ABSTRACT
Much of the confusion about fascism stems from the multitude of conflicting attempts to explain it in terms of some single factor. There are basically three types of objections to a study of fascism. First, serious consideration of fascism is rejected on deeply emotional grounds. Second, there is the position that fascism is irrelevant. Third is the view that fascism as a generic category is without any useful meaning. The refusal to come to grips with fascism because fascist and Nazi are equated is logically unacceptable. The most popular explanations of fascism, especially the original, Italian variety, have been fascism as: the result of moral crisis; the product of widespread psychological disabilities; the consequence of the entrance of the "amorphous masses" into politics; and the result of class struggle. The view of fascism as the result of individual and collective psychopathy is "almost as popular as the interpretation of Fascism as the result of moral crisis.
