In our current political context, it is important to understand the
mechanisms of authoritarianism and fascism in order to better counterthem. This article, written from the perspective of social psychology,
presents the analyses of several researchers on personality and
authoritarian systems.
The Marxist thesis-supported by UCL-presents fascism as one of the
possible forms of bourgeois power throughout history: a way for the
dominant class to maintain its position, either under the "democratic"
guise of formal freedoms, or more explicitly with a fascist regime. This
interpretation emphasizes the context of monopoly capitalism,
imperialism, and the bourgeoisie's need to break a class struggle that
had become too threatening.
From the 1950s and 1960s onward, the focus shifted toward the social
sciences, which drew on psychology, sociology, and political science to
dissect the mechanisms of authoritarianism. Despite their
limitations-rigidity, generalities, and sometimes abstraction-these
approaches opened new avenues of inquiry that would later inform
historical research and contemporary understanding of the fascist
phenomenon.
Adorno: The Individual Alone Against Dogmatism
A German Jewish philosopher exiled to the United States during the Nazi
era, Adorno analyzed fascism from the perspective of his direct
experience of persecution. With his collaborators, what he called the
"authoritarian personality"[1]was a character structure shaped from
childhood in an environment of submission and hierarchy. Some
individuals carry within them the psychological predisposition to
fascism: moral rigidity, a need for order, a cult of the leader, and a
rejection of minorities. The F scale (for fascism), designed to measure
this disposition, reveals a coherence between submission to authority,
aggression against "deviants," and adherence to social conventions.
Hitler perfectly illustrates this set of characteristics: a staged cult
of personality, legitimized aggression against "non-conformists," and a
hyper-simplified worldview (race, purity, threat).
March of the May 9, 2010 Committee.
Pierre-Marie Le Diberder
This structure also reflects a "fear of freedom"-an idea developed by
Erich Fromm, another figure from Frankfurt. To be free is to have to
think for oneself, without guarantees. Many prefer to delegate their
autonomy to an authority figure and find in hierarchy the illusory
promise of a stable world. It is this existential anxiety that paves the
way for dogmatism. A perfect contemporary example: Giorgia Meloni, in
power in Italy, mobilizes these mechanisms in a "soft"
version-traditional family, identity threat, "true Italians" against
others. Not historical fascism, but a cognitive style that shares its
structure: a divided world, a protective leader, omnipresent danger.
Rokeach: Inside the Mind of a Closed Belief System
An American social psychologist of Polish Jewish origin, Rokeach
reflects on fascism from a cognitive perspective: how ordinary minds
become closed to doubt and receptive to authoritarian ideologies[2]. He
introduces the notion of dogmatism: a closed cognitive structure where
central ideas are protected from any questioning. The dogmatic
individual does not doubt, does not nuance-they filter information
according to whether it confirms or threatens their system.
Mussolini is greeted by the female workers at the Pola shipyard, 1930.
Public domain
Rokeach thus describes the logic of a mental fascism: contradiction is
experienced as a threat, disagreement as treason. The dogmatic
individual then becomes the soldier of truth, convinced that any other
opinion is inherently false. Trump represents this mechanism in a live
version: all criticism is treason, the world is divided between
loyalists and enemies, and facts are sorted according to their political
utility. It doesn't matter if it's true: it has to fit the narrative.
Deconchy: Orthodoxy as a system of regulation
In the 1980s, with André Deconchy[3], the perspective broadened even
further: authoritarianism is no longer just a matter of the individual,
but of a system of representations. An individual is orthodox, says
Deconchy, when they accept that their speech and behavior are governed
by the group to which they belong. It is no longer simply a matter of
believing in an idea, but of believing in the group that holds it.
In an orthodox system, the rational fragility of beliefs is compensated
for by implacable social regulation: words, gestures, and symbols are
controlled to maintain cohesion. It is a collective economy of meaning
where conformity replaces verification, where adherence is tantamount to
proof. Authoritarianism, here, reveals itself as a total social
process-a management of belief in the service of power.
The Mussolini case is almost a caricature: rituals, uniforms, liturgies,
slogans repeated ad nauseam. And today? Viktor Orbán in Hungary is
replaying this pattern in an institutional version: aligned media,
revised vocabulary ("illiberal democracy"), a single interpretive
framework imposed on the entire country. The group determines what is true.
Horkheimer and Adorno at the Max Weber Sociology Conference.
Jeremy J. Shapiro
A Mechanism Always Ready to Resurface
From Adorno's authoritarian childhood to Rokeach's mental fortress, to
the Orthodox communities described by Deconchy, the same logic emerges:
authoritarianism is a way of escaping complexity, of preferring
certainty to truth, the leader to doubt, the closed community to the
universal. These mechanisms are fueling identity politics, conspiracy
theories, and nostalgia for order today. Those who first studied it did
not simply describe fascism; they illuminated its psychological matrix,
ever ready to resurface as soon as we abandon free thought. And an
anxiety-inducing context is all it takes for this matrix to reactivate.
For our antifascist struggles, integrating these contributions also
means making critical doubt, rational thought, and a culture of evidence
fully-fledged political weapons: opposing fascist obscurantism-which
thrives on fear, simplistic thinking, and blind faith-with a libertarian
communism that aims to be a beacon, founded on inquiry, self-education,
intellectual rigor, and emancipation through knowledge.
Nasham (UCL Montreuil)
To validate
[1]T. W. Adorno, E. Frenkel-Brunswik, D. J. Levinson and R. N. Sanford,
The authoritarian personality, Harpers, 1950.
[2]Milton Rokeach, The open and closed mind, Basic Books, 1960.
[3]Jean-Pierre Deconchy and Vincent Dru, Authoritarianism, Presses
universitaire de Grenoble, 2007.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Psychologie-sociale-Dissequer-le-fascisme-l-autoritarisme-mis-a-nu
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