Response to Justine

I disagree with Justine's assessment of Hitler's art in relation to his second career as Führer of the Third Reich. While she argues there is a substantial divide between his two occupations, there is in fact a remarkable continuity. Artistry in no way brings about a peaceful state of mind or being (hence the caricature of the tortured, anxious artist), and the claim that Hitler's watercolors and oil paintings could in no way presage his later brutality is false. 

What I think is most interesting about Hitler's art is how traditional it is. Expressionism and the avant-garde originated in Austria and Germany during the 1920s, and Hitler's work is a stark contrast to that of his contemporaries such as Kirchner, Munch, and Kandinsky. This kind of reverence for more traditional standards of beauty (as expressed in his landscapes, which follow an almost Romantic aesthetic), starkly opposes the bold innovations in composition, color, and perspective of his time. Hitler would later express his distaste for the avant-garde through his purging of "degenerate art" from the German cultural scene, as recounted in this article. Rather than contradict his later exploits, Hitler's art exposes his rejection of modernism's core value, the deconstruction of art to represent the tumult and uncertainty of the modern world, and in that sense underlines some of fascism's core tenets.

Stanley Milgram (Response to Mia)

We briefly touched on obedience in Wednesday's class while talking about the Nazi death camps. Mia's post here about the Milgram experiments makes the classic deduction from this test, which is namely that all human beings are sheep. Milgram claimed that his tests proved he could have recruited the SS in New Haven. However, I think there are several flaws with this test that should let us breathe a little easier about ourselves.

1. If you actually watch footage of the experiment (which was on Youtube but pulled because of copyright claims by Penn State), it becomes pretty obvious that it took some SUBSTANTIAL reassurance to keep those people going. There were 5 (not 4) responses, the last being the statement that the experiment would need to be discontinued if the teacher refused to continue. If we need that many layers to restrain us from not harming our fellow man, I find it reassuring. 

2. The researchers assured the experimental subjects that they would not harm the student (no "permanent tissue damage"). Why would a rational person doubt this? Especially given the fact that they are in a laboratory setting where it could be fairly assumed that the student's health and safety were not in jeopardy. Milgram does provide one anecdote of an electrical engineer who contradicts the supervisor because of his own knowledge of electricity's potential to harm, demonstrating the circumstances under which one could rationally object to the experiment. Absent that knowledge, however, it is perfectly rational for someone to continue.

3. Obedience is in many ways a healthy thing. If we were to constantly doubt everything we hear from people in positions of influence or power, our abilities of judgment would be severely hampered. So perhaps its healthy that we defer to the men from Yale University in the white lab coats. Society depends on hierarchies, and we shouldn't just chuck obedience out the window if we value order and stability. 

Chamberlain was a Fool

In Tuesday's class, we argued whether the Munich agreement was a rational foreign policy exercise by Great Britain and France. Some argued that it was, given that the West wanted a counterweight to Soviet Russia and that Hitler presented a rational argument for expanding Germany to include all persons of German descent. However, I think the evidence shows otherwise. Germany had already shown expansionary ambitions, such as the re-militarization of the Rhineland in 1936. On the specific issue of the Sudetenland, as indicated here, Hitler initially wanted to immediately occupy the region to throw off Czech defenses. This should have signaled alarm bells among the French and English. Finally, Hitler's annexation of the entirety of the Czech Republic in March of 1939 should have made the West realize the necessity of war. They instead waited nearly six months until Germany's invasion of Poland to make that declaration.

Debate Response

As a strong anti-statist, I obviously had a hard time arguing that fascism is 'a viable form of government that fulfills the needs of the governed' today. And while I ultimately think the anti-fascists did have a stronger case as Zak decided here, a couple points are worth noting.

1. Arguments for fascism seem absurd to our ears. Charlie and company repeatedly raised concerns over who would arbitrate a uniform moral standard under fascism, an objection a fascist would reject as based on the faulty assumption that a diversity of moral opinions is intrinsically valuable (thus Charlie would be begging the question since he seeks to prove that diversity is more valuable than uniformity). But it makes sense to us because we feel a deep skepticism toward the unlimited mandate given to the state if it is to create such a moral standard. Fascism's high estimation of order and security also strike us as sinister and insidious. All this shows the degree of desperation and hopelessness felt by citizens of Germany and Italy who supported fascist movements. 'Common sense' is completely irrelevant in uncommon times.

2. We really had no good response to Mia's (I think?) point that fascism is inherently militaristic, because it is. The logic of fascism works by creating enemies and framing everything in very bellicose, militant terms (the 'war' of production). This tends to lead to the real thing.

3. Cas mentioned in class that the wished we had discussed the economic advantages of fascism to a greater extent. I touched on that in my opening statement, arguing laissez-faire capitalism had atomized society and turned people into egotistic savages in constant competition with one another. Fascism, we tried to argue, would direct the energies of capitalism in a productive direction such as by ensuring full employment and the placing the private sector under the supervision of wise government. 

Your Soldiers Are Wack Yo

Nate's post responding to Sam here about the psychological effects of war on soldiers is, I think, right on the mark. Ever since the time of the Visigoths sacking Rome warriors have committed unspeakable atrocities against the enemy and civilians. Technology simply extended the ability of soldiers to inflict that kind of suffering. In addition, though, the doctrine of total war led to more unrestrained warfare. The countries in World War I largely fought away from cities, meaning that direct harm to civilians was minimal. The perceived destruction wrought by the war largely lay in its futility, senselessness, and enormous burden upon civilian populations.

While World War I may have been a more traumatic experience for soldiers, it did not represent a paradigm shift in how soldiers felt about war. The paradigm shift lay in the instruments they used to wage war, which yielded the unprecedented scale of the conflict.

A final point is that the worst atrocities committed during the war were not perpetrated by individual soldiers but by nation states. The Armenian genocide, for example. At the level of states, perhaps, the effects of nationalism and the horrific nature of the war might have been significant.

Comment to makaveli RE: Nitti vs. Cippico

"Also, Cippico seems to take pride in the fact that imports have increased so dramatically under Italian fascism. However, this has to do with the collapse of domestic industry rather than economic expansion. If Italian companies aren't producing the same goods and services they used to, they obviously must be imported from abroad if demand remains constant."

The Weimar Republic

The constitution of the Weimar Republic is one of the most stirring and beautiful political documents ever produced. Yet by 1933 it had been totally dismantled by the National Socialist Party and Germany had become a fascist state. There are a few basic reasons for this. The first was post-war political instability. Left and right-wing groups staged insurgencies and provincial rebellions that undermined the central government particularly because paramilitary groups like the freikorps acted as police instead of the German army. Germany's demilitarization due to the Versailles treaty left the Republic unable to maintain law and order creating a power vacuum.

The second was Germany's economic condition. The Republic was defaulting on payments of its reparations by 1923 and printing money 'like gangbusters' (in the words of Jim Haley) to cover its debts (as this video explains). Hyperinflation destroyed savings and the purchasing power of ordinary German citizens, leading to their impoverishment. The Great Depression only worsened matters, and the apparent impotence of the Weimar government (which slashed taxes and expenditures during the recession) destroyed the little credibility it had left.

A demoralized, distraught, and impoverished people could not be more open to something radically and tyrannically different.

Flabby Democracy

The question Cas posed to us at the end of class today, "How can democracy give way to fascism?", at first perplexes the liberal sensibilities of many on their first grappling with totalitarianism. I think this is because we are in a very, very different position than post-war Germany or Italy. Totalitarianism arises out of the destruction of a society's institutions and bonds that hold a country together--a situation of total and complete hopelessness. What separates it from other authoritarian movements is that it has no factional agenda, though it may use class or social issues to leverage support. In other words, its end is the pure expansion and enhancement of the state. It may begin as an ideological movement, but ideology becomes an artifice rather than the defining fact of the regime.

The easiest way a democracy can give way to authoritarianism is when trauma shatters the liberal sensibilities that would normally fight totalitarian impulses. Alternatively, if such liberal sensibilities have never existed in a society, democracy can quickly give way to authoritarian government (as this article on Venezuela demonstrates). World War I obliterated the social order of the Victorian age and left entire populations demoralized and atomized. This undifferentiated 'mass' left in the post-war period formed a perfect breeding ground for totalitarian movements. 

Revolutions Old and New

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Our fairly recent discussion of the Russian Revolution brings to mind a lot of aspects of the French Revolution. They bear many superficial similarities in the composition of the revolutionary bodies, the causes of discontent, and their immediate effects. 

Similarities:

1. Brought on by massive failures of existing political orders. The Romanovs had run Russia into the ground through World War I and the stagnant, static political order of the tsarist state. Similarly, France under Louis XVI had piled on huge debts and was unable to maintain the bloated bureaucracy and personal perks of the king. Famine was also a common factor in provoking the mass uprising. Both revolutions began through existing political means (in Russia, this occurred really in the 1905-6 revolution) but quickly exhausted them.

2. Both began as moderate alterations to the political order. In France, it was the establishment of a constitutional monarchy; in Russia, it was a liberal republic. However, radical elements quickly overtook both and plunged the country into chaos.

In France, the Thermidorian Reaction ultimately replaced the Terror because of popular resistance in conservative areas of France to Robspierre's radicalism. However, Russia succeeded through a more developed party apparatus that suppressed all dissent and enforced a uniform revolutionary ideology. The French Revolution, moreover, was not ideological in nature--there was no clearly defined vision for the future that emerged. This led to the tumult and chaos over the coming years as conservative directories, enlightened despots, constitutional monarchs, and emperors all had their turn ruling France.

Joseph Stalin's Tsarist Ambitions

The October Revolution of 1917 supposedly swept away the last vestiges of Tsarist Russia and left a clean slate on which the Bolsheviks could rebuild a new Russia in their image. However, Stalin effectively reversed that. His reign bore a striking likeness to his imperial predecessors both in tone and substance, such as his policies toward the peasantry. As our recent DBQ aptly noted, the 'rural question' was the defining issue in the 19th century for Russia. Stalin answered it once and for all by collectivizing ownership of land and effectively eliminating the peasantry as an independent social entity.

Moreover, Stalin's cultural presence in Soviet Russia resembled a tsarist one as well. He became the patriarch of the Russian people, much like the traditional view of the tsar, and invoked nationalist rhetoric that could easily have been lifted from one of Catherine the Great's speeches had she been a demagogue. Soviet Russia under Stalin also espoused conservative social mores in areas of family relations and social freedoms, such as by nearly outlawing abortion in 1936 and criminalizing homosexuality. For all its transformative power, modernism couldn't seem to change some basic aspects of Russia's political culture.

On Total War

Charlie's post here agrees with the notion that total war can be a positive force for a country. The principal reason he cites is that total war involves the entire population in the war effort and as such produces a more visceral connection to the war's effects among the people. This strikes me as a singularly circular argument if this connection is intended to prevent such wars from occurring in the first place.

The other problem with this argument is the conflation of a war's scale with its transparency. While wars have grown in scale over the course of history due to economic progress, population growth, and technological advancement, they have not become less opaque. The "fog of war" has always existed between the home front and the front line and has only been mitigated by advances in technology. We first saw the effects of communication advances on the "fog of war" in the Crimean war with the telegram, and they provoked considerable outcry despite the limited nature of the conflict.

In one respect, the scale of World War I hampered transparency. The national fervor wipped up by the conflict led to legislation like the American Sedition Act in 1918 that severely curtailed 'unpatriotic' speech or reporting on the war. There was also a clear divide in awareness between civilians and the military evidenced by post-war literature such as All Quiet on the Western Front and Mrs. Dalloway.

All of this refutes the supposed corollation between scale and awareness in war. Not only that, arguing for total war on the basis of its 'pedagogical' use strikes me as perverse, sickening, and disgusting. We shouldn't need bombed out cities and human carnage to proove to us that war is a terrible thing.

But at Least the Trains Ran on Time...

Jonathan's post arguing that fascism was not a true ideology until historians made it one is, in my view, very off base. For one, I think he underestimates the novelty of the fascist movement. Several aspects of fascism separate it from previous authoritarian systems, such as its fundamental connection to mass politics. Totalitarianism arose out of an atomized and terrified society where class and social distinctions had been wiped clean by the First World War. Fascism was not a class movement--it was factional, but it drew support from all corners of Italian society. A second differentiating factor was its new idea of relations between rulers and the ruled. Absolutism had to recognize the aristocracy as a lesser or greater partner in government. Liberal statists nominally presented themselves as popular servants and sought to reconcile competing social interests. Fascism, as its name implies, believed in the ultimate 'binding' of all members of society. The state and the people would be unified in the service of a common ideal--that of national greatness and the acquisition of power.

Mussolini called expansion and a larger sense of struggle 'an essential manifestation of vitality' by the State. The rhetoric of fascism was communal, emphasizing the greater unity of a people and the expression of this unity through the State. Contrary to what Jonathan asserts, fascism necessitated such an ideology before it could take hold in Italy else it could not have achieved the victory it did. Only once the regime had cemented its position could ideology be subverted to the greater telos of totalitarianism--the perpetuation of the regime for its own sake.

I'm Sorry Woodrow, You're an Imperialist Too

For me, the most salient aspect of the Fourteen Points isn't how idealistic, modern, or incomplete it is, it's how imperialistic they are. The First World War was not an ideological conflict; it was a political and territorial one. However, the post-war wrangling over Europe's future took a decidedly ideological tone due to the American agenda to stuff self-determination and liberal democracy down Europe's throat. He writes, "What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in.... safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life [and] determine its own institutions." This is really no different from the rhetoric of imperialist apologists for French expansion in Algeria. While we (this writer excluded) may be more sympathetic toward Wilson's goal, the essence of imperialism remains. In the Fourteen Points America shrugged off the last vestiges of isolationism and asserted itself as the global vanguard of liberal democracy. 

Also interesting to note is Wilson's complete ignorance of examples of colonialist/imperialist oppression outside Europe. His notion of self-determination is evidently selective.