"Who will go Fascist?" / "Quién Será el Fascista?"

English

This is something Dorothy Thompson wrote in 1941 that was just re-published in Harper’s. The only parts that are out of date are certain historical references and the word “Nazi” that now has other names. Below I have translated it to Spanish

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become “Honorary Aryans and Nazis”; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.

It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation–the generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war. This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans. It is the disease of the so-called “lost generation.”

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work–a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.

At any rate, let us look round the room.

The gentleman standing beside the fireplace with an almost untouched glass of whiskey beside him on the mantelpiece is Mr. A, a descendant of one of the great American families. There has never been an American Blue Book without several persons of his surname in it. He is poor and earns his living as an editor. He has had a classical education, has a sound and cultivated taste in literature, painting, and music; has not a touch of snobbery in him; is full of humor, courtesy, and wit. He was a lieutenant in the World War, is a Republican in politics, but voted twice for Roosevelt, last time for Willkie. He is modest, not particularly brilliant, a staunch friend, and a man who greatly enjoys the company of pretty and witty women. His wife, whom he adored, is dead, and he will never remarry.

He has never attracted any attention because of outstanding bravery. But I will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi. He would greatly dislike fighting them, but they could never convert him…. Why not?


Beside him stands Mr. B, a man of his own class, graduate of the same preparatory school and university, rich, a sportsman, owner of a famous racing stable, vice-president of a bank, married to a well-known society belle. He is a good fellow and extremely popular. But if America were going Nazi he would certainly join up, and early. Why?… Why the one and not the other?

Mr. A has a life that is established according to a certain form of personal behavior. Although he has no money, his unostentatious distinction and education have always assured him a position. He has never been engaged in sharp competition. He is a free man. I doubt whether ever in his life he has done anything he did not want to do or anything that was against his code. Nazism wouldn’t fit in with his standards and he has never become accustomed to making concessions.

Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class–no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value–success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.

The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm, and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery. His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they have seldom invited him–or his wife–to dinner.

He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him–he despises, for instance, Mr. B–because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.

He has utterly erased pitty from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language–though they have never met him.

There he sits: he talks awkwardly rather than glibly; he is courteous. He commands a distant and cold respect. But he is a very dangerous man. Were he primitive and brutal he would be a criminal–a murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would need men just like him–intellectual and ruthless. But Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism. He would laugh to see heads roll.

I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in sensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others.

Mrs. E would go Nazi as sure as you are born. That statement surprises you? Mrs. E seems so sweet, so clinging, so cowed. She is. She is a masochist. She is married to a man who never ceases to humiliate her, to lord it over her, to treat her with less consideration than he does his dogs. He is a prominent scientist, and Mrs. E, who married him very young, has persuaded herself that he is a genius, and that there is something of superior womanliness in her utter lack of pride, in her doglike devotion. She speaks disapprovingly of other “masculine” or insufficiently devoted wives. Her husband, however, is bored to death with her. He neglects her completely and she is looking for someone else before whom to pour her ecstatic self-abasement. She will titillate with pleased excitement to the first popular hero who proclaims the basic subordination of women.

On the other hand, Mrs. F would never go Nazi. She is the most popular woman in the room, handsome, gay, witty, and full of the warmest emotion. She was a popular actress ten years ago; married very happily; promptly had four children in a row; has a charming house, is not rich but has no money cares, has never cut herself off from her own happy-go-lucky profession, and is full of sound health and sound common sense. All men try to make love to her; she laughs at them all, and her husband is amused. She has stood on her own feet since she was a child, she has enormously helped her husband’s career (he is a lawyer), she would ornament any drawing-room in any capital, and she is as American as ice cream and cake.

II

How about the butler who is passing the drinks? I look at James with amused eyes. James is safe. James has been butler to the ‘ighest aristocracy, considers all Nazis parvenus and communists, and has a very good sense for “people of quality.” He serves the quiet editor with that friendly air of equality which good servants always show toward those they consider good enough to serve, and he serves the horsy gent stiffly and coldly.

Bill, the grandson of the chauffeur, is helping serve to-night. He is a product of a Bronx public school and high school, and works at night like this to help himself through City College, where he is studying engineering. He is a “proletarian,” though you’d never guess it if you saw him without that white coat. He plays a crack game of tennis–has been a tennis tutor in summer resorts–swims superbly, gets straight A’s in his classes, and thinks America is okay and don’t let anybody say it isn’t. He had a brief period of Youth Congress communism, but it was like the measles. He was not taken in the draft because his eyes are not good enough, but he wants to design airplanes, “like Sikorsky.” He thinks Lindbergh is “just another pilot with a build-up and a rich wife” and that he is “always talking down America, like how we couldn’t lick Hitler if we wanted to.” At this point Bill snorts.

Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy. He has been concerned with general ideas since the age of ten and has one of those minds that can scintillatingly rationalize everything. I have known him for ten years and in that time have heard him enthusiastically explain Marx, social credit, technocracy, Keynesian economics, Chestertonian distributism, and everything else one can imagine. Mr. G will never be a Nazi, because he will never be anything. His brain operates quite apart from the rest of his apparatus. He will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along. But Mr. G is always a “deviationist.” When he played with communism he was a Trotskyist; when he talked of Keynes it was to suggest improvement; Chesterton’s economic ideas were all right but he was too bound to Catholic philosophy. So we may be sure that Mr. G would be a Nazi with purse-lipped qualifications. He would certainly be purged.

H is an historian and biographer. He is American of Dutch ancestry born and reared in the Middle West. He has been in love with America all his life. He can recite whole chapters of Thoreau and volumes of American poetry, from Emerson to Steve Benet. He knows Jefferson’s letters, Hamilton’s papers, Lincoln’s speeches. He is a collector of early American furniture, lives in New England, runs a farm for a hobby and doesn’t lose much money on it, and loathes parties like this one. He has a ribald and manly sense of humor, is unconventional and lost a college professorship because of a love affair. Afterward he married the lady and has lived happily ever afterward as the wages of sin.

H has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant. This is his country, and he knows it from Acadia to Zenith. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since. He is certainly an intellectual, but an intellectual smelling slightly of cow barns and damp tweeds. He is the most good-natured and genial man alive, but if anyone ever tries to make this country over into an imitation of Hitler’s, Mussolini’s, or Petain’s systems H will grab a gun and fight. Though H’s liberalism will not permit him to say it, it is his secret conviction that nobody whose ancestors have not been in this country since before the Civil War really understands America or would really fight for it against Nazism or any other foreign ism in a showdown.

But H is wrong. There is one other person in the room who would fight alongside H and he is not even an American citizen. He is a young German emigre, whom I brought along to the party. The people in the room look at him rather askance because he is so Germanic, so very blond-haired, so very blue-eyed, so tanned that somehow you expect him to be wearing shorts. He looks like the model of a Nazi. His English is flawed–he learned it only five years ago. He comes from an old East Prussian family; he was a member of the post-war Youth Movement and afterward of the Republican “Reichsbanner.” All his German friends went Nazi–without exception. He hiked to Switzerland penniless, there pursued his studies in New Testament Greek, sat under the great Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, came to America through the assistance of an American friend whom he had met in a university, got a job teaching the classics in a fashionable private school; quit, and is working now in an airplane factory–working on the night shift to make planes to send to Britain to defeat Germany. He has devoured volumes of American history, knows Whitman by heart, wonders why so few Americans have ever really read the Federalist papers, believes in the United States of Europe, the Union of the English-speaking world, and the coming democratic revolution all over the earth. He believes that America is the country of Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets itself innerly free.

The people in the room think he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them. He has discovered America and his spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. He is furious with America because it does not realize its strength and beauty and power. He talks about the workmen in the factory where he is employed…. He took the job “in order to understand the real America.” He thinks the men are wonderful. “Why don’t you American in- tellectuals ever get to them; talk to them?”
I grin bitterly to myself, thinking that if we ever got into war with the Nazis he would probably be interned, while Mr. B and Mr. G and Mrs. E would be spreading defeatism at all such parties as this one. “Of course I don’t like Hitler but…”
Mr. J over there is a Jew. Mr. J is a very important man. He is immensely rich–he has made a fortune through a dozen directorates in various companies, through a fabulous marriage, through a speculative flair, and through a native gift for money and a native love of power. He is intelligent and arrogant. He seldom associates with Jews. He deplores any mention of the “Jewish question.” He believes that Hitler “should not be judged from the standpoint of anti-Semitism.” He thinks that “the Jews should be reserved on all political questions.” He considers Roosevelt “an enemy of business.” He thinks “It was a serious blow to the Jews that Frankfurter should have been appointed to the Supreme Court.”

The saturnine Mr. C–the real Nazi in the room–engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation. Mr. J agrees with Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask his name–they have never met before. “A very intelligent man.”

Mr. K contemplates the scene with a sad humor in his expressive eyes. Mr. K is also a Jew. Mr. K is a Jew from the South. He speaks with a Southern drawl. He tells inimitable stories. Ten years ago he owned a very successful business that he had built up from scratch. He sold it for a handsome price, settled his indigent relatives in business, and now enjoys an income for himself of about fifty dollars a week. At forty he began to write articles about odd and out-of-the-way places in American life. A bachelor, and a sad man who makes everybody laugh, he travels continually, knows America from a thousand different facets, and loves it in a quiet, deep, unostentatious way. He is a great friend of H, the biographer. Like H, his ancestors have been in this country since long before the Civil War. He is attracted to the young German. By and by they are together in the drawing-room. The impeccable gentleman of New England, the country-man–intellectual of the Middle West, the happy woman whom the gods love, the young German, the quiet, poised Jew from the South. And over on the other side are the others.

Mr. L has just come in. Mr. L is a lion these days. My hostess was all of a dither when she told me on the telephone, “…and L is coming. You know it’s dreadfully hard to get him.” L is a very powerful labor leader. “My dear, he is a man of the people, but really fascinating.” L is a man of the people and just exactly as fascinating as my horsy, bank vice-president, on-the-make acquaintance over there, and for the same reasons and in the same way. L makes speeches about the “third of the nation,” and L has made a darned good thing for himself out of championing the oppressed. He has the best car of anyone in this room; salary means nothing to him because he lives on an expense account. He agrees with the very largest and most powerful industrialists in the country that it is the business of the strong to boss the weak, and he has made collective bargaining into a legal compulsion to appoint him or his henchmen as “labor’s” agents, with the power to tax pay envelopes and do what they please with the money. L is the strongest natural-born Nazi in this room. Mr. B regards him with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B will use him. L is already parroting B’s speeches. He has the brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power. In private conversation he denounces the Jews as “parasites.” No one has ever asked him what are the creative functions of a highly paid agent, who takes a percentage off the labor of millions of men, and distributes it where and as it may add to his own political power.

III

It’s fun–a macabre sort of fun–this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things–asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes–you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success–they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.

Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t-whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to.

References
1. to Harper’s article: http://www.harpers.org/archive/1941/08/0020122
2. to photo of Paolo di Canió’s Fascist salute : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4158591.stm
3. to foto of people giving a fascist salute during a Movement Against Illegal Immigration march to celebrate People's Unity Day in Russia : http://www.redtape.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=11915




Español

Este es una traducción (mía) de un artículo de Dorothy Thompson que ella escribió en 1941 que acaba de ser re-publicado por Harper’s.. Lo único que no está vigente son ciertas referencias históricas. Y, claro, el Fascismo ahora tiene otros nombres.

Hay un juego de salón interesante pero macabro que se puede jugar en una reunión grande de amigos que trata de una especulación sobre quién, cuando al final se muestran las barajas, se declararía fascista. A estas alturas, pienso que sé la respuesta. He experimentado cosas similares en Austria y en Francia y he llegado a darme cuenta de todos los prototipos de personajes: los fascistas natos, los fascistas a que la misma democracia ha creado y los probables asociados con el movimiento. Y también reconozco a los que nunca, bajo ninguna circunstancia concebible, se unirían a este doctrina.

Es absurdo pensar que alguna característica racial los identifica. Se podría suponer que los alemanes son más susceptibles al fascismo que los demás, pero lo dudo. Los judíos no pueden pertenecer al partido tal como existe, pero es una decisión arbitraria. Conozco a judíos que son nazis natos y muchos otros que saludarían a Hitler ahora mismo si pudiesen. Hay judíos que han negado a sus propios antepasados para hacerse "arios y nazis honorarios"; hay los judíos “puros” que se han incorporado de manera entusiasta al servicio secreto de Hitler. El fascismo no tiene nada que ver ni con la raza ni con la nacionalidad. Más bien atrae a cierto tipo de mente.

Ciertamente también es una enfermedad de la generación que nació después de la Gran Guerra [de 1914]. Esto se aplica por igual a los ingleses, los franceses, los estadounidenses y los alemanes. Es la enfermedad de la "generación perdida".

Pienso a veces que hay factores biológicos que determinan este hecho, una tipo particular de educación, de alimentación y de entrenamiento físico que ha producido una nueva clase caracterizada por algún desequilibrio natural. Lo han alimentado con vitaminas y le han embutido con energías que su intelecto no puede disciplinar. Lo han educado para deshacerse de sus inhibiciones. Su cuerpo es vigoroso, su mente es infantil y su alma ha sido totalmente descuidada.

De todos modos, miremos alrededor del salón.

El caballero que está parado al lado de la chimenea con una copa de güisqui que no está tomando es Sr. A, descendiente de una de las grandes familias americanas. Todos los libros de listas de las personas importantes contienen varias referencias a su apellido. Es pobre de dinero y gana su vida como editor. Ha disfrutado una educación clásica, tiene buen gusto literaria y con respecto a los demás artes; no es presuntuoso; tiene un buen sentido de humor, es cortés y tiene ingenio. Tenía el rango de teniente en la Primera Guerra Mundial; es un republicano en política, pero votó dos veces por Roosevelt y una vez para Willkie. Es modesto aunque no brillante, un amigo firme, y un hombre que goza grandemente de la compañía de mujeres bonitas y vivaces. Su esposa, a que él adoraba, murió y él no volverá a casarse.

Este señor nunca atrae atención a sí mismo debido a algún valor excepcional. Pero pondré mi mano en el fuego para defender que no hay nada en la tierra que le haría un fascista. No quisiera luchar contra ellos pero no podrían nunca convertirlo.... ¿Por qué no?

Al lado de él, el Sr. B es un hombre que se graduó de la misma escuela preparatoria y universidad que el Sr. A... Es rico, un deportista, dueño de un establo de caballos de carrera, vise presidente de un banco, casado con una dama de la sociedad. Es un buen tipo y extremadamente popular. Pero si América fuera a convertirse al Fascismo, él sería uno de los primeros miembros del movimiento. ¿Porqué?... ¿Por qué el y no el otro?

El Sr. A tiene un estilo de vida muy personal. Aunque no tiene dinero, su distinción y educación sin pretensiones lo han asegurado siempre una posición. Nunca ha tenido que confrontar competencia aguda; es un hombre libre. Dudo si en su vida ha hecho algo que no quiso hacer o que contradecía su código ético. El Fascismo no tendría cabida entre sus principios y nunca ha se ha acostumbrado a hacer concesiones.

Sr. B se ha elevado más allá de sus capacidades verdaderas en virtud de su salud, de su apariencia personal y sus buenas modales. Tanto su matrimonio como otros objetivos en su vida han tenido por motivo obtener dinero. Su código no es el suyo propio; pertenece a su clase social y nada más, se ajusta a cualquier patrón exitoso. Ésa es la medida única de su valor. El Fascismo como movimiento de la minoría no lo atraería, pero sí lo haría si fuera a convertirse en una tendencia triunfante.

El hombre taciturno que habla con la hermosa emigrada francesa es ya un nazi. El Sr. C es un intelectual brillante y rencoroso que procede del Sur empobrecido, un estudiante becado en dos universidades donde ganó todos los honores escolásticos pero nunca fue invitado a ser miembro de un club social. Sus dotes brillantes le ganaron posiciones sucesivas tanto en el gobierno como bufetes jurídicas prominentes, y eventualmente tendrá un trabajo altamente pagado como consejero de Wall Street. Se ha movido entre la gente importante pero siempre ha sido relegado a la periferia social. Sus colegas admiran su cerebro y lo explotan, pero pocas veces le han invitado a cenar a él o su esposa.

Es un engreído pero detesta su propia vanidad: desdeña a los hombres que le rodean porque éstos logran laureles sin luchar por ellos. Pero su desprecio se mezcla inextricablemente con envidia. Aún más, odia a la clase social a que ha podido ingresar, y odia las personas de su pasado. Él odia su madre y su padre simplemente porque son sus padres, detesta todo que lo recuerde sus orígenes y sus humillaciones, es amargamente anti- semita porque la inseguridad social de los judíos lo recuerda su propia inseguridad psicológica.

Ya carece de compasión, y nunca ha conocido la alegría, es ambicioso, amargo y ardiente. Se esfuerza a subirse socialmente para que nadie pueda humillarlo otra vez. No desea mandar abiertamente sino a escondidas como un titiritero que controla los hilos creados por su cerebro. Actualmente ocurre que hay personas que usan su vocabulario a pesar de no haberle conocido personalmente.

Allí está, hablando torpemente pero con cortesía: es un cortesano: engendra respecto distante y frío. Pero se trata de un hombre muy peligroso: Si fuera más primitivo y brutal sería un asesino criminal. Pero él es sutil y cruel. Sería apreciado en un régimen nazi y buscaría personas similares a él –intelectuales despiadados. Pero el Sr. C no es un fascista nato, es el producto de una democracia hipócrita que predica igualdad social y que practica la exclusión negligente. Es un hombre sensible y dotado a quien la humillación le ha empujado hacia el nihilismo. Le encantaría ver caer a ciertas cabezas.

Pienso que el joven D es el único nazi nato en el cuarto, es el hijo malcriado de una madre sobre-protectora. Nunca ha tenido que luchar para nada y pasa su tiempo inventando maneras para salir con lo suyo. Su madre paga las multas que recibe por exceder la velocidad legal con su carro. Ha sido despiadado con sus dos ex esposas y su madre les paga los alimentos; su vida se pasa en el dramatismo y la búsqueda de nuevas sensaciones. Es desconsiderado pero muy apuesto a su manera, inútil, vacuo, y cortesano. Le encantaría vestirse de un uniforme que le permita señoría sobre los demás.

La Señora E se volvería fascista sin ninguna duda. ¿Esa declaración le sorprende? La Señora E parece tan dulce, dan dependiente, aún acobardada. E una masoquista. Su esposo le humilla y le trata peor que sus perros. Él es un científico prominente, y la señora E, que se casó muy joven, se ha persuadido que él es un genio, y que hay algo de femineidad superior en su carencia completa de orgullo, en su dedicación canina. Ella habla con desaprobación de otras "esposas masculinas" o que no se dedican por entero a sus maridos. Ella aburre a su conyugue, sin embargo, la ignora y ella está buscando otro escenario para practicar su auto-degradación estática. Ella encontraría titilante poder subordinarse al primer héroe popular que proclama la subordinación básica de mujeres.

Por otra parte, la señora F nunca se acepataría el Fascismo. Es la mujer más popular del salón, hermosa, alegre, ingeniosa y llena de calor humano. Fue una actriz popular hace diez años pero se casó y ahora está feliz con su papel doméstico, tuvo cuatro niños y tiene una casa encantadora; no es una mujer rica pero gana lo suficiente, nunca se ha alejando por completo de su gozosa profesión y está llena de un sano sentido común. Todos los hombres intentan hacerle el amor; ella se ríe de ellos y esto divierta a su marido. Se ha pagado sus propias cuentas desde que ella era una niña y ayuda enormemente la carrera de su marido (él es abogado), ella adornaría cualquier salón en cualquier capital, y sin embargo es esencialmente estadounidense.

II.

¿Y el mayordomo que sirve las bebidas? James me divierta, es seguro porque ha trabajando en la aristocracia más alta y considera a todos los fascistas parvenus y comunistas. Tiene olfato para reconocer a la "gente de la calidad", atiende al editor reservado con ese aire amistoso de igualdad que los buenos criados demuestran siempre hacia quienes consideran que tengan calidad suficiente, pero con los demás estaría tieso y frío.

Bill, el nieto del chofer, está ayudando con ser servicio esta noche. Es el producto de una escuela pública del Bronx y trabaja en la noche para poder pagar sus estudios en City Collage donde estudia la ingeniería. Él es un "proletario," aunque uno no se daría cuente a partir de su uniforme blanco. Juega muy bien el tenis- ha sido profesor particular del tenis en verano- -nada insuperablemente, obtiene las mejores calificaciones académicas y piensa que los Estados Unidos es un excelente país. No admite argumentos al respecto. Brevemente fue un miembro del Congreso Comunista de la Juventud, pero se recuperó como si se tratara del sarampión. No pudo entrar en el Ejército debido a su visión comprometida pero desea diseñar aviones, "como Sikorsky." Piensa que Lindbergh es "apenas otro piloto con una esposa rica" y que éste rebaja su país diciendo que “nos sería difícil vencer a Hitler". Frente a este comentario Bill rebuzna su desaprobación.

Sr. G es un joven muy intelectual que era un prodigio infantil. Se ha preocupado por las grandes ideas desde la edad de diez años, y tiene una mente brillantemente racional. Le he conocido por diez años y en que el tiempo le he oído explicar con gran entusiasmo a Marx, el crédito social, la tecnocracia, la economía de Keynes, el distribucionismo de Chesterton y todo lo demás que se puede imaginar. Sr. G nunca sería un fascista, porque nunca se identificaría totalmente con ninguna causa. Su cerebro está absolutamente desasociado del resto de su aparato. Él podrá, sin embargo, explicar y disculparlo. El Sr. G es siempre un "desviacionista". Cuando era comunista apoyaba a Trotsky; cuando hablaba de Keynes sugería mejoras en aquella doctrina; según el Sr. G las ideas económicas de Chesterton están bien pero son demasiado “Católicas”. Podemos asegurarnos que Sr. G sería un fascista crítico: ciertamente lo purgarían del movimiento.

H es historiador y biógrafo, es estado-unidense de ascendencia holandesa nacido y criado en el oeste medio. Ha estado enamorado del país toda su vida. Puede recitar capítulos enteros de Thoreau y volúmenes de poesía vernácula desde Emerson hasta Steve Benet. Conoce las cartas de Jefferson, las obras de Hamilton, los discursos de Lincoln. Colecciona muebles coloniales, vive en Nueva Inglaterra, maneja una granja para divertirse y no pierde mucho dinero en esta actividad. Detesta las fiestas como ésta. Él tiene un sentido del humor de hombres, es poco convencional y perdió una posición en una universidad debido a un asunto de faldas. Luego se casó y ahora está feliz.

H nunca ha dudado de su propio americanismo auténtico ni para un instante. Éste es su país y lo conoce desde Acadia a Zenith. Sus antepasados lucharon en la guerra revolucionaria y en todas las guerras desde entonces. E ciertamente es un intelectual pero también es una persona que huele levemente de granjas y chaquetas húmedas. Es el hombre más bondadoso y más cordial, pero si alguien quisiera convertir su país en una imitación de aquellos donde mandan Hitler, Mussolini o Petain, H pelearía para defender el suyo. Aunque el liberalismo del H no le permitirá decirlo, es su convicción secreta que nadie cuyos ancestros nacieron fuera de los Estados Unidos después de la Guerra Civil realmente entienda América o realmente lucharía para protegerlo del Fascismo o cualquier otro “ismo” extranjero.

Pero H se equivoca. Hay otra persona en el salón que lucharía junto a H y no es siquiera un ciudadano del país. Se trata de un joven emigre alemán, a que yo invité a la fiesta. La gente en el salón lo mira al reojo porque es tan germánico, tan rubio, tan de ojos azules, tan bronceado. Parece el modelo del Fascismo. Su inglés es incipiente - lo comenzó a aprender hace sólo cinco años. Proviene de una vieja familia prusiana del Este; era un miembro del movimiento de juventud de la posguerra y luego fue im "Republicano Reichsbanner". Todos sus amigos alemanes se volvieron fascistas sin excepción. Llego a pie a Suiza sin nada de dinero y allí estudió el griego del nuevo testamento con el gran teólogo protestante, Karl Barth. Luego vino a los Estado Unidos con la ayuda de un amigo americano que conoció en una universidad, consiguió trabajo enseñando obras clásicas en una escuela privada de moda; ahora trabaja en una fábrica de aviones en el turno de noche para hacer los aviones para la lucha de Gran Bretaña contra Alemania. Conoce la historia de los Estados Unidos y al poeta Whitman de memoria, se pregunta porqué tan pocos americanos hayan leído los Papeles Federalistas, cree en los Estados Unidos de Europa, de la unión del mundo de habla inglesa, y de la venidera revolución democrática universal. Cree que América será el país de la evolución creativa -una vez que sacude su complacencia de clase media, la bureaucratización de su industria y los tentáculos de su gobierno.

La gente de este salón piensa que el joven no es un americano, pero es más americano que cualquier de ellos. Ha descubierto el espíritu de los pioneros: está enojado con la gente porque ésta no se da cuenta de la fuerza y la hermosura del país. Habla del trabajo en la fábrica donde lo emplean como algo "para entender la América verdadera." Piensa que los hombres allí son maravillosos. Pregunta:

-"¿Por qué ustedes, los intelectuales, no conversan con ellos?"

Sonrío amargamente a mis propias reflexiones, pensando que si en algún momento vayamos a la guerra con los fascistas, probablemente le internarían al joven alemán, mientras el Sr. B, el Sr. G y la señora E estarán diciendo: "por supuesto Hitler no me gusta, pero..."

El Sr. J es un judío importante y inmensamente rico, está en la junta directiva de una docena de compañías por medio de varios sindicatos laborales. Se casó muy bien, ha desarrollado bienes de fortuna propios por medio de su talento especulativo, y ama profundamente al poder. Es inteligente y arrogante. No se asocia frecuentemente con los judíos y piensa que no se debe juzgar a Hitler por la “cuestión judía". Considera que Roosevelt es "un enemigo del negocio"….

El taciturno Sr. C (el verdadero fascista del salón) lo engancha en una conversación con su actitud obsecuente. Sr. J conviene con Sr. C enteramente. El Sr. C se siente atraído a las ideas del Sr. J y hace esfuerzos para conocer a este "hombre inteligente."

El Sr. K contempla la escena expresando su un humor triste. Es un judío del Sur. Cuenta buenas historias sobre un negocio que tenía hace diez años y que vendió a buen precio. Luego colocó a sus parientes indigentes en negocios propios y ahora goza de una renta de cincuenta dólares por semana [acuérdense que es un sueldo de 1941]. A los cuarenta años comenzó a escribir artículos acerca de lugares apartados en vida estado-unidense. Un soltero, es un hombre triste que hace reír a los demás, viaja continuamente, conoce y ama al país desde mil facetas diversas y es un gran amigo de H, el biógrafo. Lo atrae una conversación con el joven alemán.

Pronto varios de los invitados se encuentran en otra sala: el caballero impecable de Nueva Inglaterra, el hombre granjero del Medio Oeste, la mujer feliz a que los dioses aman, el alemán joven, el judío tranquilo del Sur. Y allá en el otro lado están agrupados los demás.

El Sr. L acaba de entrar, hay que describirlo como un león. La dueña de la casa me dijo por teléfono: "... y L vendrá a la fiesta. Sabes que es tan difícil conseguirlo." L es un poderoso líder sindical. "Querida, es un hombre del pueblo, fascinante.” L da la impresión de ser un vicepresidente de un banco pero hace discursos acerca de la "tercera nación" y ha creado su éxito con la noción de la defensa del oprimido. A pesar de esto tiene el mejor coche de cualquier persona en este sitio; su sueldo no significa nada a él porque vive a costo del sindicato. Conviene con los industrialistas más grandes que hace falta mano dura en los negocios. L es el fascista más natural del salón. Sr. B le tiene desprecio pero lo utilizará. L imita ya los discursos del B. Tiene un cerebro neandertal pero también el instinto infalible para el poder. En privado se refiere a los judíos como "parásitos"….

III

¿Es un juego macabro esta diversión de “Quién Será el Fascista?" Simplifica la averiguación si uno la convierta en una pregunta sobre personalidades específicas.

Gente amable, caballeresca y segura jamás se hacen fascistas…. Son los frustrados y humillados, los ricos y especuladores, los hijos malcriados, los laboristas tiranos…que huellen los vientos y que en una crisis se acogen al Fascismo ….

Referencias
1. al arículo en Harper’s: http://www.harpers.org/archive/1941/08/0020122
2. al foto del saludo fascista de Paolo di Canió’s : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4158591.stm
3. to foto of people giving a fascist salute during a Movement Against Illegal Immigration march to celebrate People's Unity Day en Russia : http://www.redtape.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=11915 .