The
Essence of Fascism
by
Karl Polanyi
III. THE SOLUTIONS
Let us restate
the problem. How is a society conceivable which is not a
relationship of persons? This implies a society which would
not have the
individual as its unit. But in such a society, how can economic
life be
possible if neither co-operation nor exchange--both personal
relationships
between individuals--can take place in it? How cash can power
emerge, be
controlled, and directed to useful ends, if there exists no
individuals to
express their wills or wishes? And what kind of human being
is supposed to
populate this society if this being is to possess no consciousness
of
itself land and if its consciousness is not to have the effect
of relating
him to his fellows? In human beings endowed with the type
of consciousness
we know such a thing seems frankly impossible.
Indeed, so it is.
Fascist philosophy deliberately moves on to other
planes of consciousness. Their nature is suggested by the
two terms: Vitalism and Totalitarianism. As a biocentric philosophy
Vitalism derives from Nietzsche, Totalitarianism from Hegel.
But both terms
are intended to convey here vastly more than mere systems
of thought. They
point to definite modes of existence. The Vitalist philosophy
of Nietzsche
has been carried by Ludwig Klages to an appalling extreme.
It is usually
referred to as the Body-Soul theory of consciousness. Hegel's
philosophy of
the Absolute Mind has been used in an equally extreme manner
by Spann. It
is known as the Totalitarian philosophy, sometimes also referred
to by the
wider term Universalism. It is in some ways an analogy to
Hegel's theory of
the Mind Objective, but with Totality instead of the Mind
as the central
principle.
As social philosophies
Vitalism and Totalitarianism define different, or, rather,
opposite, types of human existence. Vitalism represents the
animal plane of a darker and more material consciousness;
Totalitarianism implies a vaguer, more shadowy and hollow
consciousness. The substance of Vital consciousness is curiously
enough called the "Soul" (a term introduced, by
Klages); that of Totalitarianism, the Mind. As a rule Fascist
thought moves to and fro between the two. It is in the terms
of the struggle of these two concepts that the partial insights
and the fatal contradictions of Fascist philosophy can best
be understood.
Go forward
to the next section: IV.
"SOUL" VERSUS MIND
