It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted our meeting notes - mostly it’s been a time constraint, which will hopefully improve soon. The older I get the more I’m aware that time is utterly incompressible, and the more interesting things I get into, the less I can afford to have entropic habits - yet those are the most difficult to give up. I still think that humanity will suffer a huge leap forward as soon as someone invents a sleep-replacement pill (with minimal unwanted effects).

In any case, we’ve had a productive last few meetings. We covered a lot of ground, moving on past Critical Thinking and into Ethical Development, “I will always focus on becoming a better person.” We discussed the difference between ethics and morality, and I will ask other members of our group to contribute notes and thoughts if they choose to do so, but I thought it was interesting to discuss how local economies, health concerns, and cultivation of food sources contributes to what is considered “moral”, and how commingling of cultures affects understanding of morality.

“Ethical Development” can have a few meanings. It could mean development according to your “ethos” (“character” in Greek); it could mean development of a moral system of values (“ethics”); it could also mean development of your “ethos.” Each aspect ought to be considered separately and then put together to form the entirety of the concept holistically. Let’s say that “Ethical Development” is you, in 3D - Development of Ethos, Development with Ethos, and Development of Ethics.

Whether Ethics or Ethos, the central part of the concept is Character. The word “character” has an interesting etymology that provides insight into the concept. The word comes from Greek and means “engraving,” “cutting,” or “marking in furrows.” Leaving a mark, in other words. Things that build “character” leave their mark. They’re probably not pleasant, to have left a mark. Character can be personal, or it can relate to groups - villages, cities, regions, nations go through similar troubles and build similar character as they carry the marks of their experience.

The personal becomes the shared. We are individuals, suffering common human experiences such as loss, hunger, pain, sorrow - and we’re also doing that as a group. We can relate to one another in similar ways because of the marks those experiences leave on us and give us the character that we have.

Developing according to your “ethos” - character - means having integrity; it means that you are acting with authenticity to yourself and not violating the marks that experience has left on you. Epigenetics is an interesting area to consider when thinking about character. Epigenetics leaves previous generations’ literal marks on you, meaning you inherit character from your ancestors and the groups they were part of.

Development of a moral system of values (“ethics”) brings discernment and critical thinking into your understanding of the world around you to create a framework for considering what is right, and what is wrong. In a religious environment, the ethical system is created by divinity; in a human-centric world view, divinity is unnecessary; right and wrong aren’t driven by immutable divine decrees but instead by humanist principles that focus on empathy, reason, humility, earth, and so on.

The development of your character is the process of bettering yourself. It means being mindful of what marks have been engraved on you by your experiences and those of your ancestors, how those marks affect your inner parts, and how, in turn, you affect the world without. Simply existing in time, unexamined, is not “ethical development.” Mindfulness is a prerequisite.

I think what we’ve covered here provides a reasonable model for human-centric Ethical Development and gives us a good answer as to what it means to strive to be a better person.

Reading Review

“The Mass Psychology of Fascism” continues to delve into the mindset of industrial worker. In particular, there is a detailed discussion of whether the worker would easier identify with individuals in their own class and adopt revolutionary (that is, progressive) ideas, or whether they would adopt more middle-class tendencies towards fascism and identify with reactionary (“conservative”) ideologies.

Reich postulates that even though it was the progressive ideas that created better working conditions, safety, and a moderate amount of leisure time for the industrial worker, paradoxically, these newly found higher living standards drove the worker to closer to identifying with middle-class and the culture thereof. When the economic crisis hit, the worker was therefore likelier to respond in middle-class fashion - that is, in a reactionary/fascist way.

Reading Quotes

(This collection includes notes from earlier readings that haven’t been covered in the newsletters)

Pages 62 through 65 deal with blood and soil laws that required a certain structure in passing small farms down generations with blood purity laws requiring that only “true” Germans can own farms. This isn't strictly applicable now in the US, however, it does explain why Hitler's focus on a certain family structure was closely aligned with agriculture, as most small agricultural productions depended on families with large numbers of children to work the farm (free labor).

Quote: the interweaving of individualistic production and authoritarian family in the middle classes is one of the sources of the fascist ideology of the "family with many children." p65

The people in their overwhelming majority are so feminine by nature and attitude that sober reasoning determines their thoughts and actions far less than emotion and feeling.

And the sentiment is not complicated, but very simple in all of a piece. It does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; Love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never have this way and have that way, never partially, was that kind of thing (MEIN KAMPF, P 183). page 67

And the lower middle-class influence, the women develop an attitude of resignation which covers up repressed sexual Rebellion; the son develop, in addition to submissive attitude towards authority, a strong identification with the Father which later becomes identification with any kind of authority. Page 67

This compulsive suppression of sexuality provides mysticism, of whatever kind, with its energy and also with some of its contents. Page 68

The above paragraph has some insights into the success of Q Anon And its ridiculous theories about child sex trade, and into the GOP fixation on the transgender folks.

The core of the family tie is the mother fixation. The subjective, emotional core of the ideas of homeland and nation are ideas of mother and family. The mother is the homeland of the child, as the family is its "nation in miniature" . Thus one understands why the National Socialist Goebbels took the following as a motto for his Ten Commandments, in the National Socialist Volkskalender calendar for 1932: "the Homeland is the mother of your life, don't ever forget it." Page 69-70

Nationalist feeling is the direct continuation of family attachments and, like the latter, is based on the unconscious, deeply anchored mother fixation. This cannot be explained biologically. For this mother fixation itself is a social product. The attachment to the mother would be replaced by puberty by other attachments, for example, by natural sexual relationships, even if were not made permanent by the general suppression of natural love life. Only this socially caused perturbation makes it the basis for nationalist feeling in the adult and makes it a reactionary social force. Page 70

But the fact should not be overlooked that fascism, ideologically, is the Revolt of a deathly sick society, sick sexually as well as economically. It is the revolt against the painful and forceful Tendencies of revolutionary thinking in the direction of sexual as well as economic freedom. The very thought of this Freedom makes the reactionary individual tremble with fear. Page 71

Even more important, however, is the identification of the mass individual with the Fuhrer. The more helpless the individual was made by his upbringing, the most strongly does he identify himself with the Fuhrer, the more does the infantile helplessness take the form of the feeling one with the Fuhrer. This tendency to identification is the psychological basis of national narcissism, that is, of a self-confidence based on identification with the "greatness of the nation." The reactionary middle class individual believes he discovers himself in the Fuhrer, in their authoritarian state. Page 74

The industrial workers of England, America, Scandinavia, and Germany took on more and more a middle-class character. In order to understand the manner in which fascism penetrates the workers' stratum one has to follow this process in its various stages from formal democracy to openly fascist dictatorship. P77

Fascism penetrates the working class "by means of direct economic corruption, and the so-called workers aristocracy by means of material corruption as well as ideological influence. German fascism unscrupulously promised everything to everybody." Page 77

Fascism promises the abolition of classes, that is, doing away with one's being a proletarian; in this matter, it appeals to the social inferiority feeling of the manual worker. P80

In the late capitalism, however, things became different. The workers movement had made certain gains such a shorter hours, the right to vote, social security, etc. This meant, on the one hand, a strengthening of the working class. At the same time it had an opposite effect: the raising of the living standards led to structural adaptation to the middle classes. In times of prosperity this middle class adaptation was intensified; in an ensuing economic crisis, it acted as an inhibition of a further development of revolutionary feeling. Page 82

Disillusionment in social democracy must, in the presence of a conflict between pauperization and conservative thinking, lead into the fascist camp if there are no effective revolutionary organizations. P82

* Chapter 3, the race Theory

It would be useless to try to reach a fascist, convince this he is of the superiority of the German race, with arguments, if for no other reason because he does not operate with arguments but with irrational feelings. P88

In discussions on Humanism, our focus continues to be around Critical Thinking. One interesting observation we made during our recent discussions is that Critical Thinking is much more “Zen” than any of us had considered.

For an idea to be incorporated into our general understanding of the world - or rejected as false, and then its falsity incorporated - we need to suspend judgement and also apply judgement, at the same time. We must do this to appreciate the idea on its own merit, with an open mind; we must also have enough presence of mind to determine whether the idea passes muster. We must ask questions, evaluate sources, compare the idea against things we know, re-evaluate things we know in terms of this new information - this last bit is important as well, and consider long- and short-term implications.

We also discussed how we ought to approach information that is so outside of our previous knowledge or experience that we have no existing evaluation tools. We need to examine domains that the information touches, reach out to community to check understanding (“crowdsource”), ask clarifying questions, seek additional sources, and also, get a “gut check” - how does it feel to consider the truth or falsity of the idea for us, personally?

As homework for the next meeting, I asked our members to find an idea that has been floated by the government or a political group now or in recent past and see how it looks if we pass it through the filter of critical thinking.

We also talked about adapting the 10 Commitments to our own liking, so another homework assignment is to review the Humanist 10 Commitments and rephrase them, or add to them, to make them our own.

Oh, and we need some Humanist music to play. Any suggestions?

📅 Next time, on March 16th, we’ll wrap up Critical Thinking discussion, and continue our readings.

If you’re interested in joining the Humanist Sanctuary in person or online, please reach out in comments and we’ll be in touch!

Reading Review

We continued our reading of Wilhelm Reich’s “The Mass Psychology of Fascism”. I’ve started recording excerpts from the book in my phone’s Notes, pulling out sentences and paragraphs that strike me as particularly interesting. We reviewed a few of those and observed some similarities and differences between political and psychological conditions in Germany in the 1920s and 30s and the world today, especially in the United States.

The major theme of the book so far is that suppression/repression of natural sexuality and children and adolescents creates adults who are ready to be compliant with authoritarian regimes, and who are both submissive to authority and assume authoritarian characteristics themselves. Additionally, fascism is primarily a middle class - specifically, a lower middle-class movement. The patriarchal structure of the middle class, especially in the small- to medium-sized farming community, is particularly receptive to the kind of authority that fascist and other authoritarian regimes promote. Focus on individualistic tendencies, combined with business competition creates a disincentive to unite in “class struggle” and instead identify more with the authoritarian.

Industrial working class does (did not, at the time, anyway) have the same anti-sexual patriarchal structure, and therefore leaned more to socialist and less individualistic economic movements.

Furthermore, fascism, needing the support of both capitalist elite and of the middle classes, promotes contradictory ideas in order to secure such support.

The society creates structures it needs for support - that is, the family unit created and promoted by Germany in the 1920s and 1930s created the necessary conditions for the emergence and dominance of fascism.

Reading Quotes

Here are a few quotes from the session that were shared during the session, with commentary after each/most:

"The character structures which correspond to certain historical situation are formed in early childhood and are much more conservative than the forces of technical production. Follows that, as time goes on, the psychological structures lag behind the development of the social conditions from which they stemmed and which progress rapidly. Therefore, they come into conflict with later forms of living." p37

This is a great observation about the tension between what we call “tradition” and any current development. The generational anchoring in childhood culture, without adaptation, creates this nostalgia for the good old days. This is probably the best explanation of this tension that I’d ever seen - or maybe I’m just ready to understand it.

" In this way the authoritarian State develops its enormous interest in the authoritarian family: the family is the factory of that structure and ideology." p47

All the focus on “traditional family values” for the last 40 years was just leading up to its culmination in being expressed as fascism in the modern day United States.

Suppression of the natural sexuality in the child, particularly it's genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, "good" and "adjusted" in the authoritarian sense; it paralyzes the rebellious forces because in your rebellion is laden with anxiety; it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical faculties. In brief, the goal of sexual suppression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation." p47

The suppression of natural sexual gratification leads to various kinds of substitute gratifications. Natural aggression, for example, becomes brutal sadism which is then an essential Mass - psychological factor in imperialistic wars. Page 48

The above paragraphs, I feel, are particularly helpful in understanding the current rage against trans people in the United States. Being “trans” is the highest transgression, the most potent expression of rebellion against sexual repression. Not only is the trans person focusing attention on their sexuality, but they are (in the eyes of the fascist) completely breaking what it means to have sexuality. The violence with which the fascists react highlights not only their own societal abuse as children or adolescents, but also the extent to which a trans individual breaks the fascists entire world view.

Political reaction, however, makes conscious use of the sexual interests. Not only does it create peacock-like uniforms for men, it uses attractive women and it's recruiting campaigns. One only has to remember the recruiting posters with text like this, if you want to see the world join the royal navy. The far away world is represented by exotic but why are such posters effective? Because our youth, as a result of sexual suppression, is sex starved. Page 48

This instantly makes me think of all the donut warriors and all the “2A” fanatics. For them, this is the only way they can think of expressing their repressed sexuality. Poor sods.

Sexual inhibition alters the structure of the economically suppressed individual in such a manner that he thinks, feels and acts against his own material interests. Page 49

This is a brilliant explanation for how lower-middle class, blue collar workers are cheering for billionaires putting other lower-middle class, blue collar workers out of work, facilitating mass layoffs, endangering social safety nets, and punishing the poor.

If the psychic energies of the average mass of people watching a football game or a musical comedy could be diverted into the rational channels of a freedom movement, they will be invincible. Page 49

Yeah… How about them Eagles. #gobirds

* 2 * authoritarian family ideology in the mass psychology of fascism (chapter 2)

Speeches in National Socialist meetings were indeed characterized by very clever manipulations of the emotions of the mass individuals and by strict avoidance of objective argumentation. Hitler, in MEIN KAMPF, emphasize repeatedly that the only correct Mass psychological technique was that of avoiding arguments and if keeping the big final goal before the masses. The true nature of the final goal after the seizure of power is demonstrated by Italian FASCISM. page 51

Does this remind you of anything? Any speeches, perhaps, at any Tr*mp or Republican rally?

What gave the international world view success was its representation by a political party organized into storm troops; what caused the defeat of the opposite worldview was its lack up to now of a unified body to represent it. Page 54-55

This is definitely an accurate representation of the current situation. The GOP has been militarized for many years, while Democrats are disorganized and still living in some dream version of the political landscape that hasn’t existed for decades - and maybe never existed at all, except in their heads.

There's a good discussion about the lack of a cohesive opposition to the Nazi party, which created a vacuum of ideas. Reich says that in the absence of fascism there would have been no ideology that could have taken its place. Page 55

What was it in the masses that caused them to follow a party the aims of which were, objectively and subjectively, strictly at variance with their own interests? Page 56

Can’t wait to find out.

To begin with, the fact has to be remembered that the National Socialist movement, in its initial success, leaned on the so-called middle classes, that is, the millions of private and public officials, small business people and farmers. With regard to its social basis, national socialism was originally a middle class movement. P56

But the Mainstay of the swastika was always the middle class. During these years of 1929-32, the period of the severest economic disruption of the capitalist system, the middle class entered the political arena in the form of national socialism and put the brakes on a revolutionary organization of society. P57

There’s definitely some discussion that needs to take place to review how we compare to class stratification in Germany. I feel like there’s many commonalities, but a few significant differences as well. It is possible that while the class stratification changed, the economic conditions affecting the new environment are similar. It would be interesting to get a better understanding of this.

Socialists and communists nurture delusions with regard to the progress of their revolutionary movement compared with the progress of reaction. This meant political suicide, the best motives is not withstanding. This question deserves careful attention. P59

Heck yeah. Replace “Socialists and communists” with “Democrats and Independents” and that’s pretty much current day, March 2025.

Always looking about himself, the middle class individual develops a divergence between his economic position and his ideology. He lives in straightened circumstances but keeps up appearances, often to a ridiculous degree. He feeds himself poorly but invests in "decent clothing" p60

Aren’t we all temporarily embarrassed millionaires? (this seems to be a misquote of John Steinbeck, but it’s apt).

One of our founding members, Patrick, brought his background and experience as a (former) Christian Pastor in helping us plan future meetings; we talked about micro-rituals that kick off the meeting, the use of iconology, and using chants and music to bring an element to our meetings that connects us on an emotional level that goes beyond words. While we don’t have all the exact details set, we have a good understanding of the direction we want to take in that regard.

The substance of our meetings will include two or three core directions. One of them will be promoting the understanding and practice of Humanist principles and related philosophical concepts. The American Humanist Association has developed a list of what they call The Ten Commitments, and we’ll be discussing them, perhaps adding a few that didn’t make the list - Art, or Humor, for example.

We will also be providing a list of reading materials for our Humanist Sanctuary book club, and our first book on the list is by Wilhelm Reich’s “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” (you can buy a copy of this book from independent book sellers, or you can reach out to us if you’d like to support our initiative by purchasing it through us). Reading the book is not a prerequisite to participation, as we’ll be discussing a topic from the book or adjacent ideas that spring from it, and performing readings from the book during our meetings.

If you are participating in person, we invite you to bring a dish to share after the meeting (we have an oven and a microwave, if reheating is necessary), and if you are joining us online, please enjoy your favorite dish (or anything on hand) with us, so you can participate in the meal at least in spirit if not in person. We love good food and believe that sharing a meal with others is one of the best human experiences.

Speaking of food - our youngest participant (21 months old) really enjoyed the raisin bread (with butter) that Patrick brought, and I must admit I was a fan as well. I usually go for multi-grain variety, but I think I might be adding raisin bread to our shopping list now and again.

As for next steps, one online participant, Mary, suggested that we send out topics for discussion prior to our gatherings so people have an idea of what to expect - we agree, and the mechanism for such communication will be through this Substack (so please subscribe if you haven’t already). We’ll be creating a separate post for the meeting’s agenda next week!

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We had time to discuss some of the preliminary issues raised by “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” - I will post what came out of that discussion separately.

I also read “Living Humanist Values: The Ten Commitments” article from The Humanist magazine to set a baseline of what Humanist values are all about. I’ll list them here, and please take the time to read the article as well!

The Ten Commitments of Humanist Values:

1. Critical Thinking

2. Ethical Development

3. Peace & Social Justice

4. Service & Participation

5. Altruism

6. Humility

7. Environmentalism

8. Global Awareness

9. Responsibility

10. Empathy

My initial thought on sharing meeting details is to keep the organizational stuff such as this in a special Preamble post and save the Substance for another. What do you think?

Thanks for your support, I am glad you are here!

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