The Origins of Fascism (Part IV)

Conclusion: Viktor Frankl's "Will to Meaning"

This is the conclusion to a 4-part essay series on the origins of fascism.

Part I:  An Uncertain Future: Italy’s Precarious Poisoned WWI Victory

Part II:  Power in Pleasure: Benito Mussolini & Sigmund Freud’s “pleasure principle.”

Part III: Might is Right: The Inferiority Complex & Alfred Alfred’s “will to power”

Violence as Ethos

Autocrats depoliticize their programs by creating an ethos, thus rendering their politics bigotry existential and inseparable from religious sentiments and moralistic concerns. Mussolini’s fascist manifesto, co-written by the Fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile, is no exception. With its roots in 19^th-century nationalist Italian philosophy,

The Doctrine of Fascism (1932) makes a case for fascism as a way of life.

The philosophical roots of Italian fascism (Fascism hereafter) can be traced back to Giuseppe Mazzini, nicknamed “the Beating Heart of Italy” for helping unite Italy during the Risorgimento (1861).¹ As a political religion, Fascism was neither bound to the Freudian pleasure principle (Part II) nor the “social feeling” of Alfred Adler’s “will to power” (Part III). Dissatisfied with pandering to mere animalistic drives, Fascism sought to rouse the masses from their postwar slumber nightmare (Part I) by providing Italians with a clear sense of existential purpose … enter the third Viennese school of psychoanalysis and Viktor Frankl’s theory of the “will to meaning.”

Viktor Frankl believed human beings are ultimately self-determining. Whatever we become, we make out of ourselves.

Or, in the concise words of the French existentialists, existence precedes essence.²

While all animals are subject to the pursuit of pleasure and power, Frankl’s theory suggests human beings are capable of transcending themselves by pursuing purpose, “by orienting themselves toward the future, toward a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled.”³

As with all existentialist philosophy, however, Frankl only believed in humanity’s potential to be better: as an Auschwitz survivor who practiced psychotherapy in the camps, Frankl understood the difference between the possibility versus the reality of transcending our most destructive self-serving drives.

In Frankl’s mind, it’s possible to find meaning in suffering as well as in causing suffering⁴  

“We have come to know Man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”

Like all existentialist philosophy, Frankl’s logotherapy (derived from the Greek word logos = meaning) posits that since the meaning of life is fundamentally subjective, life always holds potential meaning; as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Frankl realized that aside from dumb luck, those most likely to survive the camps were those people who had a clear purpose to stay alive. The reason could be as simple as looking forward to a conversation with a friend, the prospect of washing one’s tired body, a bowl of soup … anything which reminded the sufferer that they still had a reason to live. (Frankl himself found his purpose one day while carrying stones in Auschwitz, when he heard the word “wife” and was able to transcend his surroundings to rejoice in the memory of his wife, Tilly: “I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.”⁵)

This is what it meant to remain human for Frankl, even especially in Auschwitz:

“To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”⁶

In this sense, Frankl’s theory of the will to meaning doesn’t nullify Freud’s pleasure principle or Alfred Adler’s will to power; it simply overarches them (Frankl equates himself with a theorist standing on the shoulders of giants to see a bit farther himself).

Of course, the possibility of finding meaning in any given circumstance isn’t the same as a guarantee.

“The uniqueness of man, his humanness, does not contradict the fact that in the psychological and biological dimensions he is still an animal [...] there is more to being human than being a pawn and plaything of conditioning processes or drives and instincts.” 

Viktor Frankl, The Unheard Cry for Meaning, 1978

Now consider this quote from The Doctrine of Fascism (1932):

“Fascism denies the materialistic conception of happiness as a possibility […] This means that Fascism denies the equation: well-being = happiness, which sees in men mere animals, content when they can feed and fatten, thus reducing them to a vegetative existence pure and simple.”

As discussed in Part II, Mussolini believed rampant individualism and hedonism had led to a national crisis of meaninglessness in Italy. Similarly, Frankl believed that without a life purpose, individuals become solipsistic and nihilistic, which can easily lead to what he deems the “existential vacuum” and a fast track to totalitarianism.

“Nihilists … fuck me … I mean say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

That quote is from Walter Sobchack in The Big Lebowski, and I find it hilarious because it’s true. There are very few people in the world who actually believe in nothing.

According to Frankl,

meaninglessness arose at the end of the nineteenth century following Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the “Death of God.”⁷

“Ever more patients complain of a feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness, which seems to me to derive from two facts. Unlike an animal, man is not told by instincts what he must do. And unlike man in former times, he is no longer told by traditions what he should do. Often he does not even know what he basically wishes to do. Instead, either he wishes to do what other people do (conformism), or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).”

Viktor Frankl, The Will to Meaning, 1969

Due to meta modernity’s lack of spiritual direction (see: identitarian politics circa 2024), during times of crisis, the masses generally grasp for existing traditions (conservativism) or submit to the wishes of others (totalitarianism) because it’s much more difficult to remain a free spirit than relinquish existential control conform (here’s a brief and beautiful video of Viktor Frankl giving a lecture about what happens when humans don’t believe in themselves).

According to Frankl, there are three ways humans can find meaning in life, regardless of life’s conditions: 1) by creating work or doing a deed, 2) by experiencing something or encountering someone, and 3) by their attitude toward unavoidable suffering.⁸[9] To echo JFK's famous words, the point isn’t what humans expect from life but rather what life expects of them. Frankl uses the analogy of an airplane taxiing: we aren’t necessarily limited to earthly concerns, but there’s no guarantee we’ll transcend our earthbound, primordial drives (or that self-transcendence necessarily leads to ethical forms of meaning).   

“don't you know there ain't no devil there’s just god when he's drunk.”

Tom Waits, “Heartattack and Vine”

Fascist philosophy acknowledged this human need for a higher purpose and pandered to it via chauvinist indoctrination. Importantly, however, instead of insisting individuals have the right to pursue their own purpose (existentialism), Fascism dictated meaning. Anti-democratic and Socially Darwinist, the only accepted pursuit of meaning in Fascist Italy was to internalize Mussolini’s, rendering the dissident not only a political opponent of Il Duce but worse—a  heretic, a threat to the very existence of Italy itself.

It took me a decade to write a novel, The Requisitions, about three people trying to remain human during inhumane times.

2024 is a historic election year for most of the world, and I can’t help but think about a chapter in The Requisitions, which starts like this:

The year is 2023 and the world is unraveling again. If we’ve learned anything as a species, it’s how quickly we forget. Elvis Presley said animals don’t hate and that we’re supposed to be better than them, but if this were true, the history of fascist regimes wouldn’t be so closely linked to the history of democratic elections.

The year is 2024 and the world is unraveling again.

Increasingly, however, I find solace in the words of Viktor Frankl and James Baldwin, who believed in the better angels of our nature and the eternal truths of love and wonder.

A primary tenet of existentialism is that it is up to individuals, not nations, to decide on life’s meaning.

We are the leaders of our own lives,

and it is up to each of us to pursue our own life’s meaning—and allow others to pursue their own—in the myriad ways we see fit.

Yes, it’s a pipedream,

but so too are democracy and religion, and given their track records, I prefer to place my faith in the individual than in the masses.

After all, one hundred years ago, the masses chose Fascism in Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and France, and each of those countries are in a few hundred miles of where I live.

Fascism was attractive because it appealed to humanity’s most animalistic drives—the will to pleasure and the will to power—while promising delusions of mythological grandeur via a deranged will to meaning. And while it’s easy to think we’re better than that—that in 2024, the “civilized world” will reject the nationalistic populism bigotry of the Donald Trumps, Vladimir Putins, Giorgia Melonis, Javier Bolsanaros, Viktor Orbans, Benjamin Netanyahus, Bashar Al Assads, Mohammed Bin Salmans, Xi Jinpings, and countless other autocratic leaders of the world—such is human nature, that we continue to justify so much folly cruelty in the name of pleasure, power, and meaning. But who amongst us can possibly dictate how another should live?

A question for the comment section:

where does our collective faith go when we no longer believe in politics or religion? And if there’s a new existential vacuum today, how will we fill it?

1. This Giuseppe Mazzini quote says it all: “The individual’s means and his thirty or forty years of adult life are but a tiny drop in the vast Ocean of existence. As soon as he becomes aware of this, he ends up discouraged and abandons the entire undertaking. If he is a good man, he will now and again engage in simple charity. If he is evil, he will isolate himself in complete selfishness. But give this man a Country [patria] and establish a link of solidarity [solidarietà] between his individual efforts and the efforts of all subsequent generations; place him in association with the labors of 25 to 30 million men who speak the same language, have similar habits and beliefs, profess faith in the same goal, and have developed specific tools for their work as required by the general conditions of their land, and the problem will change for him at once: his strengths will be greatly multiplied, allowing him to feel up to the task. (“Nazionalismo e Nazionalità” 1871 [2009: 63])

2. We exist before we can be defined by any essence, whether it be gendered, sexual, religious, ethnic, cultural, or otherwise (I didn’t use the term “racial” because “race” does not exist). In the existentialists’ opinion, freedom resides in the truth that human beings are nothing more and nothing less than what they decide to make of themselves.

3. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 105.

4. In my MA dissertation on Viktor Frankl’s theory, I proposed the term the humanness of cruelty to amend a popular Nietzschean phrase: “He who has a Why can bear [or commit] almost any How”.

5. I love this quote so much that it took me ten years to write a novel about it. If you know about The Requisitions, no need to read onwards.

After completing a master’s degree in Frankl’s theory, which didn’t provide me with the purpose I hoped for, I spent a decade (re)writing The Requisitions, a novel set in Nazi-occupied Poland whose protagonist’s name—you guessed it—is Viktor. I even started an imprint with my wife (Kingdom Anywhere) to publish the book the way we saw fit, working with artists I respect so I could retain all of my rights, and it’s been the most meaningful act I’ve accomplished in my thirty-six years on this planet. The American Edition is coming soon. There are only a few limited 1st edition copies left.

6. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 130.

7. “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 1882

8. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 111.