What Is National Socialism and Does It Affect Us Today?

The Official Site of Joseph Burke:
a Historian, Author, and Educator

Introduction: What Is National Socialism?

The are many political ideologies that compete with each other, but the problem with National Socialism is that it goes far beyond mere preferrence and makes any selection of a worldview other than that of National Socialism a crime worthy of the concentration camp, and depending on the type of worldview, it could even be worthy of extermination. Therefore, we are dealing here with an ideology far more extreme than most. One that believes and promotes eugenics as well as genocide, meritocracy as well as Social Darwinism.

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The question of what National Socialism actually is tends to be confusing these days for many people. The natural tendency, of course, would be to ask historians (who are the experts about this) what it is. There have been some problems with this approach, though, which is why there is still some confusion over what National Socialism is. 

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The first problem is that historians are academics and tend to write for other academics, other historians, and are therefore not as easily read and understood by the average public reader.

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Another problem is that not even historians are agreed as to what all exactly goes in to making National Socialism what it is. Most historians usually have their own definitions, but these can vary from overly simplistic to incredibly complex definitions.

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Finally, in their attempts to discover what National Socialism is, many people revert to those who think they know but actually don't, to those unfortunately uninformed or misinformed individuals with an opinion and little to no evidence. Or they revert to those with an agenda to sell, usually political, such as pundits, who make a lot of money off the topic by selling to people what they want to hear and what they have cherry-picked from a few vague sources.  

I have derived a formula based on my literature review of primary and secondary sources that I believe is not overly simplistic or overly complex.

This formula provides a handy guideline of the essential requirements necessary for a movement to be considered National Socialist, even though it may be a modern version of it, or to help gauge whether a person is promoting Nazi views or can be legitimately termed as a Nazi, even though they may deny it. 

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The key is to having these core 7  elements. If any one of these elements is missing, they are not National Socialist but something else, such as a simpler form of fascism. These seven spell out the acronym MAUSA³ or MAUSA. Four are core ideas that Nazis promote, and three are core ideas that they fight against. These are all of the essential must-have ideas for someone or for some movement to be considered as Nazi.

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1. Meritocracy

2. Authoritarianism (Totalitarian)

3. Ultra-Nationalism

4. Social Darwinism

5. Anti-Marxism

6. Anti-Liberalism

7. Anti-Intellectualism

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An example of a way of thinking that has most of these, yet not all of them, is given by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero in his book Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking. He is speaking within the context of flawed thinking, such as with the Error of Perspective, which is "a tendency to justify beliefs rather than refine and improve them," and uses the example of Mine Is Better Thinking.

He says that Hitler achieved power in Germany, started WWII, and instigated the Holocaust through the use of this error of perspective called Mine Is Better Thinking.

Here is an outline of that argument. Notice how it uses almost all of the seven elements, except for authoritarianism, anti-Marxism, and anti-liberalism. I think it could easily be argued that with the egocentric, meritocratic, and social Darwinist aspects together could also easily be forms of authoritarianism.​

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1. Meritocratic: There always has to be someone less than you in order for you to feel valued. The loser vs. the winner. It’s hierarchical thinking. Who is worthy and who is not justification.

2. Egospeak (egothink): “the art of boosting your own egos by speaking only what we want to talk about, and not giving a hoot in hell about what others want to talk about” (89).

3. Egocentric: They have difficulty seeing other points of view. They tend to believe that they already believe everything that is worth knowing.

4. Ethnocentric (ultra-nationalism): Other ethnic groups are suspect. They do not question the values of their group, only of others. They stereotype others. Scapegoating minorities.

5. Dichotomous Thinking: No middle ground or grey area, only extremes. Black and white thinking. They oversimplify complex issues.

6. Social Darwinist: “Historians tell us that [Mine Is Better Thinking] is precisely why Hitler succeeded in winning control of Germany,” invading other countries who were considered inferior, and causing the Holocaust (92).

7. Anti-intellectual: They are not critical thinkers. They are ready “to accept uncritically those who appeal to their preconceived notions” (92). They tend to be relativists mired in subjectivity.

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Full Disclosure -- Not All Historians Agree on What Fascism Is Exactly or That a Formula for National Socialism Is Even Possible, Just as Not All Historians Agree That Fascism Still Exists as a Political Force to Be Dealt with Today, Let Alone a More Extreme Form of It, Such as National Socialism.

Roger Griffin, an expert on fascism, acknowledges that there currently does not exist an official formula for facism or for National Socialism. This lack of solidity in definition about what exactly fascism consists of or what constitutes National Socialism from a historical perspective causes a lot of unnecessay confusion and misunderstanding about these dynamic and very much presently active ideologies. Some prefer to pretend these ideologies only existed in the past. Others have attempted to cobble together various formulas and definitions to describe them not just as historical phenomena but also as currently active populist movements. But as of yet, nothing has been embraced by historians and political scientists alike in the form of a general consensus concerning the essence of these ideologies (https://bit.ly/4hJmwca).

This is partly because not all historians see history as a memory that informs the present, sadly. History as a profession is still trying to discover its identity and its place among the soft sciences as history departments at universities find themselves being hollowed out in a similar fashion with all of the rest of the Humanities.​ If it is to survive in any form familiar to today, historians must embrace the full potential of history to inform the present and not just merely describe the past. History must become dynamic with its ability to make history relevant and present within the lives of ordinary people. Neil Postman writes about this that "... history is of value only to someone who takes seriously the notion that there are patterns in the past which may provide the present with nourishing traditions" (Amusing Ourselves to Death, 136).

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Historian Henry Giroux writes in his book The Terror of the Unforeseen "... that comparisons to the Nazi past can wither in the false belief that historical events are fixed in time and place and can only be repeated in history books. ... There is a cost to such caution. As Jonathan Freedland points out, 'if the Nazi era is placed off limits, seen as so far outside the realm of regular human experience that it might as well have happened on a distant planet -- Planet Auschwitz -- then we risk failure to learn its lessons.' ... The pressing relevance of the 1930s is crucial to address how fascist ideas and practices originate, adapt to new conditions, and how people capitulate and resist them" (Giroux 75-77).

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It's important to remember that fascism, just like National Socialism, was only defeated militarily, not ideologically. Once fascism was created as an ideology, it was impossible to put that genie back into a bottle again. That Pandora's Box has been opened. Fascist ideas and writings still persist and inspire to this day. So, there is no reason to assume that as an ideology it is now dead. The very vibrancy of fascism is so dynamic that it would be naive to consign the vision and goals of fascism to the history books, but that's exactly what some historians are attempting to do. 

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For example, the historian Jan Hatheway promotes the idea "... that true fascism was a European phenomenon between World War One and World War Two. The use of the term to describe later movements is, in this view, historically incorrect, and one should label them simply as fascistic to avoid confusion over the prewar movements of Hitler and Mussolini. What they have in common is authoritarianism and a preference for oligarchy." Jan Hatheway, The Progressive, "What Is Fascism?" (2022) 34.

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Anne Applebaum also promotes the idea that to take an ideology such as fascism or of National Socialism out of its historical context of the 1920s and '30s, such as to use these ideologies in comparison to political movements of today, is to distort or misuse the historical understanding of these movements--as if these movements simply died in 1945, never to reappear again among humans. To me, that assumption is beyond naive. It's to be entirely gullible since in reality these ideologies never ceased inspiring people after WWII. They were only defeated militarily. Some would see that as only a temporary setback, not a finality (https://bit.ly/4k30fYp). Although interestingly enough, Applebaum admits that "history is circular" in that "old ideas don't die," rather they stick around and resurface from time to time. "They don't get banished forever. They reemerge" (https://youtu.be/DpROr4tBpQs). 

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Christopher Browning writes that comparisons between "fascism" and current political events and movements are "... ​facile comparisons, especially the casual use of fascism as an imprecise epithet" ("HOW HITLER’S ENABLERS UNDID DEMOCRACY IN GERMANY," The Atlantic, 2022). He calls Trump and his ilk, such a Orban, Erdogan, and Putin, as "illiberal populists" rather than fascists ("A New Kind of Fascism​," The Atlantic, 2023).

Not all historians agree with Browning's, Applebaum's, or Hatheway's judgments about the dynamic relevance of history to the current day, though, especially about the present existence of historical ideas and of political movements of the past influencing the current politics. Some historians believe that history is more than just dusty tomes of past names, places, and dates. For example, well-known historian Timothy Snyder in his book On Tyranny and authoritarianism experts Jason Stanley and Ruth Ben-Ghiat are great examples of those who disagree with Applebaum, Hathaway, and Browning. Also Paul Gilroy stated in his 2019 Holberg Lecture that the “horrors [of fascism] are always much closer to us than we like to imagine.” So there's very much a divide among historians regarding this issue currently. 

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Other intellectuals have also weighed in on this ongoing debate, such as Paul Street in his book This Happened Here where he argues that "Fascist governments begin as fascist movements. Because of this, it is crucial to impede the advancement of fascist movements before they take power. This preventative measure is increasingly difficult without plain, accurate language." Or with Masha Gessen in the Irish Times where she wrote, "The word 'fascist' is perfectly accurate when applied to Donald Trump." We all know that US president Joe Biden did exactly that on more than one occasion, calling it "semi-fascism." Umberto Eco calls these "neo" forms of fascism as "Ur-Fascism." 

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Finally, Anthony DiMaggio writes in his book Rising Fascism in America: It Can Happen Here that "... you're never going to get a carbon copy of the past." The issue is rather that there is "... enough overlap to make comparisons." Robert Paxton in his classic Anatomy of Fascism writes, " No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but mass recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy" (Paxton 202).

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Does National Socialism Affect Us Today?

According to Henry Giroux, "Fascism is neither a static nor fixed moment in history, and the forms it takes do not have to imitate earlier historical models. It is an authoritarian ideology and a form of political behavior defined by what Paxton calls a series of 'mobilizing passions.' These include an open assault on democracy, the call for a strongman, a contempt for human weakness, an obsession with hyper-masculinity, an aggressive militarism, an appeal to national greatness, a disdain for the feminine, an investment in the language of cultural decline, the disparaging of human rights, the suppression of dissent, a propensity for violence, disdain for intellectuals, a hatred of reason, and fantasies of racial superiority and eliminationist policies aimed at social cleansing.

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"The ghost of fascism has to be retrieved from history and restored to a 'proper place in the discussions of the moral and political limits of what is acceptable,' especially at a moment when the crisis of democracy cannot be separated from the crisis of neoliberalism. As a heuristic tool to compare forms of state power, the legacy of fascism offers an opportunity to recognize when authoritarian signposts are on the horizon" (Bold lettering is mine). Henry Giroux, "Neoliberal Fascism and the Echoes of History," 2022. 

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Primo Levi writes In the Black Hole of Auschwitz that "Every age has its own fascism" (Bold lettering is mine). Similarly, James Baldwin also says the same in I Am Not Your Negro, "History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we literally are criminals." And Jason Stanley is cited in Ruth Ben-Ghiat's article "What Is Fascism?" as saying, “Fascism [is] ‘a political method’ that can appear anytime, anywhere, if conditions are right.” So for a historian to suggest that fascism is dead and gone is the same as saying that history is dead and gone, and nothing could be further from the truth. 

It is crucial that a formula for identifying fascism exists because fascists today do not openly acknowledge that they are fascist. They used to. Alt-Right activists agreed amongst themselves by 2016 before the "Unite the Right" rally that they can be far more successful politically by intentionally downplaying and denying their fascist tendencies. And that's exactly what they've been doing. But more importantly, to borrow a phrase from Stephen Eric Bronner, "indeterminate views of [fascism] (whether a ["neo-," a "semi-," or a "proto-"] is added or not) can produce only indeterminate ideas of resistance" (Bold lettering is mine).

In other words, today's fascists know that if they can create doubt as to what a fascist is, if the fascists of today can't be identified specifically as fascist, then the ability to effectively fight them also goes down significantly. Fascism is fascism. It's not "neo-," "proto-," "semi-" or any other prefix. It's straight up fascism if it meets the MAUSA³ formula. And although historically it is true that history does not repeat itself, it is also true that history does follow patterns, and the pattern for fascism yesterday, today, and tomorrow is clear: MAUSA³ . 

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Michael Freeden, professor of politics and international studies at the University of London, writes that "All ideologies ... appeal to central ideas and concepts they wish to promote or defend, but each ideology orders its ideas and concepts in a different, and distinctly indentifiable, pattern. ... ideologies are composed of core concepts that have considerable durability" (Liberalism 55). It is this pattern that all ideologies have that I am attempting to map with National Socialism. I believe I have identified that pattern with MAUSA³. This website collects evidence from experts, such as historians and political scientists, to support my claim. 

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In conclusion, Theo Horesh in his book The Fascism This Time paraphrases Timothy Snyder on this matter. He writes, "... since Americans have never experienced fascism up close, it has never been granted the same urgency as in Europe. Americans neither understand what it looks like in practice nor how it undermines democracy, and we lack the vocabulary to name it when we see it" (29). ​People have always underestimated and mischaracterized the dynamic power of fascism and National Socialism. It's ultimately how they gain power. People don't take their clown show seriously.

According to Max Horkheimer and Theordore Adorno, "One of the lessons of the Hitler period is the stupidity of cleverness. How many were the expert arguments with which Jews dismissed the likelihood of Hitler’s rise, when it was already as clear as daylight … According to the clever people, fascism was impossible in the West. Clever people have always made things easy for barbarians, because they are so stupid … That cleverness is becoming stupidity is inherent
in the historical tendency." Dialectic of Enlightenment.

This, therefore, is the purpose of this website--to help better understand what specifically National Socialism is, and what fascism is in general, as well as to provide the vocabulary for it so that we can "name it when we see it."