting subjects. At this moment desire canl become completely fascistic.
When or if fascism developes in America, it will have an American form -- not a 1920s German form. The prime example of American fascism has been the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan developed during a period of severe upheaval (the post Civil War south) where the Klan did a pretty good job of short-circuiting the benefits of emancipation of black people from slavery. The Klan was active for... maybe 70 years. (It hasn't disappeared, but has been severely suppressed).
1920s Germany was not like 21st century USA.
1. Germans (and most of Europe) had just come out of WWI. Many were exceedingly bitter towards the treaty ending the war which saddled Germany with crushing payments for the costs other countries incurred from the war, and for other terms such as denying Germany military resources.
2. There were unemployed German soldiers without jobs who grouped together into the paramilitary Freicorps. They were very nationalist and anti-communist. Many of these would be transformed into the SA (the brown shirts) by the Nazis..
3. Germany's economy endured extreme inflation (equivalent to a gallon of milk costing billions of dollars)
4. Despite all that, culture, especially in Berlin, was extremely dynamic in movements like the Bauhaus, or decadent (depicted by Isherwood, eventually in the play "Cabaret"). It was a time of intense cultural ferment.
5. The political situation in Germany was completely different than the existing situation in the United States.
I loathe Donald Trump and his allies, but whether he will usher in a fascist episode of history is unclear -- of course; the future is always unclear. The extremely tight control over politics wielded by the Democrat and Republican parties is not conducive to the political disorder that fascists quite often exploit. Our representative system is harder to crack than parliamentary systems. The economy is less healthy than it could be, but it doesn't appear to be on the verge of collapse. Were the economy to collapse (I mean, really fall apart here and globally) all bets would be off about political developments.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can we not say that desire is fascistic by nature. Whether i desire to make America great again, or make unenlightened great again, or some other thing - make Jesus crucified again, whatever, it takes no account of what you want unless I want it to? In which case, desire becomes fascistic whenever it is able to overwhelm the opposition.
Thus I am a conflict sociologist to an extent. The thesis is that peace ensues when conflict is internalised. If most people have conflicted loyalties, then the conflicts are internalised, but if their loyalties are not conflicted, conflict is externalised. The paradigm case is N.Ireland during the troubles; there was an alignment of identities such that working class = Catholic = republican = live in certain areas, and middle class = protestant = loyalist = live in other areas. If it had been the case that some republicans were protestant, and some working class folk lived in middle class areas, if there had been intermarriage such that families were conflicted, then there would have been less violence externalised, because folks that were allies on one issue would be enemies on another. Thus the homogenisation of conflict leads to externalised conflict and fascism. You have to identify the other unambiguously.
and rational will and reasoning, even if it is masking itself as normal, so the mass and its leader lose control over events.
As you wrote about a wave - the wave takes over.
You are right. Berardi was quite superficial.Yet, there are some factors that he did not brought: the speed of the events plus accumulative effect of unexpected - for example, the game that Trump played
(and still playing) with Kim
This is a very important point. Foucault in his preface to Anti-Oedipus differentiate between two kinds
of fascistic desire: "the major enemy, the strategic adversary is
fascism (whereas Anti-Oedipus' opposition to the others is more of a
tactical engagement). And not only historical fascism, the fascism of
Hitler and Mussolini—which was able to mobilize and use the desire of
the masses so effectively—but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and
in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to
desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us." What is common in these two kinds?
Both give foundation to the dominating power, both are unconsciousness and disguised, but first one has an absolute and irreversible cumulative effect.
Hitler and Mussolini were, in many ways, unsuccessful in exploiting the masses. Hitler, for instance, usually received no more than the 30%-40% of the popular vote. The highest percentage he received, about 51%, was in Schlesweig Holstein. Agricultural prices there were collapsing because production in Argentina, USA, and Australia was swamping the market. He promised -- didn't deliver -- hefty price supports.
Neither Hitler nor Mussolini were swept into power by popular landslides. Both fascist parties had to use trickery, deceit, manipulation, etc. to win. It is true that the masses had desires--for work, income, and a reasonably decent life. The Nazis did manage to deliver on a reasonable level of prosperity (at least until WWII started). And, of course, the fascists also managed to bring in a reasonable number of middle class and wealthy people aboard too. (The workers and the industrialists obviously wouldn't have had the same desires.
It seems to me there is fairly good support for the idea that there is an "authoritarian personality" and Germany, at least, seems to have successfully cultivated the type in their school, religious, and military institutions well before Hitler came along. Germany isn't alone, of course. One runs into authoritarian personalities frequently.
The Nazis were also quite good at cheap theatrics. The mass rallies in Nuremberg and elsewhere were very much staged events, and admission was charged (gate receipts were an important source of party income before they were able to tape into state coffers). What's not to like about an exciting torchlight rally with music, flags, marching, quasi-military rigamarole, and political haranguing? Some people live for that stuff.
American fascists did a reasonably good job of it too -- white robes and hoods, marching around in circles out in the woods, burning torches, burning crosses, some half-baked rigamarole, and a lynching every now and then.
It is quiet unprecedented that such politicians could receive 30%-40% of the popular vote. One can ask a question how even a small group of people could support Hitler - he was maniacal actor with
crazy ideas. Nevertheless, he was widely accepted as a new Messiah.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It does not look like they can get kind of massive support. When Berardi attributed "new fascism"
to Trump he meant that even after coming to power, he would need constantly mobilize masses.
Indeed, Trump's presidency is overshedowed by ongoing escalation of hysteric political struggle.
Essentially we have the (university-indoctrinated, NGO/HR-Department-employed) equivalent of a decadent, periwigged, pompadoured rentier "elite" (or rather, in modern terms, rent-seeking crowd) that's leeching off the body politic, whose way of life, whose ideology, language and manner, and whose dominance of the cybernetic industries, are absolutely hated by the average working person.
I'll buy this if you can explain why. Why now? Middle class self-satisfied do-goodery has been with us - forever, more or less. Otherwise, it seems like another advertising slogan they are being told they should be angry about.
On the face of it, it makes far more sense to say that loss of worker power through trade unions, loss of the benefits of colonial exploitation, loss of power and income is what is driving the search for scapegoats, - lefties, feminists, others of any kind.
Surely the cause of the French revolution was that the peasants had no cake? Or bread?
There are so many versions and interpretations why the French Revolution happened. Yet,there is no working explanatory model that can be applied to our situation.
But why all these has gotten an additional momentum in the last few years? And why Trump's presidency has become so catalyzing factor?
The tail that's wagging the dog of those things is the vampirism of the elites that I've mentioned (being paid more and more bloated incomes to strangle the system more and more), just as the cause of the French revolution was an absentee aristocracy putting an ever-heavier tax burden on the peasants.
It goes back to roughly the early 20th century, and the idea of "manufacturing consent." It's not just a phenomenon of the past few decades, but it rather came to a head in the past few decades.
In both the US and Europe, the idea came about that democracy is basically unmanageable, and that things go much more smoothly with "experts" in charge - this was part of the general idea of "rational" management of the economy, etc., that had arisen with the Left in the late 19th century, and actually-existing Communism was just a particularly extreme example of it. Fascism too (which was admired by many "progressives") was another example of the same sort of general idea. Huxley's Brave New World is a much more accurate depiction of the dystopia we've been in danger of getting into than Orwell's book (though of course Orwell's ideas are relevant too.)
Globalism as a unification of the world under "expert" guidance is the same idea on steroids, on a global level, and that's basically what's being rejected in favour of a return to the core concept of the nation state (the largest workable democratic unit in a geographical region with shared culture and language).
I think we are quite close, except that I think the elite is always vampiric, and it's a matter of economic power whether they can suck the people dry or not.
I wouldn't quite put it that far, I think usually the relationship starts off fairly symbiotic - for example the French feudal system coalesced in the course of the Dark Ages as a functional system in which yeoman farmers were protected from banditry by warriors in return for upkeep, and it worked pretty well for a long time, falling apart really when the Lords' descendants lost their connection to their land, and put abusive managers in place.
I think it usually goes in phases like that. with functional relationships between some elite (usually rotating between merchant, warrior and cognitive elites, in ever-shifting alliance) changing to dysfunctional relationships over time, and having to be renewed or replaced (note that the type of abuse or exploitation each elite class indulges in is different too). Essentially, the generations that set things up, and the generations that follow, eventually give way to generations that forget the original social contract that made the mutual accommodation possible; plus of course the reasons change (the feudal system made France safe coming out of a period of turmoil, but that eventually made the feudal system itself obsolete).
I'd say at the moment, we're coming out of a period when there was an alliance between cognitive ("Left") and merchant ("banksters", big business) - aka "globalism" - and we're coming into a period where the cognitive elite is falling out of favour and will have to reform, and we're probably looking at an alliance between the military and the the merchant class again. That will provide some stability and prosperity, at the cost of potential ossification that a renewed cognitive elite will be able to break up. And so it goes.
That's a false dilemma, since it could be both or neither. It's also a poor analogy, since the word "divisive" is not typically used in that kind of scenario, involving just two people. It is much more applicable in relation to Trump, or, to use an example taken from a dictionary, the Vietnam war.
clear from that" - Could you explain how Taine can be applied to our situation? Do we have a kind of revolution coming soon?
It's already happening, the clash between "globalism" and nationalism is that revolution. The "globalists" (university-indoctrinated lunatics in academia, NGOs, HR departments, the diversity industry, the mass media, etc., etc., etc., and their cynical big business cronies) are the equivalents of the out-of-touch, leeching aristocrats huddled in Paris, extracting heavier and heavier taxes from the peasants, for less and less reciprocal fulfillment of their time-honoured duties, the performance of which had formerly made them tolerable.
It comes from the long period from about the end of the 19th to about the end of the 20th century, when "rational organization" of a society of atomized individuals - ending up, as the ideal, with the entire connected globe run that way - had been thought to be the cutting edge idea. That's pretty much failed now, and people want their countries back. They want their countries back because the nation state is still the largest feasible democratic structure that's connected enough to people's voting preferences to make some sort of consistent pattern (where the connection between people is the natural, already-existent shared ethnicity, language and culture).
The first hint of the breakdown was the fall of the USSR and the reasons for it: formerly, Communism had been one of the ideologies subscribing to the idea of total, rational organization of society. But it was discovered that central planners cannot plan centrally (and there are logical reasons for that, expounded by people like Hayek and von Mises). At the end of the day, the so-called "experts" aren't in a position where they can gather the necessary information to make informed decisions at the national level, far less the global level.
The experiment can, and probably will be be tried again in the future, when we have super-powerful AI. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it will fail for the same reasons. Even if it's capable of solving a global economy in theory, i.e. even if it has the theoretical horsepower to do so (which the "experts" we've had up till now haven't even been capable of), it still won't be able to gather all the necessary information unless it has an intrusive feed from everyone's experience, or, more likely, simply teleoperates human beings, or gets rid of them entirely (all of which are obviously intolerable prospects).
Quoting gurugeorge
THANK YOU. haha Finally someone mentions that. After reading both I always felt the same way. The power of our weakness for pleasure is much more controllable than humanity's weakness for fear, instilled by the same authoritarians in Orwell's 1984. Instead of lumping everyone into one lower class controlled by a big state, it is much easier to use multiple classes as buffers to each other and possible uprising. To me the middle class has always represented that. In the face of revolution they will be the least eager to revolt, just like the inhabitants in Brave New World couldn't leave their soma behind.
Anyways, thank you to everyone in this thread. Some really cool observations from many angles. It's terrifying but somewhat hopeful at the same time! I wonder how far humanity will go... Not feeling that optimistic seeing so many enjoying the "wave" so much. But maybe that's the point... Schopenhauer's "will to power" seems really on point about now.
Self-interest.
We can take an example of Brexit - now it is almost impossible to say what is Brexit about!
It was clear for a short while, but today, when the slogan went through mass media, numerous burocracies, unprincipled politicians it is absolutely not clear. So analyses of present situation requires a new type of rationality.
political short term strategies ( which can be called fascistic), causing the explosion of fragile and complex equilibrium of modern American society.
In the last tweets Trump states that media can cause war, and he uses the jargon of"The enemies of the People" - quite Stalinist terminology!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-05/fake-news-can-cause-war-trump-blasts-he-defends-trade-war-china
No that's just obfuscatory media propaganda. It was always pretty clear in the Brexit materials, in debates, interviews and written stuff, and it's still absolutely crystal clear: the Leave vote was about national sovereignty and our wish to extricate ourselves from the EU superstate experiment; immigration and all the other issues are subsets of that fundamental point.
Just as many other oldsters who voted Leave, I'm someone who remembers the lies and bs we were fed when we got ourselves into the mess back in the 70s and 80s. Even when I was on the Left I was on the anti-EU Left, along with Tony Benn and many others in the Labour Party at the time.
Well, it's always carrot AND stick isn't it? :)
But what is your government position? It is opened to endless interpretations!
By the way, what is the opinion of ordinary, simple people who voted for Brexit? What would they say today?
Oh yeah, well of course the Tories didn't expect the Brexit result, and a substantial proportion of them are pro-EU for obvious snout-in-trough reasons. The PM has been in the invidious position of trying to implement something she doesn't believe in. Whether Brexit will be carried out in any serious way remains open to doubt - it's quite possible that we might end up with the worst of all possible results, i.e. still being subject to EU rule, but without even the minimal kind of representation we formerly had as a member. However it's also possible that (because the Tory rank and file is slightly more inclined towards Leave on the whole) more hardline Brexiteers take the lead. It's even possible that with all the confusion and faffing about, we get a no-deal default exit, which would actually be quite a good result.
I think "ordinary simple people" view it the way I've said: except they couch it more in terms of a visceral sense of, "We don't want to be ruled by Brussels" and "this insane level of mass immigration has to stop."
just because the word " Brexit" has two possible meanings: 1) Brexit as idea 2) Brexit as a real complicated situation after the referendum, today. Similarly, we can talk about Communism as idea
and Communism as real society - they are absolutely different.
I don't think people voted for or against a European super-state. On the whole, they voted for the return of the British Empire, and to expel all those whose skin is a different colour from their own. Shameful. I am ashamed, anyway. :cry:
This is a distortion of reality and it sounds like it's based on prejudice against Leave voters. The vote was for independence of the EU and control of UK borders.
They're not "absolutely different"- obviously they're related, just as the idea of Brexit is related to Brexit as a process.
It can illustrate the transformation of desire and motivation of all sides that were using this slogan somehow.
I do not like to use the word fascistic desire as having too many negative connotations, but obviously we
find here a deep transformation of the initial desire.
Well. That’s an opinion that my analogy isn’t appropriate. I disagree.
I suggest it isn’t an appropriate analogy for you merely because it would be inconveniant to acknowledge as such.
Opinions, opinions, opinions. I have no problem that there are different opinions.
" Make America great again!" is absolutely multitasking slogan.
Sovereignty and trade are incompatible, and trade will win in the end. So exit from Europe will not merely allow, but necessitate entrance to trade deals that it is not at all clear will be more favourable or free. But we have been presented with - and we have tended to see, the free movement of the bloody foreigners to here, whereas we do not notice all the folks from here that freely go there. Just as we notice all the irksome rules that they make, and do not notice the liberalising benefits. Folks living in the decaying industrial North of England, see the decay, and see the foreigners, and think the latter is the cause of the former, rather than the effect. The real causes are beyond their event horizon.
But all this is being exaggerated and exploited to the extent that reasonable debate on the merits of one policy v the other is no longer possible.
For an inkling of how this is done in a different context, take a look at how the Zionist movement is controlling the agenda in the UK (and elsewhere). That link (to a 4 part documentary) is clearly partisan, but not so partisan that it should not be heard and discussed alongside that which it opposes. But it gets no voice in the mainstream, and this means that 'we' are no longer free to make up our own minds, but are subject to a particular distortion of our natural identifications. Democracy cannot function without approximately balanced media, because our event horizons are always too close for us to discern our own best interests at an international level, we are at the mercy of the media.
Yes. It is multiply confirmed by a staff member of the Israeli embassy in the documentary I linked. In the second part he attends and is active at the Labour party conference.
I presume you are aware that people vote based on which candidate they agree with the most, hence my analogy, which I repeat, below:
……………………………………………………………………………………………
>>>He: Those riots show how divisive he is.
Me: So as you and I have a different political opinion and after this conversation you leave feeling pissed off with me about that, on your way down my street you break the windows of a nearby shop and some neighbors houses.
Is you doing those acts a consequence of me “being divisive” or just you being a vandal?<<<
No it isn't. It is anti-Zionism if you like, but not even that; it is a claim with evidence that the Israeli government is doing it's best to undermine Jeremy Corbyn because of his long time support for Palestinians. And an objection to that interference.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/blog/8395/
Quoting gurugeorge
:cool: haha So true! :up: