Übersetzung von/ translation of:
Anregungen zu einer Psychoanalyse des europäischen “Rechtsrucks”
By Andreas Peglau[1]
The results of the European elections of May 2014 have urgently called into question the origins of “rightwing”
[2]
movements and ideologies. The developments underscore once again that
fascistic groups have become socially acceptable on our continent. Many
studies of extremist viewpoints held by people in the political center
have yielded ominous results for years.
[3]
The work of psychoanalysts and social scientists Erich Fromm
(1900-1980) and Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) provide us with explanations
that go beyond the usually cited factors,
[4] and should therefore be included in current discussions.
Fromm and Reich on National Socialism
Beginning in 1929, Erich Fromm conducted an empirical study of the
psychic structures of German workers and employees. The study showed
that “the workers educated in parties and unions, despite their
revolutionary allegiance and convictions, did not exhibit the resistance
to an authoritarian and dictatorial regime that one would have expected
of them.”
[5]
What characterized them instead was a widespread need for authoritarian
leadership – fertile soil for the change of power that was soon to
occur.
[6]
Around the same time, Wilhelm Reich, too, worked to uncover the roots of “rightwing” movements.
[7] In the late summer of 1933, he published
The Mass Psychology of Fascism from his Danish exile – a book that has remained unrivalled in the psychoanalytic literature until this day.
[8] Reich begins his analysis by noting the “doubts about the accuracy of Marxist concepts of the social process.”
[9]
The fact that millions of workers behaved contrary to their allegedly
“objective” class interests by voting for “rightwing” parties was no
longer explicable by Marxist theory. It was not only the fact
that material “being” translated into consciousness that had to be accounted for, but also
how this occurred, how this consciousness, in turn, acted on external processes, and which
unconscious processes were occurring. For this, psychoanalysis was necessary.
[10]
“National Socialism is our mortal enemy,” Reich wrote in the
beginning of his book, “but we can only defeat it if we properly assess
its
strengths.”
[11]
One of those strengths was that Hitler pointedly embodied conscious,
and especially unconscious neurotic conceptions of millions of Germans:
“Only if a [psychic – A.P.] structure of a Führer personality is in
accord with the structures of the average mass individual can a ‘Führer’
make history.”
[12]
The basis for such a concordance was that the socialization of the
Führer and of the followers fundamentally conformed to each other: as
children, they first had “to go through the authoritarian miniature
state, the family […] in order to be able to insert themselves into the
general social framework.”
[13]
“The more helpless the individual was made by his upbringing, the more
strongly does he identify himself with the Führer,” and the stronger
became his wish for an authoritarian surrogate father
[14]
with whom he could identify. Instead of recognizing his petty role as a
cog in the societal machine, he felt like a “little Hitler.”
[15]
Erich Fromm was the first psychoanalyst after Reich to take a strong
public stance against fascism, and his claims were similar to
Reich’s. In his 1941 book
Escape from Freedom Fromm wrote that
Nazism, especially “the hold it has over a whole people,” is “a
psychological problem,” but the psychological factors themselves have to
be understood as being molded by socio-economic factors.” “Hitler’s
personality, his teachings, and the Nazi system express an extreme form
of the character structure which we have called ‘authoritarian’ and that
by this very fact he made a powerful appeal to those parts of the
population which were – more or less – of the same character structure.”
[16]
First, both of these arguments run counter to all opinions that
ascribe decisive importance to Hitler’s alleged charisma in explaining
his success. If it hadn’t been Hitler, then – presupposing the same
basic conditions – another, similarly structured psychopath would have
likely been found as a celebrated “Führer.” Fromm later wrote: “there
are probably hundreds of Hitlers among us who would come forth if their
historical hour arrived.”
[17]
Second, these insights refute the recurrent and conveniently used
phrase of “it was all Hitler’s fault,” that without the fanatics who
backed him and the millions who blindly followed him, Hitler would have
remained the politically aimless and insignificant nobody that he
evidently was until 1919.
[18]
Furthermore, those who were pulling the strings politically and
economically would have never supported someone without mass appeal.
What Does This Mean for Our Times?
Applying the thesis of
mutual dependence between leader and
follower to the present age, we hear today, too, the claim, “it is all
the politicians’ fault”; as with blaming Hitler, this does not hold up.
Granted, the higher up one sits in the pyramid of power, the more
influence and thus responsibility one has. Yet, the “masses,” and hence
we
– at least unconsciously – in large part support and create the society
in which we live. Our political leaders will likely embody those
character structures that resonate with our own and will fulfill our
neurotic and unconscious expectations.
Do we thus have to conceive of Angela Merkel as mirroring the
Germans’ state of their soul? I think it is likely. Reaching the top
from humble beginnings, craftily doing one’s own thing, “sitting out”
problems, keeping a low profile – those traits alone are identified with
by many Germans. An assessment of a survey from April of 2014 explained
Merkel’s popularity by stating: “The chancellor […], with her
unostentatious political style continued to conform […] with the
people’s attitude of life and their need for security.” Issues that the
Social Democratic Party (SPD) was raising – Green revolution, minimum
wage, and retirement age of 63 – were less important to German citizens.
[19]
The vast majority of the population is not interested in larger
problems, and even less, one can surmise, in contributing to their
solution. Indeed, statistics show that the bulk of the German population
is not interested in engaging in the democratic process, and gladly
defer to a strong leadership model.
[20] Merkel’s success shows that this figure need no longer be a stern surrogate father, but can be a shapeless surrogate
mother who communicates that she has everything under control – even when that is arguably not true, when danger of war
[21] and poverty
[22] are growing under her regency, i.e. when security is, in reality,
dismantled.
Reich and Fromm’s insights also show that it would be naïve to view
parties such as the Ukrainian “Svoboda”, the Greek “Golden Dawn”, or the
National Party of Germany (NPD) solely as representatives of minority
groups. Such groups represent well-established psychosocial structures
that are far more widespread than just among their members and voters.
The above-mentioned studies on fascistic attitudes in the Federal
Republic of Germany, conducted by a research group led by Oliver Decker
and Elmar Brähler in Leipzig, regularly expose extremist rightwing
positions among adherents of
all parties.
[23]
“Rightwing” partisans are thus only the tip of the iceberg, the
“symptom bearers” of a psychosocial aberration that has long ago
“infected” others who identify as liberal or even “leftwing”. Such
symptoms can – in cases such as economic crises
[24] – spread rampantly. The Germans, formerly seen as highly cultured, demonstrated this in the 1930s.
Psychosocial Roots of Fascism
The factors that Reich already pointed out in 1933 in his
Mass Psychology will help us understand the origins of the fascistic developments that exist on our continent today.
[25]
Fascism owes its success in large part, he maintained, to psychic
constellations that have been fostered for centuries, especially by the
church, the nuclear family, and sexual repression. Those – and with
them, the entire “patriarchy” – have to be abolished in order to expunge
the roots of “rightwing” movements.
[26] As to the
current urgency of these issues, I can only offer a few brief statements here.
First: Does the church still exert an emotionally and sexually repressive influence that makes humans destructive?
This applies to the Catholic Church, simply because of its attitude
toward contraception, pre- or extra-marital sex, homosexuality, and
celibacy. This is also confirmed by the sexual abuses caused by them in
their institutions. While an aggressive, Catholic-dominated
anti-contraception campaign is on the rise in Poland,
[27] a recent poll showed that most
German Catholics hold more desire-affirming views than their officials do.
[28]
But in these parts, too, the ecumenical dissemination of patriarchal
myths such as the simultaneously good and omnipotent male creator-God
strengthens authoritarian, and thus emotionally repressive, norms.
Recently, the pronouncements of military bishop Sigurd Rink confirmed
[29] that even the formerly pacifist Protestant Church
[30] – prominently represented by the militant former priest Joachim Gauck
[31]
– increasingly endorsed the triad of arms exports, war missions, and a
foreign policy inclined toward aggression. The fact that 200,000 people
in Germany leave their churches every year can in part be read as a
rejection of those views. However, since the German state annually
grants 460 million Euros in church taxes to the churches
[32]
– regardless of how many believers they still have – and has instituted
nearly comprehensive religious instruction churches nonetheless
continue to propound certain views of themselves and the world.
[33]
Second: Does the nuclear family still engender authoritarian structures?
I think so. In a society that offers scant healthy social support the
nuclear family often creates a constricting substitute sense of
security. Oftentimes, parents uncritically pass on prevailing harmful
norms to their children, shaping them in a way that they easily yield to
the authority of adults.
For Germany, at least, it is necessary to note that the institution of marriage and as such the
core
of the nuclear family has lost significance, that, from 1968 on,
non-authoritarian tendencies have entered into education in West
Germany, that children are oftentimes treated more lovingly in families,
that extra-familial childcare has developed – albeit to an insufficient
extent. In the year 2000, the German parliament finally adopted this
passage into the German Civil Code: “Children have a right to
non-violent upbringing. Physical punishments, psychological injuries and
other degrading measures are inadmissible.”
[34] The extent to which oppression is still happening behind the nuclear family’s walls could recently be garnered from the book
Deutschland misshandelt seine Kinder [
Germany Abuses Its Children]
.[35] According to the German Child Protection League, three children in Germany die every week due to abuse and neglect.
[36] In current parent surveys, 40 percent indicated they beat their children,
[37] 88 percent wanted to mainly “teach them courtesy and good manners,”
[38] and 70 percent “discipline
Third, on sexual repression. Sexual life in Europe is
certainly freer today than it was in 1933, and women’s emancipation has
crucially contributed to that.
However, only a sexuality that has been made sick through repression
can, in my opinion, explain that at least 1,400 girls and boys were
systematically raped, abused, and forced into prostitution in Rotherham,
England, between 1997 and 2013.
[39]
Or that, in a recently published EU study, 12 percent of all women
claimed to have been subjected to sexual harassment or abuse by adults
before reaching the age of 15, that 33 percent claimed to have
experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15, and
that 5 percent claimed to have raped. Germany even performed slightly
worse than the average of European countries.
[40]
If ten percent of the German women polled in a May 2014 survey
claimed that they wanted to “enter marriage chastely” because “of their
conviction,”
[41] this could indicate that sexually repressive norms are regaining ground even in Germany.
Thus, even today, we are far away from having overcome the
destructive impacts of church, nuclear family, and sexual repression.
And at any rate, there is little hope for the abolition of capitalism’s
ultimately inhuman conditions at the current moment.
Following Reich, this means that our
contemporary
governmental arrangements, too, breed those psychic deformations under
whose impacts they then suffer, and they engender the psychic conditions
that turn many of us into psychosocial “time bombs.”
The Character of Society
Things become even more alarming when we introduce a further insight
by Reich and Fromm. The way a people behaves is no coincidence, Reich
wrote in
Mass Psychology, since “
every social order creates for itself in the masses of its members that structure which it needs for its main purposes.”
[42]
Erich Fromm remarked to this effect: “The socioeconomic structure of a
society molds the social character of its members so that they
wish to do what they
have to do.”
[43]
But to what ends does our current social order require this vast
number of superficial, dull, resigned people with their oftentimes
primitive affects of anger and envy, as they, for example, abound in
various internet blogs? For what does Germany need this disposition to
violence, indicated by the 3,000 violent crimes in Berlin’s public
transportation system in 2013,
[44]
the excesses of supposed soccer fans, or the presence of neo-Nazis
brimming with hate in front of the homes of asylum seekers? It is clear
that such psychically deformed people cannot provide a proper foundation
for democracy. To call our state a thoroughly democratic system is out
of the question anyway.
In spite of the movement of ’68, a democratic education
[45]
has not gained traction, much less a democratically structured economic
sphere; the work life of most German citizens is still strictly
authoritarian — capitalism has no other way of functioning.
[46]
And especially in recent times, one could clearly see how the German
governmental apparatus subordinated itself to corporations, banks, and
the imperial aspirations of the United States.
[47]
“America always has to take the lead on the world stage,” Barack Obama
announced once again in May of 2014. “The backbone of this leadership”
has to be the U.S. military.
[48]
To subordinate oneself to, or even join in with, such megalomaniac
and highly dangerous aspirations to hegemony requires one to condone,
and even to participate in, criminal acts of war such as those in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Even acceptance presupposes, in my opinion, a high
degree of repression, cynicism, or subservience, or rather –
psychoanalytically formulated – an “identification with the aggressor.”
For a soldierly participation that is successful in the eyes of the
client, emotional dullness and the willingness to kill are
indispensable.
In the spirit of Wilhelm Reich and Erich Fromm, we thus have to
conclude that our society has an interest in a saturated petty
bourgeois, in blind followers, and in a potential for destruction that
can be arbitrarily directed toward any goal at any time. This society
thus constantly creates the psychic dysfunctions conducive to those
interests – and thus jeopardizes those democratic achievements that were
established.
The Responsibility of the “Masses”
Our society today does not just consist of politicians, media
personalities, and corporate executives, but also of the “masses.” Even
though politics and media issue their demands powerfully,
we
carry out the processes of socialization, especially in our capacities
as parents. To this day, we oftentimes press our children into molds
that predetermine public and internalized norms. It begins with teaching
them order, discipline, motivation, and adaptability in order for them
to get on in the world (instead of
changing it), and with
curtailing their independence and spontaneous emotions, since they are
difficult to align with our often externally determined daily routine –
we have to make a living, after all. It continues with forcibly
compelling them to attend a school in which mostly overwhelmed teachers
oftentimes indoctrinate
[49] them with irrelevant material, or with us foisting Ritalin on them,
[50]
instead of understanding that their supposed hyperactivity simply
indicates how rotten they feel. Especially by paying taxes, we support
everything reactionary and destructive with which the state ultimately
damages our children’s and our own mentality, leading us to accept
“neoliberalism” unnecessary CO
2 emissions, and war operations.
All of this simultaneously aids the emergence of depressed
resignation, authoritarian dependence, and pent-up anger – and thus
creates susceptibility to ideologies such as fascism.
As Long As There Is Hate…
The fascist ideology, however, is not the deepest layer of the
problem, but rather the destructiveness lurking behind it. Being able to
direct its aggression against scapegoats and (supposed) enemies often
feels liberating and reduces pressure: “Finally, I know whose fault all
of this is, and I can take my revenge!” Thus, the more aggressive we
have become, the more usable we are for nationalist, neo-fascist,
fundamentalist, imperialist, anti-environmentalist, anti-children,
misogynistic, homophobic, or xenophobic ideologies. Once explosive anger
has been given a “legitimate” outlet, motivations can be arbitrarily
exchanged; terrorism and murder can be perpetrated with the
justification of “rightwing” and “leftwing” worldviews alike, in the
name of salvation by Allah, for an environmentalist dictatorship, or as
part of a Western neoliberal redemption of the world. For the latter
purpose, demagogic mass media and warmongers can attempt – as it could
be seen since the Ukrainian crisis – to position this potential for
hatred as “wrath of the people” against the bogeyman of “the Russian
menace.”
[51]
Bans of “Golden Dawn,” “Svoboda,” and the NPD therefore can
never
root out the evil; the destructive force will seek out new
battlegrounds. More jobs and prosperity alone apply a thin plaster to a
festering wound;
[52] the psychosocial “womb” from which disaster grows, remains fertile.
In 1946, Reich wrote in the new English edition of his
Mass Psychology:
“In this characterological sense, “fascism” is the basic
emotional attitude of man in authoritarian society, with its machine
civilization and its mechanistic-mystical view of life.
It is the mechanistic-mystical character of man in our times which creates fascist parties, and not vice versa.
Even today, as a result of fallacious political thinking, fascism is
still being considered a specific national characteristic of the Germans
or the Japanese […].
My character-analytic experience, however, shows that there is today not
a single individual who does not have the elements of fascist feeling
and thinking in his structure […].
Correspondingly, there is a German, Italian, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, Jewish and Arabian fascism […].
One cannot make the Fascist harmless if, according to the politics of
the day, one looks for him only in the German or Italian, or the
American or the Chinese; if one does not look for him in oneself; if one
does not know the social institutions which hatch him every day.”[53]
But are we truly ready to do this: to search out our own fascistic
tendencies, understand them to be psychic dysfunctions, and to “work on”
these patterns – perhaps therapeutically? At any rate, many of us have
good reasons to do so.
Rightwing Extremism in Germany Today
In 2014, merely 5.6% of respondents in the Leipzig research group’s
surveys explicitly professed a “fully rightwing extremist worldview.”
[54] However, these “mere” 5.6% represent at least
3.56 million[55] of our fellow citizens that “largely” or “fully” agree to the following statements:
“We should have a leader who, for the wellbeing of all, governs Germany with a firm hand.
Germany currently needs a strong single party that stands for the people as a whole.
Our country needs to assert German interests forcefully and aggressively against other countries.
To all intents and purposes, Germans are naturally superior to other peoples.
In society, just as in nature, the stronger should prevail.
Due to the many nonresident aliens, the Federal Republic of Germany has become infiltrated by foreigners.
Foreigners solely come here to take advantage of social benefits.
More than any other people, the Jews use dirty tricks to achieve what they want.
There is worthy and worthless life.
The atrocities of national socialism have been greatly exaggerated in history.”[56]
Another 12 to 31% of respondents (where the latter number represents
more than 22 million Germans) assessed these claims as “partially”
correct.
[57]
And an even larger number held additional xenophobic views. Three
quarters of German citizens rejected “the demand that the government
should evaluate applications for asylum generously.”
[58]
Less than 50% of respondents granted asylum seekers to have “truly
suffered persecution or to be threatened by it.” Roughly 40% endorsed
Islamophobic statements; roughly 53% defamed Sinti and Roma.
[59]
This underscores that peace and disarmament treaties and necessary
revolutions in processes of production and distribution of wealth,
cannot, by themselves, foster sustainable peace. They are far from
reaching people’s “hearts and minds.” It also shows that only few of the
people professing “rightwing” views are rightwing
extremists.
[60]
Blanket statements such as, “whoever says something against foreigners
is a fascist,” are indefensible. And since over 90% voiced support for
“the idea of democracy,”
[61] we apparently have to conclude that the majority of Germans are “xenophobic democrats.”
Are they predominantly “leftwing” or “rightwing”?
A Dubious Bifurcation
Applied to politics, “rightwing” (as well as “leftwing”) has always
been a hazy term that both “rightwingers,” as well as the experts who
study them, have interpreted
[62]
in different ways. As such, there “cannot be said to be a single body
of scholarship on rightwing extremism with a unified object of study.”
[63] Those specialized scholars cannot even agree on a clear definition of “fascism” and “national socialism.”
[64]
In my opinion, the above-mentioned fact that supporters of all parties
endorse “rightwing” views nowadays confirms that the leftwing/rightwing
schema obscures reality more than it helps to explain it. Fromm’s
distinction between life-
affirming and
hostile to life appears to be much more meaningful here.
[65] With this distinction, it becomes possible to say that since “foreigners” are humans, living beings, xenophobic views are
hostile to life.
But thinking through the idea of democracy to its logical end shows
that all humans are entitled to an existence under equal opportunities –
a decidedly
life-affirming attitude. Most Germans thus
combine
in themselves positions that are hostile to life and life-affirming.
The decisive boundary does not run between parties, but between portions
of personality.
Fromm’s distinction can also be applied to groups of people and
social systems. It doesn’t matter who initiates ethnic hate speech, wars
of aggression, mass murder, and environmental destruction occur; it
doesn’t matter if it is done openly or behind a smokescreen: these
activities are hostile to life
in any event. There is no good murder.
In a time in which the Ukraine crisis acutely threatens the peace in
Central Europe and raises the possibility, no matter how slim, of
nuclear war, , the following consideration seems important as well.
Whoever
earnestly – not in hypocritical or demagogic fashion! –
advocates for peace acts life-affirmingly. They should thus ally
themselves with everyone who also credibly stands for that goal – even
across differences of ideology and class.
For example, whoever insists on working only with people that bear no
xenophobic thoughts whatsoever already excludes, as we have seen, more
than three quarters of the German population – and thus
nips in the bud any potentially successful mass movement.
Hopes
Already in his 1934 afterword to the second edition of
Mass Psychology,
Reich stated: “If one attempts to alter only the human structure,
society resists. If one attempts to alter only society, the people
resist”
[66]
He identified some of the crucial areas in which “the structure of man”
can be constructively shaped: the living conditions of pregnant women,
the means by which one is born (natural versus medicalized birth), a
non-authoritarian education, fulfilling sexuality and companionship,
psychological and physical therapy.
[67]
This leads us to conclude that lovingly accompanying children into
life, actively striving for healthy relationships, a fulfilled
sexuality, and psychological health are effective means of removing the
psychosocial foundations for war and destructive violence – in the same
way as resistance to authoritarian leaders and norms in the family, in
school, at work, in the media, in the church, and in the state are as
well. Whoever claims, “I can’t do anything about it!” is mistaken.
Especially people who have been living in relative wealth and security –
as most Central Europeans have until now – have considerable leeway in
this regard.
Is this view (too) optimistic? Would a more pessimistic outlook be
appropriate? Erich Fromm pointed out how similar the two are. Pessimists
assume that everything will inevitably turn out badly – “so nothing
needs to be done.”
[68] Optimists trust that everything will somehow turn out well – “so nothing needs to be done.”
[69]
Two excuses for one and the same thing: passivity. Hence, it is instead
necessary “to dare, to think the unthinkable, yet to act within the
limits of the realistically possible.”
[70]
In the spring of 1989, it still seemed inconceivable that the GDR could
soon cease to exist. Soon after, even the entire “Socialist World
System” had disappeared. In 1988, the U.S. government blacklisted Nelson
Mandela, who had been incarcerated for 26 years, as a “terrorist.” It
seemed inconceivable what should soon after become reality: Mandela was
released in 1990, abolished the South African apartheid regime, received
the Nobel Peace Prize for this achievement in 1993, and became the
first black president of his country in 1994. In light of such events,
who would want to claim that fundamental social changes are impossible?
In this highly complexly connected “globalized” world, who can seriously
claim to know what will be the case in five years? We can never know
with full certainty that positive changes are impossible. Thus, there
always remains a chance for which we should fight for ourselves and the
next generations.
Supported by his “rational faith in man’s capacity to extricate
himself from what seems the fatal web of circumstances that he has
created,” Erich Fromm demanded “fundamental changes … not only in our
economic and political structure but also in our values, in our concept
of man’s aims, and in our personal conduct.”
[71]
The situation of mankind today is too serious to permit us to listen to
the demagogues―least of all demagogues who are attracted to
destruction―or even to the leaders who use only their brains and whose
hearts have hardened. Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit
when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed
with―the love of life.
Fromm repeatedly gave detailed outlines for paths into a “sane society”
[72]
“in which no one is threatened: not the child by the parent; not the
parent by the superior; no social class by another; no nation by a
superpower.”
[73] Fromm’s hopes rested in a view of man that he summed up in 1973 in his book
The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. In order to render intelligible the political developments of the 20
th
century, including its fascist excesses, he connected psychoanalysis,
(social) psychology, paleontology, anthropology, neurophysiology, animal
psychology, and history. To this day, this piece of writing offers the
most extensive and coherent argument that there are no inborn
aggressions or even death drives,
[74] that man is not born “evil” – which current neurobiological research corroborates as well.
[75]
In this context, Wilhelm Reich spoke of the ability to self-regulate:
we have inborn values and impulses, which would – if they were
nourished, and not suppressed and perverted – enable lively, loving
relations and social systems.
[76]
This also means that even U.S. presidents and other statesmen who unscrupulously decree the murder of individuals or of masses,
[77]
and even the mercenaries or religious fanatics that then perpetrate
these murders in e.g. Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan,
[78]
even fascists that massacre dissenters, were born into this world with
this healthy potential. They wanted to, and were able to, love. Assuming
an uncomplicated pregnancy, every newborn has this ability. Every human
being bears the chance of heralding a fundamentally new beginning into
our world.
These insights, experiences, and suggestions have apparently not yet
reached, or sufficiently influenced, most of those who want to improve
this world. Let’s hope that this will change.
Were that to happen, a proper reaction to Europe’s shift to the right, which signals
an increase hostility to life, would be possible.
Or, more precisely: only in that case.
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Please cite this article as: Peglau, Andreas (2015):
Suggestions for a Psychoanalysis of Europe’s Shift to the „Right“,
http://www.fromm-gesellschaft.eu/index.php/en/publications/on-this-site/articles-to-discuss/
[1]
I thank everyone who has read, commented on, and contributed to this
manuscript. Especially I have to thank Philip Bennett and Rainer Funk
for their help and Tobias Kühne for this translation – A.P.
[2]
By “rightwing,” I essentially mean the proclivity to nationalism,
xenophobia, and authoritarianism. When it is markedly pronounced, I will
speak of “rightwing extremist,” which I equate with “fascistic,” as
“exhibiting fascist characteristics.” More on the usefulness of the
leftwing/rightwing schema later.
[3]
In 2012, 36.2% of Germans were identified as islamophobic, 25.1% as
xenophobic, 11.5% as “primarily anti-Semitic.” Between 2002 and 2012, an
average of 6.8% of East Germans and 4.2% of West Germans endorsed a
rightwing authoritarian dictatorship (Decker/Kiess/Brähler 2013, p.108,
133).
[4] On May 25, 2014,
Huffingtonpost.
de
published the following superficial and trivializing remarks under the
title “Shift to the Right at the 2014 European Elections” [“Rechtsruck
bei den Europawahlen 2014”]: “poor track record for the government”
(France), “fiscal crisis” (Greece), weakness of “popular parties”
(Austria). In June of 2014, an anti-fascist convention in Frankfurt on
the Main gave the following explanations: “unemployment,” the fact that
the working class hadn’t “resisted capitalism enough,” and that the
social democratic parties had supported “international capital” (
Junge Welt,
July 4, 2014, p.15: “Authoritarian Capitalism” [“Autoritärer
Kapitalismus”]). This stunningly resembles those helpless “leftist”
attempts at interpretation that Reich criticized as early as 1933 (pp.
36f., 58f.) Why, one can still ask with him today, does unemployment
make you reactionary instead of revolutionary, why has the working class
not resisted enough the mistakes that have been made, not only by
social democratic, but also by “leftwing” parties?
What, in other words, are the real reasons?
[5] Cf. Funk 1998, p.68.
[6]
The publication of the results was not possible until 1980 (Fromm
1989f). In 1931, Fromm, who had mainly been active in Berlin and
Frankfurt on the Main, resettled into Switzerland, later into the U.S.
[7]
In 1930, Reich had come from Berlin to Vienna. Like Fromm, he was of
Jewish descent. Unlike Fromm, he was a communist and member of the
Communist Party. In April of 1933, Reich fled Germany.
[8] For background, content, and reception of Reich’s
Mass Psychology,
refer to Peglau 2013, pp.241-268. Reich’s book was one of several
reasons why he was expelled from the Communist Party in November of
1933: contrary to the internal official line, he had assessed Hitler’s
success as a grave defeat for the working class and derived fundamental
criticism at the approach from it. Almost simultaneously, psychoanalytic
organizations let go of Reich, as he had become a liability to them for
his antifascist activism. The “aryanizing” German Psychoanalytic
Society rescinded Fromm’s membership in 1935, and temporarily reinstated
it (ibid. 445-446). Even though Reich and Fromm are among the most
important and most creative psychoanalysts, the psychoanalytic
mainstream mostly suppresses and, in Reich’s case, defames them (ibid.
399-407).
[9] Reich 1933, p.1. Translation my own.
[10] Reich 1933, p.29.
[11] Ibid. p.7.
[12] Ibid., p.58.
[13] Ibid., p.25.
[14] As is well-known, Hitler, too relied on the guiding principle of “destiny” throughout his life.
[15] Reich 1933, pp.98, 123.
[16] Fromm 1941, pp.208, 219.
[17] Fromm 1973, p.418
[18] Reuth 2009, p.51-101.
[19] http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/stern-rtl-wahltrend-spd-regiert-am-waehler-vorbei-2100580.html
[20] Decker, Kiess, Brähler (2013, pp.22f., 42)
[21] Henken 2014.
[22]
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/armutsbericht-verteilung-von-armut-und-reichtum-in-deutschland-a-939995.html;
Roth 2014.
[23]
For example, in 2014, 2.1% of CDU/CSU voters, 2.8% of SPD voters, and
2.9% of “Linke” voters supported a rightwing authoritarian dictatorship
(“rightwing” party voters: 26.1%). For xenophobia, the percentages were
at 17.1 (CDU/CSU), 17.9 (SPD), 16.9 (“Linke”), 69.6 (“rightwing”
parties). Of individuals with a “holistically rightwing extremist
worldview,” 21.4% voted for the CDU/CSU, 24.6% for the SPD, 7.3% for the
“Linke,” but only 6.3% for clearly “rightwing” parties, and 6.3% for
the AfD (Decker/Kiess/Brähler 2014, p.41f.).
[24] Decker/Kiess/Brähler (2013, p.15f.) convincingly deduce from their data that this is still the case today.
[25]
Going beyond Reich’s claims, Fromm meticulously analyzed (1989d,
especially pp.245-486) psychosocial factors that lead to destructive
developments within individuals and societies. Since going into greater
detail would go beyond the scope of this article, I can only refer the
reader to the work itself.
[26] Reich 1933, pp.35, 126-138, 190f., 202, cf. Fromm 1989d, pp.137-143.
[27] http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article125626992/Polinnen-reisen-zur-Abtreibung-nach-Brandenburg.html
[28] http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/umfrage-des-vatikans-katholiken-hadern-mit-sexualmoral-der-kirche-12783198.html
[29] Junge Welt, 9.9.2014, S. 2: „Zum Absegnen des Tötens bereit.“
[30] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerter_zu_Pflugscharen
[31] http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/juergen-todenhoefer-bestseller-autor-bezeichnet-gauck-als-dschihadisten-2117908.html
[32] http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article13583390/Warum-der-Staat-der-Kirche-jaehrlich-Millionen-zahlt.html
[33]
They nonetheless do not guard against “rightwing” thinking: in 2014,
3.1% of members of the Protestant Church and 4.2% of the Catholic Church
endorsed a “rightwing” dictatorship (non-denominationals: 3.7%). For
xenophobia, the numbers were 17.5% (prot.), 21.5% (cath.), and 15.7%
(non-den.) (Decker/Kiess/Brähler 2014, p.42).
[34] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/englisch_bgb.html#p5687
[35] Guddat/Tsokos 2014.
[36] http://www.n-tv.de/politik/Kinderhilfe-versagt-zu-oft-article6373746.html
[37] http://www.eltern.de/kleinkind/erziehung/ohrfeigen-klaps.html
[38] http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/39028/umfrage/wichtige-erziehungsziele-fuer-eltern/
[39]
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/neuer-missbrauchsskandal-in-grossbritannien-mindestens-1400-kinder-in-nordenglischer-provinz-missbraucht/10617272.html
[40]
http://fra.europa.eu/de/press-release/2014/gewalt-gegen-frauen-sie-passiert-taglich-und-allen-kontexten.
Sexual violence against men was not surveyed. Some statisticians even
question the quality of the data. “The experts do not, however, question
the bottom line of the study, i.e. that appallingly many women across
Europe experience violence.” WHO studies in other regions yielded
similar results (http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-125443825.html).
[41]
http://www.presseportal.de/pm/52760/2749492/keusch-in-die-ehe-umfrage-fuer-jede-zehnte-frau-kommt-geschlechtsverkehr-vor-der-heirat-nicht-invv
[42] Reich 1933, p.39. (emphasis in the original)
[43] Fromm 1976, p.133.
[44]
http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/polizei/identifizierung-durch-bvg-videos–3000-gewalttaten-in-bussen-und-bahnen-,10809296,26626850.html
[45] Neill 1969.
[46] Fromm 1989b, p.70.
[47]
Kronauer (2014) shows by analyzing substantial conflicts between the
U.S. and Germany that the latter is by no means a helpless victim of
U.S. policy, but that it, too, pursues its own aspirations for power.
[48]
http://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/diplomatie-obama-bekraeftigt-globalen-fuehrungsanspruch-der-usa_id_3881559.html.
As early as 1997, U.S. presidential advisor and Obama mentor Brzezinski
publicly declared that not only China and Russia, but also an
autocratic. Europe – especially one cooperating with Russia – was to be
viewed as a competitor that had to be kept in check. He also remarked
that control over Ukraine would play a central role in this game of
power (Crome 2014).
[49] Erpenbeck/Sauter 2013.
[50] Kornyeyeva 2014.
[51] Bröckers/Schreyer 2014, pp.125-161; Strutynski 2014, pp.173-210.
[52]
Decker/Weißmann/Brähler (2011, p.115) see a flourishing economy as a
“plombage” that conceals “rightwing” attitudes without dismantling them.
[53] Reich 1946, pp.ix-xi.
[54] Decker/Kiess/Brähler 2014, p.59.
[55]
The researchers surveyed a representative sample of all Germans between
14 and 91 years. Those make up about 71.2 million
(https://www.destatis.de/bevoelkerungspyramide/). Adducing 3.56 million
as a figure applying to the entire population is a distortion, since the
ones
not surveyed under 14 (10.2 million) and over 91 (more
than 300,000) certainly also do not exhibit exclusively democratic
attitudes.
[56] Decker/Kiess/Brähler 2014, p.34-37.
[57] Ibid., p.60.
[58]
84.7% of East Germans and 73.5% of West Germans. With about 65 million
West Germans and 16 million East Germans (including Berlin), this yields
absolute numbers of about 48 million West Germans and 13.5 million East
Germans that agree with this statement, i.e. a total of roughly 61.5
million, or roughly 76% of the total population.
[59]
Ibid. pp.50, 62. The study gives no evidence for the supposition that
the distribution is different among politicians. The aggressive
characteristics of German policies vis-à-vis “foreigners” at home and
abroad thus seem to have a stable psychological basis, at the “top” as
well as at the “bottom.” The more negatively we view “foreigners,” the
less troubling the export of arms becomes, since they “only” kill
foreigners.
[60] Indeed, isn’t the real “rightwing”
extreme
the disposition, or even the wish, to kill and destroy excessively? In
the question catalogue, the statement, “Without the extermination of the
Jews, Hitler would be viewed as a great statesman today” (ibid. p.37),
is put up for evaluation. Who also views him as a great statesman
regardless of
the extermination of the Jews can thus not be determined. The thought
that people with such a view do not exist is, in my opinion, an
illusion.
[61] Ibid., p.52.
[62] Breuer 1999; 2001; 2005
[63] Cf. Decker/Weißmann/Brähler 2012, p.11.
[64] Bauerkämpfer 2006, pp.13-46; Nolte 2008, p.97-111.
[65] Fromm 1989d.
[66] Cf. Reich 1934, p.283.
[67]
Peglau 2013, p.386f. In the 1980s, psychotherapist Hans-Joachim Maaz
(then still practicing in the GDR) developed these ideas into a
“therapeutic culture” (Maaz 1990; 1991). In the year 2000, I have worked
with the organization ich-e.V. in an effort to visualize and discuss
this concept (Peglau 2000).
[68] Fromm 1973, p.418.
[69] Ibid.
[70] Ibid.
[71] Ibid.
[72]
E.g. Fromm 1989b; c; e, p.393-414. Rainer Funk, psychoanalyst and
comrade-in-arms of Fromm’s analyzed and developed these concepts (Funk
2005; 2012; http://www.erich-fromm-online.de/)
[73] Fromm 1973, p.435.
[74] Reich also strongly objected to this thesis (1932), which Freud espoused.
[75] Bauer 2011.
[76] Reich 1983. Erwin Wagenhofer’s 2013 documentary
Alphabet – Fear or Love [Alphabet – Angst oder Liebe] touchingly illustrates this.
[77] Scahill 2013; Chomsky 2013
[78] Mamdani 2005, p.73-218.
