Looking Back at Fascism: A Phenomenological Analysis of BUF Membership

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that when former members of the British Union of Fascists give an account of their membership today, they take into consideration the common-sense hostility evoked by fascism. This is hardly surprising. However, the significance of this should not be too easily dismissed. One of the main criticisms of using oral history to explore certain kinds of events, is that actors engage in ex post facto rationalization. This form of ‘bias’ is in fact shown to exist in the former members but is made the central theme of the paper. A framework drawn from Schutz's social phenomenology is used to show that in looking back, the former members constructed the reflective accounts on the basis of their unique personal biography, which was seen as leading them towards fascism, and the socially given and transmitted commonsense typifications which now give pejorative connotations to fascist support. The respondents accomplished the view of themselves as former fascists by presenting their personal biography in such a way as to confront and challenge these common-sense typifications, such that their membership became a rational act. This was achieved through the notion of crisis. This empirical demonstration of Schutz's ideas will be used in defence against his idealist critics who claim that this emphasis on socially given and transmitted commonsense typifications makes Schutz's phenomenology too socially over-deterministic. It will also be used against his sociological critics who claim that Schutz's social phenomenology is incapable of being operationalized in empirical research.