Italian Fascism and the Aesthetics of the 'Third Woy

Bibliographic Data

ID10076494
AuthorsRuth Ben-Ghiat, Ruth Ben‐ghiat (corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume31
Issue2
Pages293-316
Publication date1996-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/002200949603100205
OpenAlexW1993443635
LanguageEN
Citations received13

In recent years, the work of Zeev Sternhell and other historians has underscored the appeal fascism held for interwar intellectuals as a 'spiritual revolution' that would establish a new 'moral order' in Europe. While scholars of fascism continue to debate whether this 'revolution' was conservative or radical in its aims, most agree on the centrality of the category of 'spirituality' to any definition of fascism as a 'third way' distinct from liberalism and Marxism.' Right-wing texts of the 1930s often presented the 'third way' as a comforting 'golden mean' between the two poles of liberal individualism and communist collectivism.2 Yet communism and capitalism came together for many fascist intellectuals as systems which led, for different reasons, to social and economic levelling, 'standardization', and the suppression of identity. The notion of 'spirituality' could take on different meanings in different national contexts, but in general terms functioned as a container for qualities such as individuality, heroism, and creativity that were perceived as threatened by the 'materialistic' ethos of communist and capitalist societies.3 For European intellectuals who embraced technological progress and yet had anxieties regarding the effects of Taylorist visions of efficiency and productivity on the individual, the search for a political and economic 'third way' formed part of a larger attempt to reconceptualize 'modernity' as a condition that would allow for the retention of specificity at both the personal and the national level.4 In Italy, fascist 'spirituality' received expression in the doctrine of the 'ethical state' which, unlike democratic and Marxist governments, would offer community and comradeship without crushing personal initiative and will.5 Democratic and socialist societies, the Duce asserted, defined happiness in purely material terms and had produced populations which were 'well-fed and fat' but spiritually bereft. Fascism, on the other hand, was a 'moral revolution' which catered to the 'whole person'.6 Of course, this focus on 'morality' distracted from fascist attempts to

Aesthetics · Art · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub