Hi DMB,
> Reactionary movements are often primarily anti-intellectual, such as the
> NAZI's were, but sometimes reaction can be precipitated by other threats
and
> humiliations. There was a strong element of this even for the original
> Fascist reactionaries in Italy, Spain and Germany. They'd lost empires
> colonies and wars, had serious money problems and were concerned with all
> sorts of prestige issues too. And they were anti-intellectual because, in
> part, those values tend to impose restrictions on their ability to solve
> those prestige problems.
About Italy, your point does not stand. The origins of Fascism (1922) are
not in "lost empires colonies and wars". Italy existed only since 50 years,
never had colonies or empires, and won WWI. There was a certain nationalism
that was the natural nationalism of every young nation, that has to wage
wars to gain its own liberty.
Fascism originated from that nationalism, and was fueled by the fear of
communism. In Italy there was the possibility of a soviet-like revolution
and the "strong powers" (the King, the Church, the capitalist families)
thought that Mussolini (formerly a Socialist) was the right man to calm the
masses. They just thought he could last a couple of years, and they were
wrong. But they were right that Mussolini was the right man to bring on
their reactionary agenda. He was a populist and was been able to convince
the masses to abandon socialism in the name of a nationalist dream that
became in 20 years a nightmare.
But in the beginning it was not anti-intellectual. Italy up to the end of
the 20's was intellectually an interesting place. Futurists (futurism was an
interesting artistic movement that originated in Italy at the beginning of
the century: its sayings were "dynamism", "progress", "future"; its aim was
to depict motion using cubist forms... very original!) saw in Fascism the
political version of their aesthetic beliefs. Even an important philosopher,
Giovanni Gentile, (his "actualism" starts from the criticism of.... the
subject/object split!!!) was a convinced fascist. And the greatest poet of
the times, Gabriele D'Annunzio, was literally loved by fascists. Not to
mention the developments of science. Fermi begun his studies just during
those times.
The anti-intellectual conversion came later, in the 30's. Once the masses
were calm, Mussolini brought on the agenda of the strong powers and we know
the rest of the story....
Ciao,
Marco
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