Fascism’s implementation of master morality refutes and confirms it

Evidence

By raising the cult of strength to a world-historical doctrine, German Fascism also took it to an absurd extreme. As a protest against civilization, the masters’ morality conversely represents the oppressed. Hatred of atrophied instincts actually denounces the true nature of the task-masters—which comes to light only in their victims. But as a Great Power, or state religion, the masters’ morality wholly subscribes to the civilizing powers that be, the compact majority, resentment, and everything that it formerly opposed. The realization of Nietzsche’s assertions both refutes them and at the same time reveals their truth, which—despite all his affirmation of life—was inimical to the spirit of reality. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 85

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The dialectical move — realized master morality, which claimed to represent the strong against the weak, ends up serving the ‘compact majority’ and what it opposed — is the chapter’s densest reversal.
• SEED: Article angle: every revolutionary ideology that wins power betrays its founding negation and becomes what it stood against — here argued for Nietzsche’s master morality under Fascism, generalizable to other movements.
• XREF: connects to: The Nazi accomplishment was neutralizing universal moral inhibition against killing — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 520

Broader Connections

• The Nazi accomplishment was neutralizing universal moral inhibition against killing #expands (0.72) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 520