32
PARTISAN REVIEW
MR.
w.
According to what you say, Mr. Cynic, it seems to me now that
Fascism in my country will be confronted with one very easy and
one very difficult task. America, as you know, never had an Age of En–
lightenment and was therefore spared Socialism and the struggle of
political ideologies.
If
the economic experiments of the present Presi–
dent fail, it will not be difficult to persuade my fellow-citizens that
they were the victims of political ideology. "Down with politics!" will
therefore be a very popular slogan and
will
please everybody, the
workers, the farmers, and the trusts. 1 may confess to you that I see
the whole of my political future tied to that happy combination.
Nevertheless I wonder whether it will only be a flash in the pan. To
get into power will not be difficult. But to remain there? It is not pos–
sible to entrench oneself behind a national tradition where no such
thing exists, and to create a mythology for a people of such varied
origins as the Americans. You are ?erhaps aware that all those who
believe that Fascism is impossible
m
America base their arguments on
our peculiar national psychology.
THOMAS THE CYNIC
The people who believe that are literary men, and notions of na–
tional psychology are largely literary, Mr. W. Don't forget that before
Fascism came into power in Italy there were many who maintained
that it was incompatible with our rebellious national temperament.
In Germany they contrasted the crudity of Hitler with the enormous
German contribution to poetry and philosophy, and said that Fascism
was impossible too. Before
1933
one often heard a phrase that might
have been borrowed from our friend Professor Pickup's Neo-Soci–
ology. That phrase was "Germany is not Italy." From
1933
to
1938
the phrase was "Austria is not Germany." One must
bear
in mind
that even the most firmly established national tradition has only sur–
face roots in the psychology of the average individual. Those are the
first to give way under the strain of the profound spiritual crisis which
makes Fascism possible, Professor Pickup does not believe me, but he
will believe Hitler, who has recognized as much on various occasions.
' 'The impetus towards the most tremendous revolutionary changes in
this world," he wrote in
M
ein
Kampf,
"consisted at all times less in
scientific knowledge guiding the masses than in the drive of an in–
spiring fanaticism, sometimes an actual hysteria." No country has a
tradition or national psychology rendering Fascism inevitable, Mr.
W., and similarly no country has a tradition or national psychology
rendering it impossible. The influence of national psychology on the
growth of Fascism is purely decorative, and may serve to distinguish,
say, German Fascism from Jewish Fascism (for Jewish Fascism exists
