The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich

I’d take random screenshots, tweet decontextualized fragments of text into the void or scrawl single words in my notebook. I could barely get through more than two pages at a time.

The questions posed in the books I flicked through were similar even if the answers varied: why do people become fascists? Is it possible to stop people from becoming fascists? I read wildly, frantically, unsystematically. In the wake of Brexit, in the wake of Trump, eyes still twitching from sleepless nights and days of online scrolling in darkened rooms when I wasn’t sitting around talking feverishly about ‘it’ I found myself reaching for books: studies or histories of studies of fascist mentality. Alberto Toscano, ‘Notes on Late Fascism’, 2017 Those who find themselves living in times of crisis and disorientation often seek guidance in analogical thinking.

Georges Bataille, ‘The Psychological Structure of Fascism’ The entire problem of social psychology rests precisely upon the fact that it must be brought to bear on a form which is not only difficult to study but whose existence has not yet been the object of a precise definition. 'It', perhaps - on this occasion in history - was above all a consciousness of something ending. Only it, a much worse word than 'they' for 'they' at least are humanity too, can be moved, are helpless, like ourselves. Worse still when the stage is reached of 'Have you heard anything new', when 'it' has absorbed everything into itself, and nothing else can be meant when people ask what is moving in our world, what moves our world. 'It', in short, is the word for helpless ignorance, or of helpless awareness… And yet there did come a period when everyone was talking about 'it' and we knew we had not been doing this until recently: there was a different ingredient in our lives… Though of course there is no 'right' place or time, since there was no particular moment marking - then or now - 'its' beginning. I think this is the right place to say something more about 'it'.

The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich