How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them

by Jason F. Stanley

Hierarchy is a kind of mass delusion, one readily exploited by fascist politics. A major branch of social psychology, Social Dominance Theory, pioneered by Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto, studies these delusions under the name of “legitimation myths.”1 The opening passages of a 2006 literature review of the previous fifteen years of Social Dominance Theory include the claim: Regardless of a society’s form of government, the contents of its fundamental belief system, or the complexity of its social and economic arrangements, human societies tend to organise as group-based social hierarchies in which at least one group enjoys greater social status and power than other groups.2 Fascist ideology, then, takes advantage of a human tendency to organize society hierarchically, and fascist politicians represent the myths that legitimize their hierarchies as immutable facts. Their principle justification of hierarchy is nature itself. For the fascist, the principle of equality is a denial of natural law, which sets certain traditions, those of the more powerful, over others. The natural law allegedly places men over women, and members of the chosen nation of the fascist over other groupings.