Politics

Nietzsche's argument that God is dead coinciding with his attack on the herd mentality of Christianity on democracy and on modern collectivism his concept of the Übermensch and his advocacy of the will to power as a primordial instinct were major influences upon many of the fin-de-siècle generation

Gaetano Mosca developed the theory that in all societies an organized minority would dominate and rule over an disorganized majority stating there are only two classes in society the governing and the governed

Irene Collins and Howard C Payne see Napoleon III as a forerunner of fascism

David Thomson says the Italian Risorgimento of 1871 led to the nemesis of fascism

Julian Dierkes sees fascism as a particularly violent form of imperialism

Marcus Garvey described the Universal Negro Improvement Association as the first fascists

C L R James wrote all the things that Hitler was to do so well later Marcus Garvey was doing in 1920 and 1921

The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism irrationalism subjectivism and vitalism

Their intellectual school considered the individual as only one part of the larger collectivity which should not be viewed as a numerical sum of atomized individuals

Social Darwinism made no distinction between physical and social life and viewed the human condition as an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest

Social Darwinism challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice focusing on heredity race and environment

Its emphasis on biogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered the legitimacy and appeal of nationalism

He claims the organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority

Charles Maurras influenced fascism

Maurras distrusted democratic mystification of popular will

Maurras claimed powerful monarch was personified sovereign who could unite nation's people

George Mosse analyzed fascism as an inheritor of the mass ideology and civil religion of the French Revolution as well as a result of the brutalization of societies in 1914–1918

William L Shirer sees a continuity from the views of Fichte and Hegel through Bismarck to Hitler Robert Gerwarth speaks of a direct line from Bismarck to Hitler

The theme was based on a revolt against materialism rationalism positivism bourgeois society and democracy

The fin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by various intellectual developments including Darwinian biology Gesamtkunstwerk Arthur de Gobineau's racialism Gustave Le Bon's psychology and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Henri Bergson