Narcisso-Fascism 4: the paradox of hierarchy.

This section expands on the concepts developed in Narcisso-Fascism: the psychopathology of extremism. That work tests the biocognitive model of mind in the hurley-burley of politics. These essays are self-contained but they expand on what has gone before, so readers are urged to be familiar with that material. If you have any comments, please click the “reply” button below. If that doesn’t work and you want your comment to be seen, email it to me for posting.

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The essential message of Narcisso-Fascism is that the machinery of fascism exists in all of us. Like all other species studied, the biological mechanism of the drive to dominate is written in human DNA. Fascism is the social technology, if you like, by which we implement the will to dominate in our political lives, it is the means by which one person or group takes control of the larger group and uses them in their drive to take power, to dominate their surroundings. In a few words, fascism is just the collection of techniques that are used to rouse the normally placid and amiable population, to convince them that attacking their neighbours is both necessary for their safety and sufficient for their glory.

One of the core techniques used is to paint ourselves lily-white and our opponents as black, that we are blameless and justified in everything we do while they are totally at fault and evil to boot. This is so normal that we hardly notice it. It goes on day and night, through all forms of media, from early childhood until after the last notes of the militarised funerals. We’re good, they’re bad. We only want what is best for everybody, they want to destroy us. We’re doing God’s work, they’re spawn of the devil. Psychologically, this is called projection, the primitive ego defence of attributing our motives to the other person. “They want to destroy us” actually means we want to destroy them: we then use the accusation to justify a pre-emptive attack. Every accusation is a confession, as they say.

We see this in Gaza today. Probably 85%+ of the world see what is happening as brutal, evil and unjustifiable but a small proportion are angered by this opinion. “What about the terrorist attack of October 7^th?” they demand. “The victims of that attack have the right and duty to defend themselves, or are you condoning that violence?”

Let me be perfectly clear. I oppose violence. My entire career was dealing with victims of one form of violence or another. I’ve seen its effects, the obvious and the concealed, and believe a world without violence would be a very much better world. In fact, if we don’t get control of our violent urges, the world our grandchildren inherit may not be recognisable. However, I realise that most people in the world don’t think that way. For them, violence is very much a normal part of life, even good fun. That’s humans, part of our urge to dominate. For myself, my opposition to violence is not absolute; I can imagine circumstances when it would become necessary to ensure safety, especially when defenceless people are involved.

I think this is generally true, that most people can understand the idea that ordinary citizens have a threshold, a point beyond which they should not be pushed otherwise the likelihood of violence goes up very quickly. Violence may not be desirable but it’s predictable, as we teach our children: “Don’t do that to the cat or she’ll scratch you,” or “Don’t touch the dog’s food while he’s eating, he’ll snap at you,” or “I’m not surprised your sister hit you, you were told not to tease her so don’t do it again.” This is normal. The idea that our actions have unpleasant consequences is part of the very foundations of our existence. The two lessons we have to learn are: Don’t provoke trouble and, if there is trouble, don’t retaliate directly. Society is built on the twin ideas that we have to act reasonably at all times, and we give up the use of violence to settle disputes. That right is transferred to the state and its police force.

When it comes to Hamas’ October 7^th attack, Israel says firstly, it has the right to defend itself, and second, that right has no limits. It says that what the great majority of the world sees as genocide, the supreme crime against humanity, is fully justified by the events of that day. We are told by Zionism’s supporters that nothing Israel has done since 1948 could justify the Hamas attack, but October 7^th justifies everything Israel has done since. I do not agree. I believe the Israeli response goes far beyond what any reasonable person would call “proportionate,” that it amounts to a crime against humanity and should stop immediately. But I also believe the Hamas breakout was predictable and Israel cannot claim to be a blameless victim in the matter. And before anybody starts shrieking “Antisemitic, blaming the victim, condoning violence,” consider this.

Go back to October 6^th, 2023. Imagine you are Achmed, a 20 year old Palestinian man in Gaza who plans to spend the next day with his friends studying for their engineering exams. His father is a school teacher who was injured years before by shrapnel from an Israeli bomb and is in constant pain, which means his son has to do a lot of the work around their crowded apartment. His mother helps in a nursery nearby and his two younger sisters are still in high school. Achmed’s grandparents were born and lived in what is now Israel until 1948, when their families were forced from their land at gunpoint and have never been allowed back. He has been under blockade and confined to Gaza his entire life. He has never seen a mountain, or a river, or a lake; he has never been on an aircraft or a train or travelled to another town to play sport.

Achmed is a keen student but he is also aware that there are very few jobs available for him in Gaza; it would be good if he could travel to the Gulf for work, to help support his family but because of the blockade, that doesn’t seem possible. He is well-behaved and has never had any sort of trouble with the Hamas police, not that anybody would want to be in their bad books. He doesn’t drink or smoke and has never used any sort of drugs. He plays football with his school team and enjoys keeping fit with the team. He follows their religion but nobody would accuse him of being fanatical about it.

He is aware that Israel spies on Gaza 24/7, as they say, in all possible modalities; there is nothing he can do that they don’t know about. Everything he sees on the patchy internet service is recorded and can be used against him, although he also knows he will never be told what he did wrong. He worries about his father’s health, about what will happen to his family if his father can’t work and he can’t get a job himself, about what the future holds for his sisters, about everything. Achmed was not very political until two years before, when two of his friends went to a demonstration near the border with Israel and were shot through their knees by snipers. A few weeks later, a student from his school was shot through the head while helping a wounded demonstrator. He went to the funeral and came home hurt and enraged by what was happening to his generation. There is no escaping it: they have no future. Israel is strangling the entire population of Gaza but it’s worse for the young people.

Everybody in the Strip knows that the Zionists want to force them to leave so their settlers can move in and take over but there is nowhere they can go. Some of his friends say the Israelis are simply getting ready to push them all into the Egyptian desert or even into the sea and he can’t argue with them. He hears his friends say how they would love to be able to hit back, how they hate being crushed underfoot like cockroaches, but they all know Israel is armed to the teeth with the very latest high technology weapons systems, not to mention the nuclear bombs the French gave them. They also know too well that behind Israel stands the world’s only super power, the US, which backs the Zionists totally. Do Zionists hate Palestinians? Well, the far right says so all the time and regularly murders people in the West Bank with complete impunity so it seems they do. Do Americans hate Arabs? Er, look at Libya, and Iraq, and Somalia, and Yemen, and Syria, and Sudan, and Iran, and ask that again. Night after night, Achmed lies awake worrying about the future, because he can’t see one, either for himself or his family or his friends.

On October 6^th last year, a young man he knows is very active in the Hamas military comes to him and asks if he wants to join an attack on Israel. If you were Achmed, what would you do? We are not looking at the right or wrong of the attack, but just this: Given the same set of circumstances, what would you have done? The broader questions are: Do oppressed people have the right of resistance? Do occupying powers have the right of retaliation, especially against civilians with no form of defence? To me, the answers are clear.

Humans have limits. If one group tries to dominate and crush another group, then the downtrodden will eventually turn on their oppressors. The urge to dominate is written in our genes, as is the urge to resist. This is the paradox of hierarchy. It may not be desirable but it’s predictable. Since Israel had absolute control and domination over the 2.2million Gazans for decades, including the last 17 years of total blockade, and knew precisely what it was doing, to whom and why, at every moment of that time, it cannot escape responsibility for setting up the conditions that caused the breakout. To understand why it happened is not to condone violence but to assign responsibility where it belongs, on the violence of the oppressor.