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KimE — University of Nebraska Press / Page 13 / DEC . 14 . 2005 / Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind / Charny 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 [First Page] [13], (1) Lines: 0 to 65 ——— 0.64801pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [13], (1) chapter one What Is the Original “Mind Software” We Humans Receive at the “Factory”? Fascism: Fascis bundle. A governmental system . . . permitting no opposition or criticism.—The American College Dictionary, Random House, 1960 A system of government characterized by rigid one-body dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized government control, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism, etc.—Webster’s New York Dictionary, 1970 A political philosophy that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader . . . and forcible suppression of opposition. —Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1985 The Fascist Paradigm By fascism, I mean a philosophy of totalities and perfection and a way of thinking in certainties and absolutes, powerful intolerance for any differences of ideas, demands for conformity to the certainties and often a cultivation of mindlessness or no thinking or questioning; taking a position of superiority over others who do not believe or cannot qualify for full membership in the fraternity of believers, and the cultivation of cults of power even among the believers; a readiness, in fact often a love for doing violence and harm to all who are defined as nonbelievers or enemies of the certainty; and in the end denials of having done any harm to life – one’s own or others. In this work,we look at fascism and democracy in society and at what I propose as corresponding programs or formats – “software packages” in 13 KimE — University of Nebraska Press / Page 14 / DEC . 14 . 2005 / Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind / Charny part one 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 [14], (2) Lines: 65 to 80 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [14], (2) the mind if you will – and how they define the experiences and behaviors of the individual as well as our interpersonal behavior styles and patterns in intimate relationships of marriage and family. If this attempt to see fascist mind and democratic mind similarly at work in both societal and in individual and small-scale relationships is successful, we will have created a new, and I believe exciting and longsought -for, bridge between mind and society. In the course of presenting this material in many conversations, seminars , and professional meetings, I was told by a number of colleagues, especially younger ones for whom World War II, Hitler, and Nazism are “history,” that to them fascism meant Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany , or“political philosophies of the extreme right,”but not, as I intend it,a generic term for a totalitarian ideology.When I asked these colleagues what other key word they might recommend I use in the title, some said instinctively“totalitarianism,”and some said“fundamentalism,”but then the overwhelming majority replied that I should use “fascism” after all. When I asked why, they said that, compared to other words, the word fascism retains a quality of the terror that the totalitarian state inspires, and that it is the word that will best convey the linkage and continuity between dreaded political-societal states and the dreaded conditions in the human mind that I intend to develop in this work. However, they also recommended that I make it entirely clear that I am referring to the generic phenomenon of any totalitarian or dictatorial orientation, without differentiating between the political right and left, which I am very glad to do.1 The Software of Our Mind It is not common for us to think about ourselves as having chosen programs of thinking for our minds, what I am calling the “software of our mind.” It seems to most of us that our minds are, first of all, just there as they have been given to us, at whatever quality level we were assigned by the “factory.” Most people have at least a dim sense that their minds are also being acted on and...

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