Earlier Movements and Influences
Following the birth of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the state was still culturally fragmented. Following World War I, there was an uprising of civil religion in Italy as a "state of collective euphoria" roused the republic. In addition, a process of nationalization of the masses was in desperate need within a country that lacked a national identity.
In 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti founded the Futurist Movement, which advocated values such as instinct, strength, courage, sport, war, youth, dynamism and speed as exemplified by modern machines. Amid the introduction of this revolutionary, non-conformist ideology, it did not agree with the political philosophies of fascism, which was also just beginning to bud at that time. Futurism was thereby abandoned after 1920, and political regions became increasingly fervent as Mussolini came into power shortly thereafter
Mussolini, after having been elected to power in 1922, created a myth of himself, craftily adapting the image of the Superman of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to the Italian forma mentis, which was grounded in the following credo: absolutely hegemony over life and death and good and evil.
Mussolini underlined how Nietzsche had advocated an imminent return to the ideal, stating that 'a new kind of "free spirit" will come, strengthened by the war ... spirits equipped with a kind of sublime perversity ... new, free spirits, who will triumph over God and over Nothing!". Accordingly, war was regarded as the training ground of virility: a place to cultivate, embrace, and exercise masculinity to its fullest extent in the name of serving for one's nation with others as a collective entity. Novelist Mario Carli provides a first-hand account of what was expected of Italian soldiers in this era:
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- "ar is something sublime because it forces every man to face the dilemma of choosing between heroism and cowardice, between the ideal and the stomach, between the spiritual instinct to project life beyond the material, and the pure and simple instinct of animal conversation. It is the brutal discriminator that distinguishes man from man, character from character, constitution from constitution: on the one side the cowardly, the soft, the hysterical, the effeminate, the cry-babies, the mommy's boys; on the other the strong, the aware, the idealists, the mystics of danger, those who triumph over fear and those who are courageous by nature, the hot-blooded heroes and the heroes of the will."
The wartime climate provided an opportune environment for Mussolini to reinforce the values which he extolled as central to his purported hegemonic masculinity. In addition, the wartime front provided a public stage for effective public actions. Mussolini openly boasted about conducting his efforts to introduce himself as a New Italian for the New Italy that was to come.
Read more about this topic: Model Of Masculinity Under Fascist Italy
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“Justice begins with the recognition of the necessity of sharing. The oldest law is that which regulates it, and this is still the most important law today and, as such, has remained the basic concern of all movements which have at heart the community of human activities and of human existence in general.”
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“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
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