35 quotes
Work democracy is not an ideological system. Nor is it a "political" system which could be imposed on society by the propaganda of parties, individual politicians or ideological groups.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
Work democracy cannot be imposed on people as a political system.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
Political ideological systems are based on conceptions of the natural life process.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
The elimination of individual capitalists and the replacement of private capitalism by state capitalism in Russia has not in the least altered the typical helpless and authoritarian character structure of the masses of people.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
What has to be explained is not the fact that the man who is hungry steals or the fact that the man who is exploited strikes, but why the majority of those who are hungry don’t steal and why the majority of those who are exploited don’t strike.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
The growth of this consciousness of social responsibility is the most important prerequisite for the prevention of the cancer-like growth of political systems in the social organism.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
It is the negation of the pleasures of the body that serves as the living source of the religious view, and is the axis of every religious dogma. This is especially evident in the religions of Christianity and Buddhism.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
It is an essential part of our social tragedy that people, like farmers, the industrial workers, the medical profession, etc., influence the social process not only by their work, but also — and even predominantly — by political ideologies.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
This is a painful bit of truth: Fascism, in the form of irresponsibility, is present in the masses of all countries, nations and races. Fascism is the result of thousands of years of warping of the human structure. It could have developed in any nation. It is not a specific German or Italian character trait. It works in every mortal.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
A shoemaker who loses himself in mystical ecstasy and begins to think of himself as a saviour of the people, sent by God, will inevitably cut the soles the wrong way and mess up his stitches. As time goes on, he will be faced with starvation. It is precisely by this process, on the other hand, that the politician becomes strong and rich.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
Political irrationalism which infests, deforms and destroys our lives, is — in the strictly psychiatric sense — a perversion of social life, caused by the ostracizing of the natural life functions and by their exclusion from the determination of social life.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
The Old and the New Testament can be appreciated as stupendous achievements of the human mind, but this appreciation should not be used to suppress sexuality. My medical experience has taught me that adolescents who are sexually sick have an unhealthy appreciation of the legend of Jesus.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
It is known from the treatment of mentally sick priests that an involuntary ejaculation often occurs at the height of religious ecstasy. Normal orgastic gratification is replaced by a general condition of physical excitation, which excludes the genitals and, as if by accident, brings about a partial release against one’s will.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
Catholic Christianity in particular has long since divested itself of the revolutionary, i.e., rebellious, character of the primitive Christian movement. It seduces its millions of devotees into accepting war as an act of fate, as a ‘punishment of sin’. Wars are indeed the consequences of sins, but entirely different sins from those conceived of by Catholicism.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)