Fascism and the rhetoric of unification
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The word Fascism is derived from the Latin fasces which was the bundle of rods wrapped around a projecting axe, carried as a symbol of authority by the lictors when escorting the leaders of Ancient Rome. In twentieth century Europe and the United States, fascism and its associated corporatism became important political and economic ideologies following the ending of World War I, with implications for countries around the World. It grew from the sense of powerlessness felt by many ordinary citizens when facing unsympathetic rulers and their bureaucracies. By combining into groups adopting rigorous codes of discipline and self-control, the people claimed a right to be heard. In these groups, a strong sense fraternal solidarity emerged, sometimes through collective violence in which many faced death together. This dynamic led some states to develop regimes where internal self-discipline among the majority reduced the need for violence as a mechanism of control. Other states reacted against the ideology through initial debate and then violent confrontation. Fascism achieved the greatest acceptance in countries where self-confidence was low and the economy was weak (Britain and Germany wanted to recover their wealth and power through trade, while the U.S. practised isolationism and, like many other countries, found itself caught up in the Great Depression. In these countries, nationalist rhetoric presented fascist ideology as the panacea of hope to those who had suffered humiliation and persecution during WWI and its aftermath.
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[edit] Brief history
In 1919, Benito Mussolini launched the Fascist movement in Italy, His followers were mostly left-wing revolutionary syndicalists, former Marxists, non-socialist nationalists, and futurists. They recruited heavily among soldiers returning from the war, maintaining camaraderie by wearing a uniform and singing the Giovinezza, the song of the front-line soldiers. In Germany, the German Workers' Party combined socialist economic ideas with nationalism and opposition to democracy, attracting war veterans including Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, and Hitler who led the party after 1920. In Britain, under the leadership of Rear Admiral William Reginald Hall, a small group men met in 1919 in the offices of the "National Publicity Agency" to discuss the growing threat of Red Infection. They created an organisation that would play an important role in British political and industrial life for the remainder of the twentieth century. After a number of name changes, in 1926, it finally adopted the name The Economic League. The British Fascisti (later the British Fascists Ltd) were organised in 1923 to meet the prevailing fear of a socialist inspired civil emergency, and functioned entirely within the Conservative Party. Later, the movement developed into the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley. In Spain, José Antonio Primo de Rivera established the Falange Española in 1933, offering a poetic concept of national affairs which spoke of an irrevocable faith in the destinies of a united people, and emphasised the futility of political parties and of endless strife between them. In the U.S, the Nationalsozialistische Vereinigung Teutonia was founded by Friedrich Gissibl in 1924, to be replaced in 1933 by the Friends of the New Germany. Das Amerikadeutscher Bund, more generally known as the German-American Bund was founded by Fritz Julius Kuhn in 1936.
[edit] Propaganda
For propaganda to succeed, it must reach those who need what it offers. The individuals who hear and then act on propaganda are not innocent victims. They provide the action and create the peer group pressure to spread the ideas. So there is a consensual relationship between the propagandists and a sufficient percentage of the population who see their self-interests served by responding positively to the stimulus. This forms an audience prepared to become the people for the purposes of first regional, then national social movements, political campaigns, and other demonstrations of significant support.
[edit] Rhetorical themes of unification
These tropes and frames are common to all forms of propaganda used by all ideologies, and more recently they have surfaced in the rhetoric of Philippines's Ferdinand Marcos, Indonesia’s Suharto, Chile's Augusto Pinochet, and Panama's General Manuel Noriega. Given that fascism combines socialist aspirations with authoritarianism, it is appropriate to consider examples of the rhetoric from different sources. However, Burke (1939; reprinted in 1941 and 1981) contemporaneously identified four of these tropes as specific to Hitler's rhetoric, namely: inborn dignity, projection device, symbolic rebirth, and commercial use. The remaining tropes are discussed in the chapter, "Persuasion" (Burke: 1969).
[edit] Geographical materialisation
All roads lead to Rome. In Ancient Rome, this was literally and metaphorically true. All roads did radiate out from the capital of the Empire and all tribute and authority was owed to the Emperors. This is a form of cognitive mapping which associates inspiring ideology and strong leadership with a particular location. Hence, Hitler promoted Munich as the place where all roads must lead — geography materialising ideology.
[edit] Unity
Mao Tse Tung states in "Interview with the British Journalist James Bertram" (October 25, 1937), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 53. *". . .the principle of unity between the army and the people, which means maintaining a discipline that forbids the slightest violation of the people's interests, conducting propaganda among the masses, . . .and suppressing the traitors and collaborators who do harm to the army and the people." Ubiquitous patriotism and nationalism are to be demonstrated through everyday signs and symbols: the flying of flags, the wearing and carrying of national symbols, the adoption of gestures, catch-phrases and slogans, and regular mass demonstrations of solidarity. Education and re-education programmes develop and reinforce the citizens' subordination to state power. The people follow the routine because they have internalised the various mechanisms used to demonstrate obedience and conformity. The political advantage to the leader is that this internalisation can often seem to result from the individual’s free choice.
[edit] Common enemy
Without an enemy with a mindless determination to destroy everything good and beautiful, any state struggles with the economic and social problems of unemployment and poverty. So, the idea of a common enemy is a symbol of the evil against which people must unite, and it distracts the people from politically inconvenient issues by relating all evils to the common rhetorical enemy. According to Burke, this is creating an antithesis. We are born separate individuals and divided by class or other criteria, so identification is a compensation to division. (Burke, 1969, p. 22). He sees this human need to identify with or belong to a group as providing a rich resource for those interested in joining us or, more importantly, persuading us. To promote social cohesion, antithesis makes a simple balancing statement, "We do this" but "They do that". This symmetry creates an expression of conjoined opposites which stigmatises the latter and encourages the former to cohere by only doing "this". At first, the enemy may be local politicians or other voices that might criticise the propaganist's actions. Then, all opposing voices are seen as antithetical to unity: without a united voice, the outside enemies will gain the upper hand. If the nation goes to war, fascism requires that everybody in society and every aspect of society is involved in the war effort and machine, so the society fights as one organism under the one leader.
In Europe during the inter-War years, the enemy was the Bolsheviks or the Socialists. When there was disunity at home, the enemy grew stronger. The rhetoric is defining the unity of the in-group by reference to those outside it. The theories of Rene Girard and Walter Wink suggest that whenever a people is being formed, there is always at least one existing social exclusion to build on, and persecution of those excluded is the usual result. Wink's myth of redemptive violence assumes that violence is an inherent part of human existence and the means by which human societies save and recreate themselves. Further, this myth legitimises the holding of power by those who forge order out of chaos through violence. Hence, many societies form institutions, whether they be states, social movements, churches, or families, on the assumption that violence is necessary to defeat some defined evil or enemy. The degree of unity engendered will, in part, depend on the following:
[edit] Unifying voice
The unification rhetoric demands a unifying voice: the entire nation must speak as one person. This is the essence of the authoritarian ideal and it produces a totalitarian, one party state.
[edit] Projection devices
Projection devices are scapegoating tactics used to personalise the initially vague threats posed by the common enemy. At a social level, the internal problems of unemployment and poor trading performances are directly attributed to the activities of the "identified others". Simplification is a particularly effective rhetorical device when dealing with an uncritical population, permitting rhetoricians to rise to power through their persuasive abilities, frequently outmanoeuvering those with expert knowledge who do not communicate well. In this context, Burke (1941) identified Hitler's use of apodictic argumentation where anecdotal experiences are asserted as proof of his social analysis.
[edit] Inborn dignity
It is usual to define a national ideal or archetype, or class of citizen as a measuring stick by which all other types of people are to be judged. This archetype will be heroic, noble, and dignified to appeal to the vanity in the majority, while the others will be subhuman and easily distinguished by reference to their ethnicity, religion or politics. For this rhetoric to be effective, it must always address existing prejudices. Hitler proposed the Manichean antithesis of superior: inferior through the superiority of das Volk, i.e. the Aryan race, over the inferior races (e.g. Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, Yellow/Black skinned people), the people making no economic contribution (e.g. the old or the disabled), and non-conforming Aryans (e.g. homosexuals, socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.). Other rulers have demonised other groups. The unfortunate consequences openly visited on members of the minority groups encourage solidarity in the majority class.
[edit] Symbolic rebirth
Wink and others identify symbolic rebirth rhetoric as allowing a people to aspire towards a new utopian society; when the scapegoat is eliminated, a re-birth will occur. The morally negative action of elimination is justified by a positive goal of symbolic re-birth, where all ideals are realised.
[edit] Commercial use
Commercial use rhetoric offers a non-economic interpretation of economic problems that appeals to the class that will benefit the most if the competition is removed. Thus, Burke (1941) identifies Hitler's attribution of Germany's economic difficulties to "Jewish" moneylenders, suggesting that if they were removed, "Aryan" finance would be in control. General Idi Amin became President of Uganda in 1971, a society already strictly divided along racial lines. There was separation and devaluation of the victim group, namely Asians, whose members were eventually scapegoated and identified as an obstacle to Uganda’s wellbeing. Similarly, between 1950-59, the political elite in Indonesia took over Chinese-owned businesses and enacted anti-Chinese legislation. The PP 10/1959 regulation banned Chinese who did not hold Indonesian citizenship from living in and owning business in small towns and villages. More than 100,000 people were displaced and left Indonesia for China. When Suharto came to power in 1965, he accused the Chinese Indonesians of loyalty to Communist China, closing Chinese schools and banning the use of Chinese languages and writing in public. This completed the process of scapegoating the Chinese as responsible for the general poverty amongst the ordinary people. The underlying economic problems were not solved, yet such rulers gain power by aligning themselves with the poor while at the same time not alienating the influential rich so as to keep their support.
[edit] References
- Burke, Kenneth. (1989). "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle". in On Symbols and Society. Burke, Kenneth & Gusfield, Joseph R. (eds.). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. pp211-231. ISBN 0-226-08078-1
- Burke, Kenneth (1939). "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle". The Southern Review 5; 1-21.
- Burke, Kennth. (1941). "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle". in The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. New York: Vintage. pp191-220. Reprinted Berkley, California: University of California Press. (1974). ISBN 0-520-02483-4
- Burke, Kenneth. (1969). A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-01546-0
- Girard, Rene. (1987). Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Wink, Walter. (1992). Engaging the Powers, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
