Roger Griffin adopted a Weberian ideal-type methodology to define the nature of Fascism. On this basis he criticized the typological definition of Fascism put forward by Payne. Adopting Georges Sorel's theory of political myth, Griffin argued that Fascism can be defined in terms not of a common ideological component, but of a common mythic core. According to Griffin, "Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism."
This definition combines two central components; first the palingenetic myth of rebirth and regeneration defined as "the vision of a revolutionary new order which supplies the effective power of an ideology". Second Fascism as "Ultranationalism" referring to a form of nationalism that explicitly rejects liberal institutions and the humanist legacy of enlightenment. Fascism thus emerges when populist ultra-nationalism combines with the myth of a radical crusade against decadence and for renewal in every sphere of national life . The result is an ideology which operates a mythic core celebrating the unity and sovereignty of the whole people in a specifically anti-liberal and anti-Marxist sense.
The mythic core that forms the basis of Griffin's generic fascism is the vision of the percieved crisis of the nation as indicating the birth-pangs of a new order. The idea that 'nation' is an entity which can decay and be regenerated, implies something diametrically opposed to what libearals understand by it. According to Griffin, Fascists felt he had been fatefully born at a watershed between national decline and national regeneration, a feeling that alchemically converted all pessimism and cultural despair into a manic sense of purpose and optimism. His task it was to prepare the ground for the new breed of men, the homo fascists, who would instinctively form part of the revitalized national community without having first to purge himself of the selfish reflexes inculcated by a civilization sapped by egotism and materialism.
This definition combines two central components; first the palingenetic myth of rebirth and regeneration defined as "the vision of a revolutionary new order which supplies the effective power of an ideology". Second Fascism as "Ultranationalism" referring to a form of nationalism that explicitly rejects liberal institutions and the humanist legacy of enlightenment. Fascism thus emerges when populist ultra-nationalism combines with the myth of a radical crusade against decadence and for renewal in every sphere of national life . The result is an ideology which operates a mythic core celebrating the unity and sovereignty of the whole people in a specifically anti-liberal and anti-Marxist sense.
The mythic core that forms the basis of Griffin's generic fascism is the vision of the percieved crisis of the nation as indicating the birth-pangs of a new order. The idea that 'nation' is an entity which can decay and be regenerated, implies something diametrically opposed to what libearals understand by it. According to Griffin, Fascists felt he had been fatefully born at a watershed between national decline and national regeneration, a feeling that alchemically converted all pessimism and cultural despair into a manic sense of purpose and optimism. His task it was to prepare the ground for the new breed of men, the homo fascists, who would instinctively form part of the revitalized national community without having first to purge himself of the selfish reflexes inculcated by a civilization sapped by egotism and materialism.
Anti-liberal - Griffin propounded that Fascism's call for the regeneration of the national community through a heroic struggle against its alleged enemies and the forces undermining it. It involves the radical rejection of liberalism in all its aspects ; pluralism, tolerance, individualism, pacifism, parliamentary democracy, the separation of powers, egalitarianism etc.
Anti-conservative - For Griffin, The centrality to fascism is a myth of the nation's regeneration within a new order implies a rejection of illiberal conservative politics, as well as of liberal and authoritarian conservative solution to the current crisis. In other words, in the context of fascism 'rebirth' means 'new birth' , 'a new order', one which might draw inspiration from the past but doesn't seek to turn the clock back. However two factors have obscurred fascism's revolutionary, forward looking thrust. First, in order to achieve power in the inter-war period fascism was forced to ally itself with conservative force on the basis of common enemies and common priorities. Second fascist ideologues frequently attach great importance to allegedly glorious epochs in the nation's past and the heroes which embody them. They do so not out of nostalgia, but to remind the people of the nation's 'true' nature and its destiny to rise once more to historical greatness.
Charismatic form of Politics - Since to use Weberian terminology, fascism rejects both the traditional politics of the ancien regime and the legal rational politics of liberalism and socialism, it follows charismatic form of politics. This doesn't necessarily involve the epitome of such politics, the leader cult. All political ideologies are prone to assume a charismatic aspect when they operate as revolutionary forces - liberalism did, for eg ; in French Revolution. It is significant, though, that fascism remained a charismatic form of politics in the two cases where it managed to install itself in power.
Fascist Socialism - Griffin argued that, if it is core mobilizing myth of the imminent rebirth of the nation that forms the definitional core of fascism, it follows that the various fascist negations(anti-communism, anti-liberalism etc) are corollaries of this positive belief not definitional components. The same myth explains the recurrent claim by fascist ideologues that their vision of the new order is far from anti-socialist. Hitler had a shadow of left way thinking.
Link to Totalitarianism - In the words of Griffin, Also implicit in fascism's mythic core is the drive towards totalitarianism. For from being driven by Nihilism or Barbarism, the convinced fascist is a Utopian, conceiving the homogeneous, perfectly co-ordinated national community as a total solution to the problems of modern society. Fortunately for humanity only two fascist movements have been in a position to attempt to implement their total solutions to society's alleged woes, namely Fascism and Nazism.
Heterogeneity of fascism's social support - Griffin is of the view that, Fascism has no specific class basis in its support. If middle class were over represented in the membership of Fascism and Nazism. This is because specific socio-political conditions made a significant percentage of them more susceptible to a palingenetic form of Ultranationalism than to a palingenetic form of Marxism or liberalism.
Fascist racism - For Griffin, By its nature, fascism is racist, since all ultra nationalism are racist in their celebration of the alleged virtues and greatness of an organically concieved nation or culture. Fascism is also intrinsically anti-cosmopolitan, axiomatically rejecting as decadent liberal vision of the multicultural, multi-religious, multi-racial society. This type of fascism thus tends to produce an apartheid mentality calling for ethnically pure nation states, for foreigners to go back, or be returned, to 'where they belong' , and a vitriolic hatred of 'mixed marriages' and 'cultural bastardization'.
Fascist Internationalism - Fascism, anti-internationalist in the sense of regarding national distinctiveness and identity as primordial values, is quite capable of generating its own form of universalism or internationalism by fostering a bond with fascists in other countries engaged in an equivalent struggle for their own nation's palingenesis, often againts common enemies(e.g. liberals, communists). In Europe, this may well lead to a sense of fighting for a common European homeland on the basis of Europe's alleged cultural, historical, or even genetic unity in contrast to non-Christian, non-Indo European(e.g. Muslims, Asian Soviet, Chinese Communists) or degenerated ones. Within such a Europe, national or ethnic identities would, according to the fascist blueprint, be strengthened, not diluted.
Fascist eclecticism - For Griffin, an important feature of this charismatic and identificatory form of nationalism is its eclecticism: it can be rationalised through a wide variety of regenerationist myth drawing on historical or pseudoscientific facts. Inevitably each fascism will be made in the image or imagining of a particular national culture, but even within the same movement or party its most influential ideologues will inevitably represent a wide range of ideas and theories sometimes quite incompatible with each other except at the level of a shared mythic core of palingenetic Ultra-nationalism. Fascism is thus inherently syncretic, bringing heterogeneous current of ideas into a loose alliance united only by the common struggle for a new order. As a result there is in fascist thought a recurrent element of synthesis.
Griffin argued that it is worth adding that , in its self-creation through synthesis, fascist ideology can draw just an early on right-wing forms of thought as on forms of left wing thought. It is also implicit in what has been said that fascism is not necessarily confined to inter-war Europe, but can flourish wherever the stability of Western style liberal democracy is threatened by a particular conjuncture of destabilising forces.
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