The Inner Fascist

Talking to Sol the other day I whipped out the phrase "the inner fascist." That is what I call the side of me that does not tolerate weakness or failure. That reveres strength and power in a fanatical way.

I suppose we all have an inner fascist. I mean, how can you have ideals without value judgments? Unless you're a Taoist, in which case you know that being "weak"-- i.e. small, flexible, humble like a blade of grass-- is real strength. Just think of how a big oak gets uprooted and falls in a storm. Ah but I'm no Taoist, as you can see from my inadequate explanations of that line of thought. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we privilege certain parts of duality like Strength, Beauty, Intelligence, Light, Height, etc. But I guess when we become slaves of this qualification instead of its masters, then we are fascists. But look at my word choices! Slaves vs. Masters. And I privilege the latter.

This stuff is entrenched. Ain't no easy way out. I'm just writing stream of thought here so I'm myself surprised that Taoism came up. But it does seem pretty relevant.

So, a Taoist approach may help with keeping the inner fascist under control but for me, the best antidote to the inner fascist is compassion. And empathy. Of this I am sure. When Murat was trying to quit smoking he was being really hard on himself during his lapses. I told him to be nicer, and mentioned the inner fascist. He imagined it as a dictator of small stature-- little Hitler, he called it. He would give reports on little Hitler's behavior throughout the days, laughing at him and occasionally falling prey to his moods. Mostly, though, he learned to be kind to his little Hitler-- and I think at some point little Hitler jumped into his arms.

I watched a documentary a long time ago about the Holocaust and it was made by a female psychologist (it was like half documentary interviews, half drama, can't remember the name or track it down) but the central tenet of the movie was that it was the lack of empathy that was the most clear cause of the atrocities in the Holocaust. There are other factors of course, but I was reminded of this film when I watched Elephant the other day and then did some research on the Columbine massacres. There was a good article in Slate that said that Eric Harris, the mastermind of the two youths, was a psycopath and described that condition as having ZERO understanding of what someone else is feeling, or that they are feeling anything at all. Complete lack of empathy.

I guess I'd heard this before but it blows my mind. It's fascinating, and horrible. Then, as I was trying to google-track down that movie I mentioned above, I came across this essay http://www.crisispapers.org/essays8p/empathy.htm which mentions the findings of a psychologist named G.M. Gilbert who studied the Nuremberg trials. Apparently the essay is quoting yet another movie (goddamn! why do movies shape so much of our reality-- it's always scared me) but says it seems a correct representation of the real Gilbert's findings when he says "I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants: a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

So there we have it. Psychopaths and Nazis and You. My friend. Yes, you. Yes, me. I'm gonna take a step further and say this: The reason "Evil" is so fascinating is because it exists in all of us. We all have our psychopath moments. It's actually a really preferable option in many cases to shut ourselves down and not imagine how someone else feels. And if you were to open yourself up, to talk about these things, you expose yourself to ridicule. It's easy to make fun of "feelings." To call this stuff namby-pamby, to characterize it as (oh, what's this?) "feminine." I've been listening to a lot of shock-jock radio recently (don't ask why but it's for reasons beyond my power) and those guys' reverence of toughness is really a transparent terror of facing and accepting any "weak" parts of themselves.

So what I'm saying is, watch out for little Hitler. He comes dressed in all kinds of guises. Often, that guise is You. But when you see the little guy, just ask him to come sit on your knee, and slick his hair to the side and give him a pacifier shaped like a cigarette. He'll start sighing and falling asleep soon enough.