It was a bizarre twist, considering that both German and Italian Fascists defined themselves explicitly by rejecting the principles of reason, internationalism, individualism, humanitarianism, and meliorism, in order to embrace instinct, violence, nationalism, and war. Anti-humanist though those ideologies were, somehow they were supposed to be humanism’s fault—which to humanist ears sounds like saying that car crashes still occur despite traffic lights, therefore the traffic lights are to blame.
