“Fascism is a form of socialism, it is its most viable form.”
The above a quote by Giovanni Gentille, along with Mussolini, the formulator of fascism as a conscious doctrine in Italy, and which I’ll come back to that later.
People have all kinds of fantasies. Someone may have for example sexual fantasies of a private world of beautiful adoring slaves in a world of luxury and endless pleasure - maybe people the fantasist personally knows, maybe famous celebrities. Within this fantasy naturally there are no awkward silences between the individuals involved, no moments of boredom, petty arguments or sexually transmitted diseases, embarrassing visits to the hospital, etc. If only this fantasy could be made real, there would be nothing like that, instead just endless bliss. How easy to attain heaven in fantasy.
Another youth dreams of scoring endless and amazing goals for an all-triumphant Manchester United. He is adored, fabulously wealthy - this fantasy can merge with the first one above, and spill out into further realms. He moves into acting, he becomes the new James Bond, etc, maybe he moves into politics and comes to rule the world. So again the realisation of the fantasy would be heaven on earth - for the star of the fantasy at least.
So there can be all kinds of fantasies, and at the heart of all of them is the desire for the replacement of a felt un-ideal state with an ideal one. At the core so fantasy equates to an increase in personal power, regardless again of the form the fantasy takes. It could be the attainment of a magnificent stamp collection! - but even here the desire is for an increase in one’s power within that field.
Impediments can add sauce to the fantasy in the sense that they are overcome, and this is even very enjoyable for the ego of the fantasist - and we are dealing very much with ego here. So villains are defeated by a James Bond figure, or the football dreamer, with tension at its highest, completes his hat-trick in the final minute for Manchester United to defeat Liverpool and win the league. Or maybe a local arrogant rich beauty slowly succumbs to a slavish passion for the hero.
And, depending on the nature of the dreamer and circumstances, to some degree the fantasy can be realised. Cristian Ronaldo or Lionel Messi’s childhood dreams probably weren’t too divorced from how things turned out, and reality may have even surpassed the dreams. For most though, the fantasies are “fantastical”; ie. not realisable, and there may be a tragic disassociation here between reality and the inner world. And even for the likes of Ronaldo and Messi things don’t always go right, sometimes they lose, and beyond that in the greater scheme of things they get older, will retire, and will continue to get older again.
So someone especially rooted in the ego desire to conquer external reality, to submit it to one’s will, is engaged in a war they will ultimately lose since, even with seeming fulfilment of all earthly desires, along come ageing, illness, death. So there will always be an integral element of desperation attached to these private or public heaven-on-earth utopias dreamed up since, however great the earthly fulfilment, total defeat for the ego bound fantasist in the sense of death comes along! (So at the edges of fantasy are likely encroachments of dark imaginings, which the fantasist tries to keep at bay.) Naturally some begin to dream of conquering death - not spiritually but physically. And others of conquering and replacing God. Maybe the original fantasy.
So everyone’s fantasies involve power, in whatever sense, and it’s perfectly normal to some degree to have hopes of expanding one’s power or freedom within the material realm - getting a better job, better living space, etc. So even fixing a leak in the kitchen is an enhanced state of empowerment in relation to one’s environment. But fantasy tends to deal in extremes, don’t involve moderate levels of success, and since fantasy, however well this may be concealed, even to the fantasist, is always a matter of power, it is inevitable that some people will have fantasies involving unrestrained levels of megalomania, and which power mad desires may even come to be realisable.
And if you want to see what can be done with a collective fantasy, even one known to be wholly imaginary, just think of all the energy in the material world put into fleshing out the entirely made up figure of Santa Claus. And it is in the union of various forces that, as a social-commercial phenomenon , this Santa Claus fantasy’s power of incarnation lies - manufacturers, retailers, media. advertisers and willing consumers. So a collective fantasy or delusion can have huge power, especially if the right forces are united behind it, and others succumb to it.
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