Modernism and fascism ; The sense of a new beginning under Mussolini and Hitler

Intellectual debates surrounding modernity, modernism, and fascism continue to be active and hotly contested. In this ambitious book, renowned expert on fascism Roger Griffin analyzes Western modernity and the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler and offers a pioneering new interpretation of the links between these apparently contradictory phenomena. Using a wealth of examples, Griffin describes how modernism's roots lay in part in the fundamental human need to perceive a transcendent meaning and purpose to life--and to restore this purpose in times of experienced decay and social breakdown. This sense of revolution and rebirth provided the context in which fascism sought a new world based on the health and strength of the nation or race.Modernism and Fascism is an original and fascinating synthesis of data and ideas which will be of interest to art and intellectual historians, specialists in the study of modernity and modernism, and experts in fascist studies. It also offers stimulating new insights to all those concerned with the many contemporary movements (e.g. Al-Qaeda, Christian fundamentalists) prepared to fight for their belief in the transcendental meaning of life against the inroads of an increasingly globalized materialism. This is a book which promises to have a resonance far beyond the already broad academic parameters of the project, and will inspire a new wave of scholarly interest in modernity. Cover Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Aufbruch New horizons The quest for a bigger picture Fascism as the offspring of modernism Aufbruch Part One: The Sense of a Beginning in Modernism 1 The Paradoxes of ‘Fascist Modernism’ Revolting against the modern world Fascism and modernism: ‘aporia’ or paradox? Strategies for resolving the aporias of fascist modernism Nazism’s convoluted ‘anti-modernism’ A ‘synoptic interpretation’ of fascist modernism? The Babel effect in academia The methodological crisis in the humanities ‘Reflexive humanities’ and the itinerary of this book Julius Evola revisited 2 Two Modes of Modernism Modernism’s ‘dialogic’ (dire logic?) The malaise of modernity Modernity as ‘decadence’ An ideal type of modernism Nietzsche’s modernist revolt Epiphanic and programmatic modernism The porous membranes of modernisms Exploring the modernism of fascism 3 An Archaeology of Modernism The rituals of modernity A ‘primordialist’ theory of modernism The need for a ‘sacred canopy’ The erosion of our ‘sheltering sky’ The search for transcendence The terror of Cronus TMT Temporalization revisited The birth of aesthetic modernism Three case studies in cultural modernism The primordial dynamic of modernist movements 4 A Primordialist Definition of Modernism The myth of transition The rite of passage The revitalization movement Programmatic modernism revisited Modernity and the liminoid A primordialist definition of modernism Beyond the ‘decay of values’ The search for transcendence in modern art A modernist evaluates modernism 5 Social Modernism in Peace and War 1880–1918 Past masters Occultist social modernism Modernity’s ‘cultic milieu’ Rightist social modernism Modernist body politics Scientistic ‘narratives of change’ Warning shadows 1914: the beginning of a beginning 6 The Rise of Political Modernism 1848–1945 Creatio ex profundis Homo faber as Promethean modernist Dionysian socialism Marxism as modernism The modernism of organic nationalism Futural reaction Fascism as political modernism The fascist regimes as ‘gardening states’ Political modernism and the Gorgon’s gaze Part Two: Fascism’s Modernist State 7 The Birth of Fascism from Modernism Death in Florence The modernism of the ‘pure act’ The palingenetic climate of post-Risorgimento Italy Italianist modernism The maximalist concept of nationalist modernism The search for a mazeway of one political modernist The political modernism of the first ‘Fascists’ The birth of Fascism as a revitalization movement A confluence of modernisms Fascism as the Rohrschach test of Italian modernism 8 The Fascist Regime as a Modernist State Fascism’s ‘challenge to Time’ Fascism’s technocratic modernism The ‘voracious amoeba’ of Fascist culture Cultural modernism under Fascism The modernist dynamic of Fascism’s social transformation The pursuit of a ‘crystalline modernity’ The ‘true face’ of Fascist modernism ...and the ‘look’ of Nazism 9 Nazism as a Revitalization Movement Joseph: A German destiny Reconnecting forwards Nazism’s alternative modernity Mein Kampf as a modernist manifesto Nazi modernization revisited The Weimar Republic as a ‘stressed’ society The sacralization of politics under Nazism Hitler as a modern propheta Germany’s new beginning 10 The Modernism of Nazi culture Graduating from fin-de-siècle Vienna ‘In the mind of the Führer’ The modernism of Nazi art Aesthetic modernism under Nazism A modernist classicism The modernism of Nazi music Racially acceptable literature and dance Through the lens of Nazism The ‘destructive creation’ of Nazi modernism 11 The Third Reich’s Biopolitical Modernism Nazi Lebensfreude The ‘otherness’ of Nazi modernity Converting to Hitler Nazism’s marriage of technology with Being The Nazi cult of technocratic modernism Planning the Third Reich The modernist racial state The ‘ecology’ of genocide 12 Casting Off Ending without closing Maximalizing modernism A footnote on postmodernity Fascism: neither modern nor anti-modern The modernist causality of generic fascism The role of modernism in abortive fascisms A modernist Iron Guard? Modernist intellectuals and fascism Locating fascisms in ‘something larger’ The modernism of humanistic research Postscript: A Different Beginning The greening of Dionysus A different beginning? Appendix: More on Methodology Notes Bibliography Index Intellectual debates surrounding modernity, modernism and fascism continue to be active and hotly contested. In this ambitious book, renowned expert on fascism Roger Griffin analyzes Western modernity and the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler and offers a pioneering new interpretation of the links between these apparently contradictory phenomena. Intellectual debates surrounding modernity, modernism and fascism continue to be active and hotly contested. In this ambitious book, renowned expert on fascism Roger Griffin analyzes Western modernity and the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler and offers a pioneering new interpretation of the links between these apparently contradictory phenomena "It has been widely assumed that fascism was anti-modern, the sworn enemy of genuine culture: thus the Third Reich barbarically destroyed modernism, while fascism cynically harnessed the creativity of the artistic avant-garde and technocratic elite to reactionary ends. In contrast, Roger Griffin's Modernism and Fascism convincingly portrays fascism as a 'total' form of modernism in its own right. Like a modernist painting itself, this ambitious book transforms our understanding of the art, technology, social ethos, and politics of the first half of the twentieth century."--Jacket