Interesting attempt to figure out the nothingness at the heart of fascism

Paul speaks of the “mystery of evil”. And Augustine remarks that when a creature sins (something only a rational creature such and humans and angels can do), it “asserts its nothingness”. I think this is why fascism is ultimately impossible to analyze and the evil that it does, while having a certain internal logic, ultimately makes no sense. So given the premisses of Nazism, which were fundamentally nonsense, the Holocaust played out “logically”. That is, having accepted the nonsense of Nazism, it was inevitable that the Third Reich would kill millions of “undesirables”. But the whole murder machine was a massively insane enterprise that achieved nothing but death, including the death of its perpetrators. Evil always ends up annihilating itself because that is what asserting your Nothingness does.

The archetype of this is, of course, the Paschal mystery. Jesus speaks repeatedly of his “hour”, especially in John. When Mary asks him to reveal himself at the Wedding at Cana, his reply is, “Woman, my hour has not yet come”. The implication of that, in John’s theology, is that his ministry must and shall culminate in his death. He is saying to Mary, “Are you really ready for what you are asking? A sword will pierce your own soul as well.” And indeed, it is only in John’s gospel that we are told Mary was present at the foot of the Cross and experienced in her marrow the last wound Jesus suffered: the piercing of his heart. Jesus was already dead when that wound was given. It was Mary who witnessed it; Mary who felt it.

Jesus speaks of his death as his “hour”. At the Last Supper, after the devil enters into Judas and he departs to betray him, Jesus says, “Father, the hour has come”. In that hour, the devil asserts his own Nothingness to the full, as does the whole human race in Judas Iscariot. God hand himself over to his creation completely and says, “Do with me whatever you want.” And the only thing a fallen creation can think to do with this unthinkable Gift is torture him to death. That’s what evil does, because evil is the denial of all good, including the good of the intellect. As C.S. Lewis remarks of Milton’s Satan when he declares “Evil be thou my good!” this includes in it the statement “Nonsense be thou my sense.” In asserting its nothingness, evil always always always (as the video notes) sees itself as Heroic. Grave evil always always always lies to itself that it is courageous.

Meanwhile, God, who is Being itself and overflows with being, life, joy, and love, defeats evil by letting it have its way with him–and then destroys death from the inside in the Resurrection.

Of which more, next time.