American WWI propaganda anticipated the language of fascist collective will

Evidence

A “war-will”—a concept borrowed from nationalist writers, denoting a surrender of the individual to the greater will of the nation—was the new necessity. Creel wrote that this “war-will, the will-to-win, of a democracy depends on the degree to which each one of all the people of that democracy can concentrate and consecrate body and soul and spirit in the supreme effort of service and sacrifice.” If the language sounds familiar, it should. Benito Mussolini would later describe his own project as the creation of “an objective Will transcending the individual and raising him to conscious membership of a spiritual society.” Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) would likewise glorify a collective will in spiritual terms. But for the time being, Creel was alone in hailing the fascist virtue of “weld[ing] the people of the United States into one white-hot mass instinct with fraternity, devotion, courage, and deathless determination.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 154

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in attention industries and how mass persuasion techniques originated ahead of totalitarian uses that later became famous. — connects to: Nazi propaganda perfected American advertising and journalism techniques — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 416; America adopted British propaganda techniques and scaled them far larger — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 149; British WWI propaganda directly schooled Hitler on mass persuasion techniques — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 173 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• British WWI propaganda directly schooled Hitler on mass persuasion techniques #expands (0.72) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 173