Ishay Landa | The Open University of Israel (original) (raw)
Books by Ishay Landa
Faşizm ve Kitleler “Son İnsanlar”a İsyan (1848-1945), 2023
Turkish translation of my book "Fascism and the Masses." An excerpt of the first pages. Translat... more Turkish translation of my book "Fascism and the Masses."
An excerpt of the first pages.
Translator: Utku Özmakas
20th-century European Fascism is conventionally described by both historians and political scient... more 20th-century European Fascism is conventionally described by both
historians and political scientists as a fierce assault on liberal politics, culture and economics. Departing from such typical analysis, this book highlights the long overlooked critical affinities between liberal tradition and fascism. Far from being the antithesis of liberalism, fascism, both in its ideology and its practice, was substantially, if dialectically, indebted to liberalism, particularly to its economic variant. Fascism ought to be seen centrally as an effort to unknot the longue durée tangle of the liberal order, as it finally collided, head on, with mass democracy.
Chapter 6 of Ishay Landa, The Overman in The Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture,... more Chapter 6 of Ishay Landa, The Overman in The Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture, Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2007, pp. 213-263.
Papers by Ishay Landa
BRILL eBooks, 2010
Before addressing the question of what fascism actually is, one must first grapple with semantics... more Before addressing the question of what fascism actually is, one must first grapple with semantics, since some of the most important questions pertaining to the nature of fascism involve the way certain words were, and still are, used. This introductory chapter places fascist ideology at the heart of the discussion. Zeev Sternhell's approach has become something of a hegemonic paradigm. Within the theoretical framework, the words "socialism" and "liberalism" become crucial in grasping the fascist phenomenon. Number of historians, ever since Talmon, attest to the common root of both fascism and communism in the "totalitarian democratic" thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The habitual fascist rejection of liberalism implied an approximation, however "dialectical" to socialism. The focus of this research is, for the most part, on ideology, on what liberals and fascists said and wrote.Keywords: fascist ideology; liberalism; semantics; socialism; totalitarian democratic; Zeev Sternhell
Routledge eBooks, Jan 17, 2018
BRILL eBooks, 2010
This chapter looks at one of the intellectuals discussed by Hamilton, Oswald Spengler, who played... more This chapter looks at one of the intellectuals discussed by Hamilton, Oswald Spengler, who played a somewhat similar role in ideologically preparing the ground for German fascism, as Pareto did within the Italian context. It highlights that Spengler's vantage point is expressly that of "private economic enterprise" [privaten Wirtschaftsstrebens]. "Prussian socialism" thus boils down to "English capitalism" shorn of worker's discontent. In his reconstruction of the relationship between Nazism and capitalism, Turner ascribed Hitler an all-important role. To examine the ideology of the British imperialists is to find in it many parallels to the basic tenets of fascist and Nazi ideology. Schapiro's study Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism, published in 1949, minimized the ideological damage to liberalism by providing an historical account of liberalism as a fundamentally democratic and, indeed, egalitarian force.Keywords: Adolf Hitler; Alastair Hamilton; English capitalism; German fascism; Henry A. Turner; liberal economics; Nazism; Oswald Spengler; Prussian socialism
BRILL eBooks, 2010
The main argument advanced by Stern in his analysis of "the Germanic ideology" was that... more The main argument advanced by Stern in his analysis of "the Germanic ideology" was that it consisted of a sustained cultural attack on liberalism and capitalism. The 19th century figures of Paul de Lagarde and Julius Langbehn, and the 20th century one of Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, taken to be the paradigmatic representatives and initiators of said ideology, were repeatedly held to have chastised liberalism. Hayek was unduly harsh with Moeller, curtly relegating him to the badlands of anti-liberalism. Those post-Second-World-War historians attempting to delineate a genealogy of fascism as distinct from that of capitalism and liberalism, in fact standing in stark opposition to both, were often drawn to two 19th century intellectual figures: Thomas Carlyle, the passionate Victorian prophet lampooning laissez faire, the "cash nexus" and the "dismal science" of classical economy, and P. J. Proudhon, who famously and tersely equated la propriete with le vol.Keywords: anti-liberalism; Arthur Moeller van den Bruck; capitalism; fascism; Germanic ideology; Hayek; laissez faire; P . J. Proudhon; Stern; Thomas Carlyle
BRILL eBooks, 2010
In addressing the problematic of fascist anti-liberalism, a symptomatic case in point is that of ... more In addressing the problematic of fascist anti-liberalism, a symptomatic case in point is that of Carl Schmitt, one of the brightest intellectuals to have aligned himself with fascism, sometimes considered one of the three major political thinkers of the 20th century alongside (the liberal) Hannah Arendt and (the communist) Antonio Gramsci. This chapter analyzes the ideological core of Schmitt's position, which is elitist and anti-democratic in the extreme, while harking back to the liberalism preceding the fall of universal suffrage. It compares Schmitt to one of his major influences, the 19th century Spanish proponent of dictatorship, Juan Donoso Cortes. The last anti-liberal liberal whose ideas this chapter examines is Georges Sorel, who has been traditionally assigned an important place in the genealogy of fascism. Sternhell, on the very contrary, claimed that fascism was born as a result of the triumph of liberalism and the crisis of socialism.Keywords: anti-liberalism; Carl Schmitt; fascism; Georges Sorel; Juan Donoso Cortes; Weimar Republic; Zeev Sternhell
Routledge eBooks, Jan 17, 2018
BRILL eBooks, 2010
One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the ... more One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the use of fascism as an object lesson of the dangers of democracy. Tocqueville, is conventionally held up as the prototype of the liberal-conservative critic of democratic excess, who was able to predict the main features of the tyranny of the majority, which he discussed in his landmark study, Democracy in America. A theory of counter-revolution is inherent in Malthus' liberalism. The last candidate for the role of the liberal critic of the linkage between democracy and tyranny is one of the most eminent and often cited representatives of Italian anti-fascism, the liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce. For Burke, individualism signifies a revolutionary, chaotic tidal wave, threatening to overwhelm the established order. Individualism is radical and challenges capitalism, which, in turn, is construed as organic and collectivist.Keywords: Benedetto Croce; Edmund Burke; fascist individualism; fascist tyranny; liberal collectivism; Malthus' liberalism; Tocqueville's predictions
BRILL eBooks, 2010
One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the ... more One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the use of fascism as an object lesson of the dangers of democracy. Tocqueville, is conventionally held up as the prototype of the liberal-conservative critic of democratic excess, who was able to predict the main features of the tyranny of the majority, which he discussed in his landmark study, Democracy in America. A theory of counter-revolution is inherent in Malthus' liberalism. The last candidate for the role of the liberal critic of the linkage between democracy and tyranny is one of the most eminent and often cited representatives of Italian anti-fascism, the liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce. For Burke, individualism signifies a revolutionary, chaotic tidal wave, threatening to overwhelm the established order. Individualism is radical and challenges capitalism, which, in turn, is construed as organic and collectivist.Keywords: Benedetto Croce; Edmund Burke; fascist individualism; fascist tyranny; liberal collectivism; Malthus' liberalism; Tocqueville's predictions
Liberal Tradition and Fascism
This chapter takes Michael Mann's book on fascism as an example, whose theoretical framework ... more This chapter takes Michael Mann's book on fascism as an example, whose theoretical framework processes and incorporates the contributions of Sternhell, Griffin and the later work of Mosse. Mann draws a geo-political demarcation line between the northwest of Europe, at the heart of which is, unsurprisingly, England, which had remained immune to fascism, and the center and southeast, at the heart of which are Germany and Italy, which had embraced it. Commonly, the abortive experience of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) provides historians with seemingly hard evidence that fascism was, in Britain, a foreign political breed, bound to come to nothing. In Salvemini's view, the British elite was vigorously practising a brand of "crypto-fascism," taking possession of "the most delicate organs of democratic institutions in order to pervert them". To Stoddard, the Nazis owed the coining of the term under-man, which was Germanized into the Untermensch.Keywords: British Union of Fascists (BUF); crypto-fascism; fascism; Gaetano Salvemini; international co-production; liberal Northwest Europe; Michael Mann; Nazi Germany; Oswald Mosley; Untermensch
Liberal Tradition and Fascism
An indispensable historical precondition for fascism was the inherent tension between the politic... more An indispensable historical precondition for fascism was the inherent tension between the political dimension of the liberal order and its economic one. Liberalism was the socioeconomic doctrine with which the ascending European bourgeoisie of the late 18th and early 19th century challenged the nobility. Capitalism, fundamentally, was seen to be at odds with democracy; the economic liberal sphere was seen to be at variance with the expansionary dynamics of political liberalism. The whole purpose of the liberal civil society from a Lockean point of view was to shore up nascent capitalist property and production. The crucial fault of liberalism, according to Donoso, was that it inevitably heralds social revolution, which, once unleashed, it is completely incapable of thwarting. Like Constant during his sanguine moments, Pareto could envision a parliamentary system reasonable enough to acknowledge the iron laws of the economy, and hence adhere to free competition.Keywords: Benjamin Constant; capitalism; Donoso Cortes; economic liberal sphere; European bourgeoisie; fascism; John Locke; political liberalism; Vilfredo Pareto
Faşizm ve Kitleler “Son İnsanlar”a İsyan (1848-1945), 2023
Turkish translation of my book "Fascism and the Masses." An excerpt of the first pages. Translat... more Turkish translation of my book "Fascism and the Masses."
An excerpt of the first pages.
Translator: Utku Özmakas
20th-century European Fascism is conventionally described by both historians and political scient... more 20th-century European Fascism is conventionally described by both
historians and political scientists as a fierce assault on liberal politics, culture and economics. Departing from such typical analysis, this book highlights the long overlooked critical affinities between liberal tradition and fascism. Far from being the antithesis of liberalism, fascism, both in its ideology and its practice, was substantially, if dialectically, indebted to liberalism, particularly to its economic variant. Fascism ought to be seen centrally as an effort to unknot the longue durée tangle of the liberal order, as it finally collided, head on, with mass democracy.
Chapter 6 of Ishay Landa, The Overman in The Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture,... more Chapter 6 of Ishay Landa, The Overman in The Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture, Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2007, pp. 213-263.
BRILL eBooks, 2010
Before addressing the question of what fascism actually is, one must first grapple with semantics... more Before addressing the question of what fascism actually is, one must first grapple with semantics, since some of the most important questions pertaining to the nature of fascism involve the way certain words were, and still are, used. This introductory chapter places fascist ideology at the heart of the discussion. Zeev Sternhell's approach has become something of a hegemonic paradigm. Within the theoretical framework, the words "socialism" and "liberalism" become crucial in grasping the fascist phenomenon. Number of historians, ever since Talmon, attest to the common root of both fascism and communism in the "totalitarian democratic" thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The habitual fascist rejection of liberalism implied an approximation, however "dialectical" to socialism. The focus of this research is, for the most part, on ideology, on what liberals and fascists said and wrote.Keywords: fascist ideology; liberalism; semantics; socialism; totalitarian democratic; Zeev Sternhell
Routledge eBooks, Jan 17, 2018
BRILL eBooks, 2010
This chapter looks at one of the intellectuals discussed by Hamilton, Oswald Spengler, who played... more This chapter looks at one of the intellectuals discussed by Hamilton, Oswald Spengler, who played a somewhat similar role in ideologically preparing the ground for German fascism, as Pareto did within the Italian context. It highlights that Spengler's vantage point is expressly that of "private economic enterprise" [privaten Wirtschaftsstrebens]. "Prussian socialism" thus boils down to "English capitalism" shorn of worker's discontent. In his reconstruction of the relationship between Nazism and capitalism, Turner ascribed Hitler an all-important role. To examine the ideology of the British imperialists is to find in it many parallels to the basic tenets of fascist and Nazi ideology. Schapiro's study Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism, published in 1949, minimized the ideological damage to liberalism by providing an historical account of liberalism as a fundamentally democratic and, indeed, egalitarian force.Keywords: Adolf Hitler; Alastair Hamilton; English capitalism; German fascism; Henry A. Turner; liberal economics; Nazism; Oswald Spengler; Prussian socialism
BRILL eBooks, 2010
The main argument advanced by Stern in his analysis of "the Germanic ideology" was that... more The main argument advanced by Stern in his analysis of "the Germanic ideology" was that it consisted of a sustained cultural attack on liberalism and capitalism. The 19th century figures of Paul de Lagarde and Julius Langbehn, and the 20th century one of Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, taken to be the paradigmatic representatives and initiators of said ideology, were repeatedly held to have chastised liberalism. Hayek was unduly harsh with Moeller, curtly relegating him to the badlands of anti-liberalism. Those post-Second-World-War historians attempting to delineate a genealogy of fascism as distinct from that of capitalism and liberalism, in fact standing in stark opposition to both, were often drawn to two 19th century intellectual figures: Thomas Carlyle, the passionate Victorian prophet lampooning laissez faire, the "cash nexus" and the "dismal science" of classical economy, and P. J. Proudhon, who famously and tersely equated la propriete with le vol.Keywords: anti-liberalism; Arthur Moeller van den Bruck; capitalism; fascism; Germanic ideology; Hayek; laissez faire; P . J. Proudhon; Stern; Thomas Carlyle
BRILL eBooks, 2010
In addressing the problematic of fascist anti-liberalism, a symptomatic case in point is that of ... more In addressing the problematic of fascist anti-liberalism, a symptomatic case in point is that of Carl Schmitt, one of the brightest intellectuals to have aligned himself with fascism, sometimes considered one of the three major political thinkers of the 20th century alongside (the liberal) Hannah Arendt and (the communist) Antonio Gramsci. This chapter analyzes the ideological core of Schmitt's position, which is elitist and anti-democratic in the extreme, while harking back to the liberalism preceding the fall of universal suffrage. It compares Schmitt to one of his major influences, the 19th century Spanish proponent of dictatorship, Juan Donoso Cortes. The last anti-liberal liberal whose ideas this chapter examines is Georges Sorel, who has been traditionally assigned an important place in the genealogy of fascism. Sternhell, on the very contrary, claimed that fascism was born as a result of the triumph of liberalism and the crisis of socialism.Keywords: anti-liberalism; Carl Schmitt; fascism; Georges Sorel; Juan Donoso Cortes; Weimar Republic; Zeev Sternhell
Routledge eBooks, Jan 17, 2018
BRILL eBooks, 2010
One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the ... more One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the use of fascism as an object lesson of the dangers of democracy. Tocqueville, is conventionally held up as the prototype of the liberal-conservative critic of democratic excess, who was able to predict the main features of the tyranny of the majority, which he discussed in his landmark study, Democracy in America. A theory of counter-revolution is inherent in Malthus' liberalism. The last candidate for the role of the liberal critic of the linkage between democracy and tyranny is one of the most eminent and often cited representatives of Italian anti-fascism, the liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce. For Burke, individualism signifies a revolutionary, chaotic tidal wave, threatening to overwhelm the established order. Individualism is radical and challenges capitalism, which, in turn, is construed as organic and collectivist.Keywords: Benedetto Croce; Edmund Burke; fascist individualism; fascist tyranny; liberal collectivism; Malthus' liberalism; Tocqueville's predictions
BRILL eBooks, 2010
One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the ... more One of the most widely employed pieces of weaponry in the arsenal of liberal anti-fascism is the use of fascism as an object lesson of the dangers of democracy. Tocqueville, is conventionally held up as the prototype of the liberal-conservative critic of democratic excess, who was able to predict the main features of the tyranny of the majority, which he discussed in his landmark study, Democracy in America. A theory of counter-revolution is inherent in Malthus' liberalism. The last candidate for the role of the liberal critic of the linkage between democracy and tyranny is one of the most eminent and often cited representatives of Italian anti-fascism, the liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce. For Burke, individualism signifies a revolutionary, chaotic tidal wave, threatening to overwhelm the established order. Individualism is radical and challenges capitalism, which, in turn, is construed as organic and collectivist.Keywords: Benedetto Croce; Edmund Burke; fascist individualism; fascist tyranny; liberal collectivism; Malthus' liberalism; Tocqueville's predictions
Liberal Tradition and Fascism
This chapter takes Michael Mann's book on fascism as an example, whose theoretical framework ... more This chapter takes Michael Mann's book on fascism as an example, whose theoretical framework processes and incorporates the contributions of Sternhell, Griffin and the later work of Mosse. Mann draws a geo-political demarcation line between the northwest of Europe, at the heart of which is, unsurprisingly, England, which had remained immune to fascism, and the center and southeast, at the heart of which are Germany and Italy, which had embraced it. Commonly, the abortive experience of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) provides historians with seemingly hard evidence that fascism was, in Britain, a foreign political breed, bound to come to nothing. In Salvemini's view, the British elite was vigorously practising a brand of "crypto-fascism," taking possession of "the most delicate organs of democratic institutions in order to pervert them". To Stoddard, the Nazis owed the coining of the term under-man, which was Germanized into the Untermensch.Keywords: British Union of Fascists (BUF); crypto-fascism; fascism; Gaetano Salvemini; international co-production; liberal Northwest Europe; Michael Mann; Nazi Germany; Oswald Mosley; Untermensch
Liberal Tradition and Fascism
An indispensable historical precondition for fascism was the inherent tension between the politic... more An indispensable historical precondition for fascism was the inherent tension between the political dimension of the liberal order and its economic one. Liberalism was the socioeconomic doctrine with which the ascending European bourgeoisie of the late 18th and early 19th century challenged the nobility. Capitalism, fundamentally, was seen to be at odds with democracy; the economic liberal sphere was seen to be at variance with the expansionary dynamics of political liberalism. The whole purpose of the liberal civil society from a Lockean point of view was to shore up nascent capitalist property and production. The crucial fault of liberalism, according to Donoso, was that it inevitably heralds social revolution, which, once unleashed, it is completely incapable of thwarting. Like Constant during his sanguine moments, Pareto could envision a parliamentary system reasonable enough to acknowledge the iron laws of the economy, and hence adhere to free competition.Keywords: Benjamin Constant; capitalism; Donoso Cortes; economic liberal sphere; European bourgeoisie; fascism; John Locke; political liberalism; Vilfredo Pareto
Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies, Springer, 2024
Nietzschean heroism in popular culture refers to the presence of a heroic model inspired by the i... more Nietzschean heroism in popular culture refers to the presence of a heroic model inspired by the ideas of highly influential nineteenth-century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, in texts of popular culture, such as commercially successful literature, films, video games, lyrics of popular music, etc. Such presence can involve a direct reference to Nietzsche's ideas and will in that case be empirically verifiable, but it can also be an implied presence, including ideals, patterns of behavior, or a world outlook, which manifest a strong affinity with Nietzscheanism and that can be usefully analyzed with recourse to Nietzsche's philosophy.
The Journal of Holocaust Research, 2019
ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to re-examine the relationship of fascism – up to and includi... more ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to re-examine the relationship of fascism – up to and including its German National Socialist variant – to modernity, generally, and to capitalism, more specifically. Outlining a general conceptual framework within which these questions might be addressed, the article seeks to move beyond the habitual positing of abstract antinomies to a more dialectical approach to the questions posed. In the first part of the discussion, it is maintained that fascism and its extremism were quintessential phenomena of the modern age, while fiercely resistant to modernity. In the second, and concluding, part, it is argued that fascism was profoundly indebted to capitalism even as it was, in other ways, passionately opposed to it.
In this rejoinder to Bernhard H.F. Taureck’s Drei Wurzeln des Krieges, my aim is to dwell on a se... more In this rejoinder to Bernhard H.F. Taureck’s Drei Wurzeln des Krieges, my aim is to dwell on a seeming paradox at the heart of modernity: the era in which we are still living appears to confirm those who construe Heraclitus as an ontologizer of war. And yet it would be misleading to view modernity simply as certifying the existential status of war. For in truth modernity is an unprecedented era also in another, and contrary sense: only in modernity, did the prospect become realistic of a world without wars.
Dapim: Studies On The Holocaust, Apr 5, 2017
Jacobin, 2021
Movies about class and inequality are back in the mainstream. Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger is ... more Movies about class and inequality are back in the mainstream. Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger is a powerful interrogation of the injustices of class and caste society.
Melodie & Rhythmus, 2022
Interview with Susann Witt-Stahl on the German translation of "The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal... more Interview with Susann Witt-Stahl on the German translation of "The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism"
WOZ, 2021
Der Historiker Ishay Landa widerlegt in seinem kürzlich publizierten Buch "Der Lehrling und sein ... more Der Historiker Ishay Landa widerlegt in seinem kürzlich publizierten Buch "Der Lehrling und sein Meister" die Legende, der Liberalismus sei der grosse Gegenspieler des Faschismus. Materialreich zeichnet er die Verbindungslinien zwischen den beiden Ideologien nach. Wir sprachen mit ihm über folgenreiche Mythen des Liberalismus, die rechtspopulistische Wende einiger seiner Anhänger und linke Antworten.
http://www.kartografija-otpora.org/hr/news/?id=82, 2018
Ishay Landa has devoted much of his past career as an historian of ideas to a minutely reconstruc... more Ishay Landa has devoted much of his past career as an historian of ideas to a minutely reconstructed intellectual genealogy of fascism and its complex relation to the intellectual history of the West. In contrast to the dominant interpretive camps, which see the roots of fascism either in socialism or treat it as a radical deviation from the mainstream traditions of political thought, and therefore as a sui generis ideology, Landa identifies hitherto inadequately perceived continuities between fascism and many currents within historical liberalism. The original liberal ambiguity with respect to democracy has subsequently been radicalized in some variants of liberalism, becoming an outright hostility. Landa's central finding is as plausible as it is provocative: fascism has taken over and radicalized the already hostile attitude existing in the liberal tradition towards mass democracy.
La Brecha, Uruguayan weekly, 2019
The Journal of Holocaust Research, 2019
