My response to Gabor Maté's "We each have a Nazi in us" essay: A better model to explain fascism than psychological trauma.

Is preventing fascists as simple as not hitting your children, loving everyone and not being scared of the unknown? Unlikely.

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On September 6 2024, The Guardian published an essay authored by Gabor Maté (father to Aaron Maté, whom you might know if you follow me), titled We each have a Nazi in us. We need to understand the psychological roots of authoritarianism.

The headline was sensationalized, most likely by the publisher (in this case the Guardian), and the article was taken seemingly at face value by the Internet who rejected the assertion that they had the root of a fascist in them — as they should.

In that sense, I don’t hold it to Maté’s writing. It’s likely that he had no choice in the title and maybe even in some of what the article is saying. Traditional newspapers treat one’s writing like a commodity that they own, which is legally what it is. Thus, even though there is only one name on the essay, it’s probable that as many as three or four people actually contributed to it in some way.

It’s not a long article so I urge you to read it too.

I said the headline was sensationalized, but not by as much as one might think. On Twitter, there have been essentially two camps when the promo dropped: one side read the headline and purportedly jumped to conclusions, and the other purportedly read through the article and decries the other side.

With all respect to Mr. Maté, I find the first side to be correct, even if inadvertently correct. There was some sensationalization in the headline, but not by that much.

Though the essay concludes with a more measured theory, saying (emphasis mine):

Fascism, in that sense, is an all too human phenomenon, an outcome of many influences salient among which, on the personal scale, is the unspeakable suffering of the child.

The essay does spend the bulk of it trying to convince the reader to at the very least entertain the psychological factors as a factor of fascism. This puts it, in my opinion, somewhat at odds with this conclusion. Read as is, the conclusion is that child abuse is one factor of fascistic tendencies, equal among others. If there are four factors, all four can equally lead to fascism (25%/25%/25%/25%). But the essay itself, focusing solely on psychological and child developmental factors, seems to consider it as the primary factor, above any other (say 50%/18.75%/18.75%/18.75%).

In that regard, I find the headline sensationalized… but not by that much.

However, I know all too well the disappointment of an essayist when people stop at the headline and don’t read the sources provided to form their own opinion. For this reason (and because I’m kind of a contrarian too), I wanted to give my perspective on Gabor Maté’s thesis.

We often see critique as “lesser” than ourselves. We see it as something that does not concern us (unless it’s critique made directly at us), but there is a lot we can learn from critique. By reading Maté’s essay, for example, I have reinforced my arguments that fascism is not adequately explained by psychological factor. By reading this response, I hope that you the reader will be able to reinforce your own view of fascism, even if you disagree with both Mr. Maté and me.

Is fascism psychological?

The headline used a quote that was not said by the author; “We each have a Nazi within”. What Auschwitz survivor Edith Eger meant by this is that Nazism was perpetrated by humans. I think the reason people reacted poorly to the Guardian’s tweet of this headline was the messenger it came from: the Guardian is not exactly the epitome of anti-fascist reporting. The resentment was that they should look within themselves before passive-aggressively accusing others of being fascists (understandably, people are also tense from the past year of genocide going on in Palestine).

I find the central theory of the essay… incomplete. Many have tried to explain fascism by the psychological factors, but always come up short. In the 60s, the “authoritarian personality” was studied (and found to be mostly bunk).

The shortcomings of the psychological theories are that they’re essentially saying the millions of Germans who gleefully participated in propping up the Nazi regime were all abused in childhood, or all had the same personality.

And what about the many people who were abused in childhood but did not turn out fascist?

Accordingly, we have to look deeper for the causes of fascism.

How come fascism only appeared in the 20th century? Certainly we could make the case that fascism existed in the past, such as Julius Caesar’s genocide in the British Isle, but this would be projecting our modern-day sensibilities on structures that did not operate on them. By which I mean not that we cannot recognize past genocides, but that if fascism can apply easily to the (ancient) past, then how can we properly understand it in the modern-day, when we contend with fascists still?

For example, the article states that:

Neuroimaging studies have shown that the amygdala, the tiny almond-shaped brain structure that mediates fear, is larger in people with more rightwing views.

But this is a chicken and egg situation. Does being a fascist lead to a bigger amygdala, or does a bigger amygdala lead to being a fascist? The implications of each are widely different: in the first case, being a fascist creates fear in an individual. In the second, people who are fearful are more prone to becoming fascists.

I am not sure towards which proposal Gabor Maté leans. He ends the above paragraph with:

This is a telling finding, because we know that the development of the circuitry of the brain is decisively influenced by the child’s emotional environment in the early years.

Which, from my several readings, can be interpreted both ways.

A better model of fascism

For a more thorough understanding of fascism, I turn to those who fought against it.

Fascism has long been described by Marxists as “capitalism in decay, a counter-revolutionary reactionary movement led by finance capital, and a form of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which emerged during periods of economic crisis in imperialist countries.” The Third International described fascism as the "open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital."[1]

Capitalism in decay being that when capital is threatened — in the modern-day, by socialism — attack dogs will emerge to restore the “balance”, by any means necessary to do so.

When capitalism, the hegemonic mode of production in the world, is in crisis and at risk of dying, it lashes out in a last-ditch effort to save itself — or rather, save its bourgeoisie and capital.

This model might not be the most objectively true, by which I mean it may be the best model we have available so far, but might not yet have reached the objective truth of fascism. I still find it much more convincing and powerful than reducing fascism to a set of psychological factors developed in childhood.

I find the Marxist model more powerful because we can apply it to all cases of fascism that have not only historically emerged, but emerged even after the model was conceived.

Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal — countries at one point ruled by a fascist party — were severely hit by the Great Depression in the 30s. More so than other capitalist countries, as imperialist states such as France, the UK or the US had colonial reserves to draw upon. All developed some homegrown fascism, but only a few ever went through with it.

Italy, Germany and Spain had lost their meager colonial holdings to the Allies after World War 1, a war waged to redistribute colonial possessions that heavily favored France and the UK.

Why did they turn to fascism, but powerful countries like the US did not, while all the same abject poverty was forced onto the people of the United States?

Because fascism only happens at the say-so of the bourgeoisie when it feels threatened. It is not an organic movement.

Both of these countries had a large communist movement present and agitating, with Germany even having an attempt at a revolution (the Spartacus League). It shouldn’t come as a surprise that in the case of European fascism at least, the first two things any fascist in power did was A- ban all socialist movements and exterminate all socialists, and B- reinforce the power of the bourgeoisie through abolishing unions, welfare programs, labor rights, etc.

Pinochet’s regime in Chile, which was promoted by neoliberals such as Reagan and Thatcher, was mainly a response to Salvador Allende’s election. He was a socialist.

But we shouldn’t confuse cause and effect. The economic situation in these countries was already bad, which is what led people to socialism and strengthened communist parties. In capitalism, there is a class for whom capitalism works great: the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production. They are the ones employing us for a wage, and through garnishing some of that wage for themselves (which you never see but still produce), are able to create profit. Nobody would employ anyone in capitalism if they had to pay you exactly for the money you make them.

Thus, when the bourgeoisie feels existentially threatened, it leverages attack dogs in the form of fascists — in the case of capitalism specifically — to attack the threat to its privilege.

Even today, this is what the fascist coup in Ukraine (propped up with US help) did. Ukraine has lost more than a fifth of its population through emigration since the overthrow of the USSR in 1991. It was known as the most corrupt country in Europe. When Porochenko got into power in 2014, the first thing he did was rein in the stormtroopers who had been occupied terrorizing socialists and civilians in the Donbass. Then he further destroyed social nets through austerity measures (this time with the help of the IMF.) Porochenko was a huge capitalist and millionaire.

I also wrote previously about the fascism of “Israel” and why it developed. In their case, the crisis of their system is colonialism (in a capitalist framework).

There are more examples but the bottom line is that fascism is capitalism in crisis. If we can’t find this crisis and existential threat, then we might not be able to describe a regime as fascist. I find this model much more complete and thorough than simply saying “if you were abused, you might turn out to be a fascist” because with that stronger model, we can also correctly predict the rise of fascism before it’s too late.

I remember meeting a psychiatrist at an event not long ago, and I asked them: “I always heard that once you’ve been depressive, it never truly goes away. Is that true?”

She didn’t share my opinion. She said, “I think it’s possible to overcome it.”

I didn’t get to tell her, but I found that perspective refreshing in its positivity. We should believe that humans are better than their base psychological drives, that what happened to us in our past doesn’t define us. It is defeatist, in my opinion, to say that because one went through abuse in childhood, they have a higher propensity to become a certain way. It is defeatist to even hint that this might be the case, which is why I find Mr. Maté’s model and essay incomplete.

It also leads to some dangerous thinking if we went to the logical conclusion of it.

Actually, Gabor hints to a positive conclusion for fascists:

“There was significantly more support for the capital punishment, opposition to abortion and the use of military force, particularly among males who had experienced high levels of physical punishment, especially if they had never had psychotherapy.” I was intrigued by that last finding.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t expand on it, perhaps because getting fascists help was not the subject of the essay. What he’s saying here basically, as I understand it, is: you can overcome your fascist tendencies, if you have them, by getting therapy. It’s not a fatality, and it can be better.

However, this is my personal addition that I read through the lines. It wasn’t transparently made in the original essay.

The quote above comes from Michael Milburn, quoted in the original article, who conducted research that:

… confirms that the harsher the parenting atmosphere people were exposed to as young children, the more prone they are to support authoritarian or aggressive policies, such as foreign wars, punitive laws and the death penalty.

I find these results interesting in the sense that they certainly would support the author’s theory. But unfortunately, no link to a study or book is made available — and I’ve been burned too many times by shoddy research, or even outright fabricated results! If the results are true and factually reported, it would certainly give credence to the central theory.

The fascister and the fascistee

The article opens with fascist leaders, talking about Hitler and Trump’s similarities in their personalities. However, the author correctly sees that to focus solely on high-profile figures would be doing only one half of the equation. Leaders have followers, so the essay sets aside some time to those followers and how they come to follow the leader.

Already though, some cracks appear. Everything seems reducible to psychology. This is perhaps why some people had such a strong response to this essay when it was published on Twitter; it makes a bold opening claim and then slowly softens it throughout the essay. Having had to read it several times to write this response, I think the author is actually very tempered — perhaps too much even. At the time of writing these lines, the Guardian essay reads to me as very milquetoast, as wanting to get the reader to follow a very specific claim, but not actually insisting too much upon that claim. This is a matter of preference to some level; I appreciate articles that don’t shy away from making the point they want to make, come what may.

I find that at most, Maté’s essay is essentially saying, whether that was the intent or not: Don’t hit your children. Love everyone. Don’t be scared of the unknown.

In any case, the theory imputes to the leader and follower the same origin: both lived through abusive events in childhood which formed their personality in later years.

But this, much like I already pointed out in the opening of my essay, is an incomplete observation. It’s not a theory yet. The observation doesn’t explain why one is a leader and the other is a follower. It can’t explain it: clearly, there is something other than simply psychological components. The author knows this, of course — it’s a very simple critique — and talks about “political-economic-ideological climates” in the opening paragraph to allude to those more complex factors, but doesn’t go into them. At least, not as much as an essay like this should have.

What we see historically and even contemporarily is that fascist leaders are handpicked by the bourgeoisie — the same bourgeoisie that deploys its attack dogs to safeguard their capital. Hitler was funded by capitalists. Remember what we said earlier: fascism happens at the say-so of the bourgeoisie. When Hitler was handed power by Hindenburg, it was at the pressure of capitalists. When he proclaimed himself dictator, he quickly set to destroy all labor protections — despite all his racial theories about the superiority of Germans, he certainly saw German workers as nothing more than pawns that should obey their masters, the capitalists. The racial theories only aimed to make it so that the workers would willingly, eagerly work longer hours for a lesser wage and thus collaborate with capitalists.

He further created the MEFO bills, which couldn’t have come from his tiny mind alone, as a form of currency that allowed weapon industrialists to trade unconditionally with the state, thus emptying all public funds into their own bank accounts.

Newspapers often give their writers (even opinion writers) a set amount of characters they can work with, and they have to stay within that limit. To that extent, I think it’s unfair to judge Gabor Maté, like some did, based on this one piece. We can opine on the essay without transferring that to the author as a person. We can also, through critical reading, understand that he’s not saying trauma is the only factor of fascism but that we should consider it one but, where the essay fails, is that it very strongly alludes to the first conclusion. This is an objective failure of the intent, but doesn’t make the essay uninteresting by default or dismissive. It remains helpful to read things we disagree with critically so that we can reinforce our own arguments as to why we are not convinced.

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