In prior essays in this series, I have repeatedly used the term “ego maintenance”. The nature of the term and the context of its usage hopefully made clear that “ego maintenance” is a process that the neurotic authoritarian employs to try to maintain an image of himself as a useful member of society. In this essay, I will offer a bit more insight into the ego maintenance function. There has been an on-going conflict regarding the exact definition of fascism, and how to identify fascist rhetoric that can have a destabilizing effect on a society. This essay will argue that the key factor that defines a movement as fascist is the existence of the ego maintenance process described here.
In the first essay in this series, I suggested that a fascist movement requires a set of elements to be present. Those elements include a population of individuals with innate neurotic and authoritarian tendencies who have recently suffered some economic or social setback, a fascist leader who is the primary purveyor of conspiracy theories that are employed in the ego maintenance process, and a willing band of “propaganda lieutenants” who assist in spreading and assuring adherence to those conspiracy theories and a “target audience” who can be targeted as the “malevolent agents” of cosnpiracy theories, and made into convenient scapegoats. Without all four of those elements, it is not possible to maintain a successful fascist movement.
Click here to read the full essay on the Otter Globe & Intelligencer website.