why mediocrity is fascism's best friend
We like to think that brutal dictatorships and fascist regimes need monsters. In reality, they just need a handful of resentful, amoral paper pushers.
One of the best known quotes about fascism comes from Albert Camus, who said that when a democracy is sick, fascism will come to its bedside, but not to inquire about its health. The other is a term coined by political theorist Hannah Arendt after she studied how the Nazi regime worked: the banality of evil. Taken together, they say that fascism isn't a reactionary revolution of monsters that swarm from the ground, like the Locust in Gears of War. No, it's really a conspiracy of amoral, mediocre, glib opportunists that strangles struggling democracies.
Following that train of thought, political scientists Adam Scharpf and Christian Gläßel ended up writing a book called Making A Career in Dictatorship, in which they argue that fascist regimes offer something that democracy or a competitive meritocracy can't to a very specific group of people: the entitled mediocre middle. They're often stuck in dead end jobs or hit a glass ceiling since they lack the skills and the connections to go on to the next level, but believe they are owed that upward move.
That rut turns to boredom, boredom turns to frustration, and mixed with that deep, innate sense of entitlement, the frustration festers and becomes resentment and a hunt for someone to blame. Now, in come fascists looking for someone to carry out their whims. They can't use the dullards because they'll just screw it all up. They can't use the talented because they have morals, options, and are doing just fine on their own. But the amoral, resentful middle seething about being passed over? Oh, they're perfect. Promise them a shortcut to a career boost and they'll commit crimes against humanity. No, literally.
Stories from the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Argentina under its junta, show how unremarkable people willing to bend the rules or enforce a draconian edict from their bosses were rewarded with shortcuts in their careers. And I know you may be thinking that sure, lavish rewards will make anyone at least question their morals, but the most surprising part is that for the vast majority of authoritarian beneficiaries, the reward was a bump in salary, or skipping two or three military ranks, or a job a few levels up in the hierarchy.
In other words, their souls were for sale, but waiting for a buyer in the bargain bin. All it took was pat on the back and a bonus, and the same people who used to sit in school and learn about how important it was to share, play well with others, and follow social contracts, sent entire towns to their doom, to prison camps in the frozen wilderness, or for torture before being shot and thrown into a mass grave. And that's the part that seems so very disturbing and jarring.
We want monsters to blame for historical horrors and genocides. Instead, we get Gary the middle manager who thinks darker skinned minorities, immigrants, and why not, sure, trans people, is why he's not CEO. The minute someone comes to him with a 7% raise, the promise of a decent bonus paid in installments, and a title with "senior" or "director" in it, he'll gladly jump from behind his desk to hunt random strangers in the middle of the street to be exiled hell knows where. Or worse.
He isn't even much of an outlier, as some of the most indiscriminate mass murders in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge were done by literal teenagers. Instead of having to listen to adults, they now had the power of life or death over them, and they very much used that power to dole out pain, misery, and woe while getting pats on the back from the new regime. If the farms you run come to be known as the killing fields, and the list of your crimes are still prefaced with "are you absolutely sure you want to know?" yet you're barely old enough to drink, that says something terrifying about how depraved anyone can become, all while our minds insist we're the good guys, actually.
Hence the real lesson behind the banality of evil. Far too many of our neighbors and co-workers today can very much turn on us for the slightest material comfort or upgrade in social status, and the only language they will understand is the law coming down on them like a palette of depleted uranium bricks. Monsters do not hide in the shadows waiting to strike. Demons do not infest people, turning them evil. Resentment, laziness, entitlement, and blaming those different from you for not living your dream does that. All authoritarians then need to do is offer those pent up feelings an outlet, along with a small bribe, before one day, violently discarding them...
