Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope

by Sarah Bakewell

Gentile, who was the author of the main theoretical parts, explained that a Fascist state does not aim at increasing human happiness or well-being, and it is not interested in the idea of progress. If life were always gradually improving, why would anyone be motivated to fight or die for a transcendent, glorious purpose? Peace is not desirable, either: there is nothing good about making compromises and seeking equilibrium with other nations, as Erasmus, Kant, or Russell would have wished. The same goes for individual development or freedom, the goals sought by a Mill or a Humboldt. Far from the liberal vision of the state as intervening mainly to stop individuals from hurting one another, the Fascist state does sometimes want to hurt people, to advance national interests. Instead, it offers something bigger than happiness or well-being: it offers self-sacrifice. The state, becoming the ultimate source of value for each person, plays a role similar to that of God: Fascism is avowedly “a religious conception.” As with most monotheistic gods, the state demands a “discipline and an authority which descend into and dominate the interior of the spirit without opposition.” Through submission, individuals gain true freedom, “the only kind of liberty that is serious.”