The Nazi problem, a Stoic take

What should we do when faced with advocacy of Nazifascism?

Image from steigan.no

Surprisingly, contemporary society seems to have a Nazi problem. I say surprisingly because you would think that, after World War II and the Holocaust, we would be done with that particular pernicious ideology. But, apparently, we are not.

From time to time, over the past several decades, both Germany and Italy have seen the occasional resurgence of overtly Nazifascist movements, sometimes in the form of violent protests enacted by misguided young people, at other times in the guise of thinly veined attempts to reconstitute the Fascist party, as was the case for the Movimento Sociale Italiano in Italy.

The United States has not been immune from the danger either. Nazism is popular enough in certain quarters of the hinterland that in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980) Jake and Elwood have some fun running a bunch of Illinois Nazi into a river.

More seriously, presumably we all remember the incident that took place in Charlottesville (VA) back in 2017, where one person was killed and 35 others injured at a rally held by White Supremacists. Not to mention, of course, the hideous history of the Ku Klux Klan, a quintessentially American fascist organization that has been responsible for hate crimes since the 1860s, immediately after the Civil War.

This essay is being published on my Substack newsletter, and the hosting platform has been at the center of a controversy triggered by an investigative article published in the Atlantic that pointed out that Substack has a (small) presence of Nazi sympathizers who make money out of their vile crap, with Substack enabling them while taking its usual cut.

Here I’d like to explore the problem of what to do with Nazifascism with the aid of Stoic philosophy and see where that may lead. I am specifically concerned with the question of whether and to what extent a Stoic should be tolerant of Nazifascism. Should we engage with Nazifascists in open discussion? Should we attempt to persuade them of the wrongness of their ways? Let’s see.

Rally participants preparing to enter Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, carrying Neo-Confederate flags, Confederate battle flags, Gadsden flags, and a Nazi flag. Image from Wikimedia.

First, though, we should begin by clarifying what we are talking about. The Merriam-Webster defines Nazism in this fashion:

“The body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer.”

The M-W definition of fascism similarly reads:

“A political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti in Italy between 1920 and 1944) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

If you compare the two definitions, you can see why I chose to talk of the more general issue of Nazifascism, a term actually in common use in continental Europe, rather than specifically of Nazism or Fascism. These two “philosophies” have the following elements in common:

(1) Advocacy of a form of autocratic government centered around a single strong man;

(2) A strong type of nationalism;

(3) Race supremacism;

(4) Intolerance and forcible suppression of any opposing viewpoint.

I sincerely hope we all agree that (1)-(4) make for the sort of society we don’t want and are in fact morally obligated to resist, if someone where to attempt to establish it. I will not argue the point, as I take it to be a self-evident no brainer.

Let us now get to Stoicism. The baseline Stoic attitude toward a Nazifascist has to be that these people are not evil, but rather misguided. Here is how Epictetus explains the point:

“‘Shouldn’t a thief or an adulterer be eliminated, just for being who he is?’ No, and you’d do better to phrase your question like this: ‘Should we do away with this person because he’s mistaken and misled about matters of supreme importance, and because he’s become blind—not in the sense that he’s lost the ability to distinguish white and black by sight, but because he’s lost the mental ability to distinguish good and bad?’ If you put the question like this, you’ll realize how inhumane it is, and see that it’s no different from saying, ‘So shouldn’t we kill this blind person, or this deaf person?’ If a person is injured most by the loss of the most important things, and if the most important thing in every individual is right will, what’s the point in getting angry with someone if he loses it?” (Discourses, I.18.5-8)

The Stoics assume, following Socrates, that people don’t do evil on purpose, but only as a result of ignorance of what is truly good. Nobody, not even Hitler or Mussolini, gets up in the morning, goes to the mirror, and asks his reflected image “What sort of evil can I do today?” while at the same time laughing the laugh of a Disneyesque villain. Hitler probably genuinely thought that the German people were superior to other “races” and that they deserved to dominate everyone else. Mussolini likely believed that fascism was the only viable solution to Italy’s post-WWI social and economic problems.

A gallery of Disney villains. None of them are real people.

They were, of course, horribly wrong, but that’s precisely the point. It is factually false, from a biological perspective, that there are human races, let alone superior ones. Likewise, it is factually false that a fascist regime is a viable way to build a flourishing society of human beings. So the first conclusion we arrive at from a Stoic perspective is this:

C1: Nazifascists (or any other group of misguided people) should not be hated.

Because they are sick, not evil. Indeed, “evil” itself is a pernicious and metaphysically problematic category, best avoided altogether. As Epictetus says, it makes no sense to hate a sick person. If anything, we should trying to help them, after we have made sure that they are in no position to hurt others, of course. Which brings me to the second point.

Marcus Aurelius gives direct advice about what to do with stubborn people who insist in adopting wrongheaded notions:

“If human beings exist to help one another, you must either instruct them or put up with them.” (Meditations, VIII.59)

Stoicism is a philosophy founded on reason and social cooperation. The Stoic motto is that we should live in agreement with Nature. Since human nature is the nature of a social being capable of reason, in the case of our species this translates into acting reasonably and being helpful to others. Which means that our second conclusion is:

C2: We should attempt to persuade Nazifascists (or any other misguided group of people) of the errors of their way; failing that, we should endure them as one more example of just how misguided human beings can be.

If C1 and C2, as well as the quotes I gave you from Epictetus and Marcus, sound a bit too pollyannish, hold your horses, as Stoicism has a rougher side as well. Perhaps the best way to appreciate it is to think of the so-called Stoic Opposition, an informal group of Stoic philosophers and politicians that objected to the tyranny, as they perceived it, of the first century emperors Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian.

We know about the group because several of its members are explicitly named by both Epictetus and Marcus. Some were students of Musonius Rufus, the most famous Stoic teacher of the first century, who taught Epictetus. One participant to the Stoic Opposition was Helvidius Priscus. Here is how Epictetus describes a famous incident concerning him:

“When Vespasian sent for Helvidius Priscus and commanded him not to go into the senate, he replied, ‘It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the senate, but so long as I am, I must go in.’ ‘Well, go in then,’ says the emperor, ‘but say nothing.’ ‘Do not ask my opinion, and I will be silent.’ ‘But I must ask your opinion.’ ‘And I must say what I think right.’ ‘But if you do, I shall put you to death.’ ‘When did I tell you that I am immortal? You will do your part, and I will do mine: it is your part to kill; it is mine to die, but not in fear; yours to banish me; mine to depart without sorrow.’” (Discourses, I.2.19–21)

Epictetus also recounts another episode, this one involving Paconius Agrippinus, a Stoic who opposed Nero:

“[Agrippinus] was informed that his case was being heard in the Senate. ‘That’s as may be. But it’s the fifth hour now’—this was when it was his custom to exercise and take a cold bath—‘so let’s go and exercise.’ Afterward, someone came up to him and said, ‘You’ve been condemned.’ ‘To exile,’ says he, ‘or death?’ ‘Exile.’ ‘What about my property?’ ‘It’s not been seized.’ ‘So let’s go to Aricia and have breakfast there.’ That’s what it’s like to have trained oneself properly [in philosophy].” (Discourses, I.2.28-31)

The Stoic Opposition is not the only example of its kind. Arguably the most famous instance of principled resistance to tyranny was that of Cato the Younger, who lived during the last decades of the Republic. Cato thought, with good reasons, as it turned out, that Julius Caesar wanted to establish a one-man rule over Rome and he debated Caesar for years on the floor of the Senate. In so doing, Cato acted in agreement with C2 above: instruct them or put up with them.

On January 11, 49 BCE, however, Caesar passed the river Rubicon with one of his legions. This was then the border between Italy proper and the external Roman provinces, and to cross the river with armed men was to declare war on the Senate. Caesar himself was very aware of the gravity of his actions, as he allegedly commented “Alea iacta est,” the die is cast.

The geographical position of the famous Rubicon river, in northeastern Italy. Image from Wikimedia.

From that point on, the time for persuasion was over and Cato—together with a number of other senators and military officers—took up arms against Caesar. It didn’t end well, as the Caesarian army defeated the Republican one at the Battle of Pharsalus on 9 August 48 BCE. Shortly thereafter, Cato committed suicide in perfect Stoic fashion, in order not to be captured and used as a political pawn by the dictator. He remains a symbol of liberty to this day. These stories provide us with our last conclusion:

C3: Violence against Nazifascism (or any tyranny) is justified, as a last resort.

Quite frankly, the outcome of this analysis has surprised me a bit. My experience when I was growing up in Italy, as well as my reading of history, do not make me naturally inclined to C1 and C2. I’d rather treat Nazifascists the way Jake and Elwood Blues did in the movie. Or worse. But I have tried to follow the logic of my chosen philosophy of life, and I must admit that C1 and C2 are conducive to wiser and more humane conduct.

Nevertheless, Stoicism is not a pacifist philosophy, only one that is charitable to everyone and that attempts to minimize violence. Sometimes, when all else fails, we do need to take up arms and fight. I sincerely hope it won’t come to that (again) any time soon, and that if it does, it will not cost humanity what it did during those dark years of the 20th century.