I want to find out if Wilhelm Reich's theory about where fascism comes from is true. This isn't a scientific survey so regardless of the results I still won't really know, but I suppose it's still better than nothing. I'm also not an academic so I can't get access to research grants, and I'm not sure anyone would pay for a study like this to begin with (correct me if I'm wrong).
Wilhelm Reich, in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, basically says that fascists are created by two factors: severe economic exploitation / anxiety on the part of the petite bourgeoisie, combined with severe child abuse. Reich believes that the abuse takes place while people are too young to remember it (and/or that the memories may be suppressed), but I imagine that it could have easily continued afterward. (Others who understand Reich better than me, again: correct me if I'm wrong.)
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Do you believe that you experienced severe abuse or neglect from your parents or guardians?
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Do you come from a petite bourgeois family? (Do your parents own their home, but still have to work in order to survive?)
They were difficult to stand, never a day passed where they weren't wallowing in self-pity due to their imagined misery. When they weren't yelling at each other, they were venting about whoever else pissed them off. Occasionally one of them would pull me aside and go on a diatribe about how marrying the other one was a mistake, and make other snarky remarks. My mother got seriously pissed when she thought the presents she got for her birthday weren't enough. Apparently thousand dollar shoes was just not good enough. I think I also heard her on the phone once with her parents screaming and swearing her ass off like there's no tomorrow. They were basically like the grinch, but for all days of the year.
It sounds like they’re haute bourgeois, not petite bourgeois, to me. They also don’t seem to really suffer from economic anxiety so much as neglect. What do you think? That hole your mom is trying to fill with expensive shoes can only be filled by making peace with her parents—maybe? Does this sound right or out of bounds?
Could be, she did buy lots of stuff all the time. I don't know what happened with her parents, it was always kept between them. From what I gather it was some thing that happened some time in the 80s (maybe?) Or it might have been just a bad relationship in general. You could be right but I can't be certain, the way things are going it seems like she'll take whatever the problem is to her grave.