The Nazi Heresy, Round Two

[arendt]

The Nazi Heresy, Round Two
by arendt

There is much wisdom in the article by Mr. Levy that is the subject of
another DU thread:

The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4758170&mesg_id=4758170

But, I must agree with other posters that there is too much psychological
terminology in Mr. Levy's article.

So, I would like to point people at an equally obscure and equally
esoteric source for this material: Morris Berman's 1989 book,
"Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History
of the West". Here, you will find too many words like "eschatology".
(Have I ever been easy on the groundlings?)

In this book, Berman traces the common thread underlying all
religious and secular heresies in the Western world: the repression
of the body by the mind in the name of religion. This theory is increasingly
gaining traction as neuroscientists have shown that strong spiritual feelings
activate the same brain centers as strong sexual feelings. (See
Pascal Boyer, "Religion Explained - the Evolutionary Origins of
Religious Thought").

One of the stereotypes of fundies is their glassy-eyed stare, their
rigid self-repression, and the constant stream of sexual deviancy
that marks instances of the loss of that self-control. Hello, Swaggert,
Ashcroft, J.D. Watts, etc.

Well, guess what, this kind of stuff happened in Germany too; and Mr. Levy is
onto something when he talks about group behavior (or as Berman calls
it, a transpersonal component). The rest of this post is a bunch of
excerpts from Berman's chapter on what he calls the Nazi heresy.

----

"That the real story of Naziism was a somatic one was recognized by
only one writer, the Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Reich, in the book
'The Mass Psychology of Fascism". Reich saw the rise of Fascism in
Germany as a rechanneled response of repressed sexual energy, and
undoubtedly this was a part of the story...The actual situation was much
larger than this, and a few writers, such as Carl Jung, were much closer to
truth when they argued that what was going on was an ecstatic phenomenon,
the return of repressed mystical/heretical tendencies that had been buried by
official Christendom for centuries."

"...the same desire for transcendence, and a secularized form of ascent, was
fully at work in this drama...The Nazis deliberately cultivated a transpersonal
dimension, and this was the source of their popularity. In short, they accurately
perceived a fundamental human need; something to which...competing
political parties remained curiously blind."

"The political climate that made Adolf Hitler possible antedated the Weimar
period by at least thirty years, and had its roots in a conglomeration of ideas
and beliefs that in the context of a secular and scientific culture would have
to be regarded as a kind of detritus of confused occult and heretical notions.
A 'steamy subculture of Ariosophy' pervaded Germany and Austria at this time,
a 'netherworld of fantasy' woven togehter with a certain set of myths and symbols
and adhered to by an odd assortment of sects and cults."

"(the Ariosophanists) codified a set of racial and marraige laws that 'bear an
uncanny resemblance to the Nuremberg racial laws of the 1930s and the
Nazi vision of the future'. Much of the Arisosophanist vision of a future state
controlled by a racially pure elite did, in fact, come to fruition in 1935 with the
establishment of the SS."

"Hitler's views had been the stuff of right-wing extremism in Germany for fifty
years prior to 1918, and at least in his non-occult interests Hitler echoed certain
kinds of traditional values...we are not really talking about the history of ideas,
but of non-political grievances that showed up in politics. All of this had a
psychic dimension; it reflected the primary experience of many Germans, and
thus the intellectual analysis of these ideas gives us only a fraction of the story.
The context, in any event, is clear enough: industrialization hit Germany with a
speed not paralleled in other countries, resulting in severe dislocation and
alienation and a longing for an earlier, bucolic, and simpler age. In fact, the
'romantic rebellion' against modernity, against city life, alienation, and bureaucracy
was in full swing by the late nineteenth century."

"The presence of a 'Jewish enemy' enabled millions of Germans to reconstitute
reality...the eventual extermination of the Jews was an exercise in magic...Karl
Brachter adds:

'Hitler's fanatical hatred of the Jews...cannot be measured by political and
pragmatic gauges. The fact that an entire nation followed him and furnished
a legion of executioners does demonstrate, that we are confronted not with
the inexplicable dynamics of one man, but with a terrible disease..."

"Hitler was able to present this cosmology in a popular apocalyptic format,
such that, for a populace in search of emotional security and Meaning with
a capital M, it was absorbed at a primitive level. Hitler's 1922 speech, "The
Agitators of Truth" is a classic example of this, hammering home five basic
points that Hitler was to reiterate again and again...

POLITICAL STATEMENT ................................COSMOLOGICAL TRANSLATION

1. Germany is in danger of imminent ...........1. End of being (ontological destruction)
collapse and annihilation.

2. The cause of this is a world Jewish..........2. Demonology (identification of
conspiracy.....................................................the devil)

3. Resistance is necessary via the Volk. .....3. Call for eschatological war.

4. Only National Socialism is capable .........4. Identification of the agents of
of mounting such a resistance.........................God

5. This will usher in a new Reich, .................5. Salvation, redemption, the
characterized by blood improvement ................new Jerusalem.
and economic improvement.

------

Just substitute globalization for industrialization, born-again for Ariosophy,
liberal for Jew, and Fundamentalist wacko for Volk, and it sounds real up-to-
date. And very scary.

arendt

[Flying Dream Blues]

1. Kick and recommended. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. now that is disturbing. nt

[Beam Me Up]

3. Worth thinking about.

There are certainly parallels. And I think, ultimately, the same class of people are behind it. And many of them do engage in sexual ritual.

[jbm]

4. very interesting......

This sentence really jumped out at me:

<snip>
"The fact that an entire nation followed him and furnished
a legion of executioners does demonstrate, that we are confronted not with
the inexplicable dynamics of one man, but with a terrible disease..."
<snip>

so now the question is...how do we treat the disease?

[arendt]

5. First, we know that real education helps fight it...

which is why the right has attacked public eduation tooth and nail
for 25 years.

So, we must fight for good education and finally put a stake in the
heart of creationism and all the other unfalsifiable, medieval bullshit that is
given equal time with genuine science.

arendt

[Warren DeMontague]

7. We need myths, celebrations, and narratives of our own

Not in the "believe-in-the-invisible-man-in-the-sky-or-go-to-hell" sense, but in the transformative mass consciousness sense.

Of course, the Nazis did it in a negative sense, degrading and chaining the human spirit through collective spasms of fear and hate. It can be done in a positive, liberating sense with ecstatic joy.

I agree with you about science. From where I sit, gape-eyed wonder at the universe and liberation from semantic chains and ego armoring are not incompatible with science.

I also think popular trends in German childrearing during the beginning of the 20th century may have had something to do with the Nazi phenomenon- you know, don't hold your babies when they cry, that sort of thing. A whole generation was raised that way. Ugh.

Lastly, sexual repression is key to the control sought by all kinds of rigid, authoritarian power structures, from the Catholic Church to fascist governments.

The antidote to fear is laughter. The antidote to these rituals of control, darkness and death are rituals of freedom, light, and life.

Reich was on to something, IMHO. So were the Grateful Dead, on good nights.

[lvx35]

11. Agreed.

I believe a process of natural selection between culturally transmissible ideas (memes) has occured since humans started speaking. Therefore, I believe religions and myths 'evolved' because they are benificial for the society which adopts them to some extent, just like we have the genes we have because they worked. I think the challenge of our time is to establish a set of myths that are benificial to MODERN society and carry on the positive traditions of the od myths, and to eradicate the damaging myths, ideas like "the rapture is coming so we don't need to worry about the environment".

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Right. Some memes or insights worthy of being conveyed, in my mind:

All things are interconnected; we harm the web of life and we harm ourselves.

All of us are reflections of each other. All of us are reflections of the same self. If I look into your eyes and see "me", it becomes that much more difficult to take advantage of you or exploit you, much less shoot you or blow you up.

Inquiry and a sense of play are integral to a well-lived life- as soon as people stop asking questions and challenging their own assumptions, they are on the path to mental calcification.

Life can be a forced march, or it can be a dance. Why not dance?

My 'answers' aren't yours, nor do they need to be. Diversity in all forms, including lifestyle, opinion, and thought make for a more interesting world.

Those are just a few off the top of my head. Your mileage may vary.

[lvx35]

23. Good ones!

I like this one, not because its better because its less often said:

Inquiry and a sense of play are integral to a well-lived life- as soon as people stop asking questions and challenging their own assumptions, they are on the path to mental calcification.

For me, the idea that encapsulates this is the fact that God alone knows Truth, all human thought is simply a construct, or an aproximation of Truth. Therefore while God is absolute, our thought must constantly change and evolve to get ever closer to Truth. Like all evolution, the evolution of are ideas, our yearning for God, is best fueled by diversity.

[nashville_brook]

20. movies -- you ever notice how people use movies to "get you thru"

i'm thinking here of a movie like, "Office Space" -- when scenes are referenced at work at a tonic.

others that seem to get remembered and used are
Princess Bride
Star Wars
Blue Velvet

(just letting my mind wander on this subject)

[lvx35]

22. Totally, I think movies are really important.

They are the modern myths, that's why the good ones are diverse but also so formulaic: The guy who is bad for society may seem very powerful, but he gets defeated by the guy who does good things for society. Thus the movie serves to reinforce socially positive behaviour patterns, and intimidate negative ones. Warning flags go up for me when I hear somebody bitch about "liberal hollywood".

[arendt]

16. Thanks for the positive feedback

I have gotten pretty dark and cynical, what with being immersed
in Hannah Arendt, Berman, and all the other forensic culturologists.

Rituals, especially "transformative mass consciousness" rituals are
very powerful. In some ways, Carl Sagan was transforming mass
consciousness with gape-eyed wonder. Too bad that the corporations
boiled the meme down to "billions and billions of stars". (Woops,
there's that cynicism again.)

Yes, the child-rearing thing in Germany is mentioned a lot. Alice
Miller even proposes that sex education in Germany was done
with naked corpses. Talk about screwing up your sexuality. At
least in America, we weren't kinky...at least until the rappers started
with this bitch and hoe stuff and how they want to kill them. (Cynicism,
my bad.)

Sex is not going away (unless we get to "The Handmaid's Tale" levels
of theocratic repression). The corporations make too much money
peddling it. But, we need to call the fundies on their sickness in this
area. Tell the truth. They are the ones who are sick, twisted, perverted,
repressed. And it is their sickness that is projected out onto everyone
else in a classic self/other split. Is there a web-site that lists all the
"ministers" and GOP politicos who have been caught with their pants
down?

Anyway, thanks for your positive post. I will try to create some positive
narratives instead of just bashing the dark side.

arendt

[lapislzi]

17. Sex didn't "go away" in the Handmaid's Tale

It went underground. And I think the fundys would like to see exactly that level of theocratic repression. Among certain classes. Remember, sexual freedom was available to the privileged classes. It is the lower economic strata whose behavior was curtailed by the state.

The privileged classes get to maintain their veneer of public rectitude and continue to promote the cult of the fetus.

Yes, the parallels between fundy America/post Romantic Germany/Handmaid's Tale are many and unmistakeable.

Hm...you left out a correlation to Wagner = country music? Just askin'.

[nashville_brook]

21. GOP Pedophiles

http://johnsoncity.blogspot.com/2005/06/gopedophiles.html

Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.

Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.

Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.

Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.

Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.


Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.

Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.

Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.

Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.

Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.

Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.

Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.

Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.

Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly had sex with a 16 year old girl when he was 28.

Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.

Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.

Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.

Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.

Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.

Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).

Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with sexual misconduct involving a 15-year old girl.

Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.

Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.

Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.

Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.

Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.

Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.

Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.

Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.

Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.

Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15-year old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.



also see:
Sex and Fascism in an Unconscious America
http://johnsoncity.blogspot.com/2005/06/we-arent-in-kansas-anymore-sex-and.html

[arendt]

25. Thanks for the info, bookmarking it! n/t

[nashville_brook]

19. i've always been amazed at how people fall for *this* when our culture

has seemingly evolved in terms of childrearing and certain other forms of body-positive, life-positive aspects. i mean -- the grateful dead were mainstream by the time i came along in the 80s. there's the touchy-feely affective culture around oprah, for another example. rave culture. gender studies.

body-mind, sexuality aspects are literaly "where we live." so little effort, i think, could go a long way here. i look at it as a strategic advantage -- now how to harness it.

[arendt]

26. A little effort could probably get you listed as a sex offender in today's

America.

They have managed to criminalize healthy sexuality and
normalize twisted, manipulative, and downright violent
sexual predation.

Anyone trying to mention the good side of sex will instantly
be denounced as a pervert by the idiots watching Desperate
Housewives.

It would be great to show the positive side of sex, but
even the concept of Planned Parenthood is under sustained
attack.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts you had for turning this
third-rail issue into a strategic advantage.

arendt

[orwell]

6. Thanks...

as Artie Johnsom would say...veeeeery interesting

[EstimatedProphet]

8. Kick

[understandinglife]

9. Bookmarked. Thank you.

Vote # 5.

Peace.

[spuddonna]

10. Brain centers activated by spiritual/sexual feelings...

"This theory is increasingly gaining traction as neuroscientists have shown that strong spiritual feelings activate the same brain centers as strong sexual feelings."

'Spiritual ecstasy' - Old school Catholics probably know more about this than me... I've read stories about the saints where their spiritual meditation becomes physical. These ecstasies could last several minutes. The person affected is not aware of anything except for the mental state they are in - in communion with another saint, JC, etc.

I've often wondered if that is what happens to evangelical Christians when they are touched by faith healers. I'm not saying that the healers necessarily do anything, but the person being touched could manifest such strong spiritual desire that they create physical neurochemical changes in their own brains.

I think it also explains a lot about the Christian fundamentalist movement. They obtain pleasure via their control of others, while often indulging in dangerous or criminal sexual affairs. How many times have you heard that some ultra-conservative was caught molesting a kid, or having affairs?

Thoughts? Comments? Rude hand gesture?

[slay]

12. I've always thought fundies were "high on God"

To quote Karl Marx - "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

[spuddonna]

13. Yeah, always thought that was a metaphor...

Maybe he was spot on! :shrug:

[lapislzi]

24. You point out an important dichotomy

The spiritual "ecstasy" you describe; shades of St. Theresa et al, is a principal component of Pentecostalism (cf John Ashcroft). The more doctrinaire evangelicals actually frown on these unmediated displays of religious fervor. You won't see that sort of behavior at your typical sanitized fundy megachurch. They go for rules over experience.

It's a dichotomy that's been present in all religions since...well, since there have been religions. You have your Sufi mystics and your rigid fundamentalist mullahs. Your Kabbalistic practitioners and your hyper Orthodox Jews.

I had a conversation recently with a fundy who was very clear on this. There is a proscribed manner in which the spiritual experience is to occur. The emphasis is on "no way to the Father except through Me" (Jesus). There is to be no direct appeal to the deity. The experience must be mediated through Jesus or it is suspect.

So...my point is, don't lump "evangelicals" in with the faith healers crowd. Evangelical fundies would never visit a faith healer. But a Pentecostalist might.

Karen Armstrong explains this thoroughly in A History of God.

[Karenina]

15. WOW!

:wow:

[nashville_brook]

18. right on! damn that's good.

i've written on reich thing and the god part of the brain acting a lot the sexual, but this lays it out so much better. you've given me a lot to google.

[arendt]

27. Not sure that Boyer is the right reference...

There is a book by Pierre Baldi, "The Shattered Self:
The end of natural evolution" which might be where
I read this. I will dig deeper this evening.

Sorry for the bad cite.

arendt

[struggle4progress]

28. "Mass Psychology of Fascism" is a really great book ...

.. but it's worthwhile to remember that Reich had a crankish side too and that he ended up serving a prison term in the USA for idiotic (and demonstrably false) claims he made about his "orgone boxes" -- which were basically wood boxes lined with metal and which he claimed could capture some sort of primal energy.

I'd certainly urge everyone to read "Mass Psychology of Fascism" because there's a lot of good stuff in it -- but if you quote Reich be ready for the fact that many people only recall his nutsy moments ...

[arendt]

29. You are absolutely correct about Reich's personal history

but the book stands on its own.

Some people theorize that Reich had a "UFO" experience that
totally unhinged him; hence the orgone boxes.

Berman acknowledges exactly what you say about how Reich
is dismissed by the mainstream.

arendt

[struggle4progress]

30. I consider the book "Mass Psychology" brilliant and accurate. eom