Rethinking Fascism: Guattari’s Psychoanalysis of Microfascism
Greta Gerwig’s film Barbie (2023) highlights the contentions inherent in our twenty-first century understanding of the term fascist. In one scene, Sasha, an outspoken middle-schooler, calls Barbie a fascist for perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards, employing the term as a broad, casual insult. Barbie responds confused: “She thinks I’m a fascist? I don’t control the railways or the flow of commerce!”, denoting a textbook definition of fascism, historically anchored to early 20th-century authoritarian regimes. This scene demonstrates the evolving way in which fascism, once bound to the national specificity of Italian and German fascism, has become an all-encompassing piece of populist contemporary rhetoric to describe a heterogenic range of people or attitudes deemed to be authoritarian, far right or nationalist.
Guattari on microfascism
French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari offers an alternative way of understanding fascism. In the essay “Everybody wants to be a Fascist” (Chaosophy) Guattari dispels the idea of fascism being associated solely with governments or mass ideologies (macropolitics) and instead emphasises the impact of individual desires and actions (micropolitics), coining the term microfascism.[i] This refers to a fascism rooted in everyday culture and occurrences, specifically around power relations. It is the very “same fascism [but] under different forms which continues to operate in the family, in school, or in a trade union”[ii]. A perversive yet subtle force, driven by desire and the need for control, that manifests in social hierarchies of race, gender, and class, such as the proliferation of misogynistic comments to reinforce patriarchal order. Microfascism represents the less visible, emergent qualities of fascism before they become a fully-formed movement, party, or regime.
Michel Foucault underlines the commonplace, ingrained nature of microfascism in his preface to Anti-Oedipus (Guattari & Deleuze, 1972) which he characterises as:
“the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behaviour, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us” [iii]
From the onset of the book, Foucault prevents the reader from seeing themselves as exempt from microfascism. However, despite the distinction outlined by Foucault through categorising the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini as “historical fascism”, Guattari later emphasises that microfascism should not be seen as antithetical to macro-fascism; rather that microfascist actions are part of a continuum that could lead to a fascist mass movement, further implicating the individual and preventing a separation between them and the fascist “Other”. This connection between everyday microfascist behaviours and systemic macro-fascism is echoed in the current “veering of the French collective imagination to the right”[iv] in an episode of Mediapart’s À l’air libre titled L’extrême droite n’arrive jamais au pouvoir seule which details how the extrême droite don’t come to power in a vacuum, they require “des complices” to make their “promesse fasciste raisonnable”[v] and to bring them to power.
Pour une refondation des pratiques sociales
Figure 2. the mise-en page of the title of guattari’s text next to the newspaper name emphasises the weight and importance given to pour une refondation des pratiques sociales.
Weeks before his death in 1992, Guattari sent Pour une refondation des pratiques sociales to the Le Monde diplomatique. In light of his death the text has come to function as a philosophical testament calling for a “nouvelle renaissance” against the passivity and microfascisms Guattari viewed society to be steeped in.
The subheading ‘Un microfascisme prolifère dans nos sociétés’, is ominous and diagnostical in tone. “Prolifère” links to the scientific cellular biological metaphor inherent throughout Guattari’s work on microfascism, its links to cellular imagery (as seen in Fig. 3.1 – 3.3) and ideas of multiplying and spreading; implying a contagion or infection convey a sense of urgency and moral alarm. The present indicative tense emphasises the unfolding process which requires urgent attention, transforming microfascism from a static concept, a purely theoretical, philosophical statement into a living, expanding threat which is compounded by the inclusive possessive determiner “nos”, appealing to shared responsibility and complicity.
Figure 3. 3.1 – 3.3 Zeynep Gambetti’s cellular illustrations detailing from left to right: 3.1 Constitutional state, 3.2 Repressive authoritarian state and 3.3 Fascist totalitarian state
The persistent presence of microfascism
Instead of approaching fascism as a concluded phenomenon confined to the past, Guattari frames fascism as a “potentialité toujours présente” speaking to how microfascism manifests itself in everyday phenomena such as racism, militarism, the oppression of women and religious fundamentalism and therefore cannot be seen as something of the past. This is emphasised by the aforementioned cellular, multiplying semantic and metaphorical analysis of the subheading. The microfascism inherent in the everyday occurrences of people attempting to impose their own judgements or beliefs on someone else juxtaposes the consoling narrative of the anti-fascist graffiti of Mai 68 which states ‘LE FASCiSMe À LA POUBELLE de l’histoiRE’ (Fig.4). Whereas the graffiti imagines fascism as something to be discarded, Guattari cautions against viewing fascism as a “maladie transitoire” or merely an “accident de l’histoire”. Instead, his conception of microfascism reveals it to be embedded in subtle mechanisms of social order and interpersonal relations, insidious and persistent.
Figure 4. L’université Paris-Nanterre pendant Mai 68 ©Getty – Jacques Haillot
The fragility of human rights and the power of collective action
Guattari asserts that human rights “ne sont pas garantis par une autorité divine” but rather depend on “la vitalité des institutions et des formations de pouvoir qui en soutiennent l’existence”. In other words, human rights are neither inherent nor guaranteed but rather are historically produced, socially maintained and politically upheld. Underscoring their fragility is, perhaps, ever more pressing in the current US climate where universities, public broadcasting and political institutions are being eroded. However, in the face of the ever-possible resurgence of fascism and the accumulation of everyday microfascisms, Pour une refondation des pratiques sociales emphasises: not all is lost. Guattari speaks of the power of “les pratiques humaines [et] un volontarisme collectif peuvent nous prémunir de retomber dans les pires barbaries” and prevent the decline into fascist regimes.
The impact of mass media
The decision to publish Pour une refondation des pratiques sociales in Le Monde diplomatique, a monthly newspaper, rather than a daily or weekly newspaper enables deeper engagement rather than habitual skimming, as the next edition is a month away. The format and ethos of the newspaper, shying away from cover-breaking news and bite-sized reads, affords Guattari the ability to convey an in-depth analysis on microfascism. The length of Guattari’s text, totalling almost 5000 words is in line with his critique of the homogenising nature of mass mediatisation. He cautions the eruption of mass media, “all those institutions of society which make use of copying technologies to disseminate communication”[vi], specifically the impact generated by computers, by stating that “La croissance n’est pas synonyme de progrès”. Here Guattari effectively conveys the impact of media, and indeed what he refers to as “postmédias”, due to the reductive manner in which the mass media industry curtails and impacts “sensibilité, du geste et de l’intelligence”. Guattari further juxtaposes the equation that média = passivité, by continually confronting the reader, holding up a mirror to expose the microfascisms inherent in everyone. Pour une refondation des pratiques sociales contrasts both the passivity inherent in the téléspectateur, absolved of responsibility and what Guattari criticised as the “de plus en plus pauvre, de plus en plus stérile”[vii] analysis proliferated by mass media.
“It’s too easy to be antifascist on the molar level, and not even see the fascist inside you, the fascist you yourself sustain and nourish and cherish with molecules both personal and collective.” [viii]
Microfascism serves as an important reminder, that we are not outside of ideology, that we cannot escape it (ideology) nor should we be blind to the “fascist inside [us], the fascist you yourself sustain and nourish.”[ix] Guattari’s conception of microfascism, where fascistic impulses operate at a cellular level, moves away from the consoling narrative that “le fascisme est mort en 1945”[x]. Instead Guattari and Deleuze argue that “Fascism, like desire, is scattered everywhere […] within the whole social realm; it crystallizes in one place or another, depending on relationships of force” [xi]. However, in the post-truth, algorithmic age of heightened polarity, the concept of microfascism lends itself too readily to the overuseage of the word “fascist”. The article Everybody Wants to be a Fascist Online highlights the explosion of provocative fascist and anti-fascist rhetoric following algorithms that amplify extremist content and in their polarisation provide the space, and one might add safety, for people to exercise their microfascisms, both in their anonymity and echo-chamber which is created through said algorithms. Contemporary media infrastructures do not simply reflect microfascism but actively participate in its production, amplify microfascistic impulses, and normalise microfascistic tendencies.
Appendix
Fig. 1. Image taken from https://socialecologies.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/felix-guattari-ecosophy-and-the-politics-of-freedom/ and layered with Fig.5.
Fig. 2. Le Monde diplomatique (1992) ‘Octobre 1992 issue’, https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1992/10/
Fig. 3. Gambetti, Z. (2022) ‘Immanence, Neoliberalism, Microfascism: Will We Die in Silence?’, in Dolphijn, R. and Braidotti, R. (eds.) Deleuze and Guattari and Fascism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 50.
Fig. 4. L’université Paris-Nanterre pendant Mai 68 ©Getty – Jacques Haillot https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/avec-philosophie/manifeste-pour-une-vie-non-fasciste-3015098
References
[i] Guattari, F., Lotringer (eds.) (2009) Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972-1977. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), p. 155.
[ii] Ibid., p. 162.
[iii] Foucalut, M. (1977) ‘Preface’, in Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Translated by R. Hurley, M. Seem & H. R. Lane. New York: Viking Press, pp. xi–xiv.
[iv] Hazareesingh, S. (2015) How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People. London: Penguin Books. p. 288.
[v] Mediapart (2025) « L’extrême droite n’arrive jamais au pouvoir seule » [YouTube video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyeNR-jJuw&t=2s
[vi] Luhmann, Niklas, The Reality of the Mass Media, Cambridge: Polity (2000), p.2.
[vii] Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA) (1987) « L’Anti-Œdipe » de Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari https://mediaclip.ina.fr/fr/i24261863-l-anti-oedipe-de-gilles-deleuze-et-felix-guattari.html
[viii] Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by B. Massumi (London: Continuum, 2008), p. 215.
[ix] Foucalut, M. (1977) ‘Preface’, in Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Translated by R. Hurley, M. Seem & H. R. Lane. New York: Viking Press, pp. xi–xiv.
[x] Mediapart (2025) « L’extrême droite n’arrive jamais au pouvoir seule » [YouTube video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyeNR-jJuw&t=2s
[xi] Guattari, F., Lotringer (eds.) (2009) Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972-1977. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), p. 171.
Further Reading
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. B. Massumi. London: Continuum, 2008.
Foucault, M. (1977) ‘Preface’, in Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. R. Hurley, M. Seem & H. R. Lane. New York: Viking Press, pp. xi–xiv.
France Culture (2025) ‘Manifeste pour une vie non-fasciste’ [Podcast]. Available at: [https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/avec-philosophie/manifeste-pour-une-vie-non-fasciste-3015098]
France Culture (2025) ‘Peut-on encore parler de FASCISME AUJOURD’HUI ?’ [YouTube video]. Available at: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVc-JocD8Es]
Guattari, F. & Lotringer, S. (eds.) (2009) Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972–1977. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), pp. 155, 162, 171.
Hazareesingh, S. (2015) How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People. London: Penguin Books, p. 288.
Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA) (1987) ‘“L’Anti-Œdipe” de Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari’. Available at: [https://mediaclip.ina.fr/fr/i24261863-l-anti-oedipe-de-gilles-deleuze-et-felix-guattari.html]
Luhmann, N. (2000) The Reality of the Mass Media. Cambridge: Polity, p. 2.
Mediapart (2025) ‘L’extrême droite n’arrive jamais au pouvoir seule’ [YouTube video]. Available at: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyeNR-jJuw&t=2s]
Snyder, T. (2025) ‘Recognizing the signs of fascism today’ [YouTube video]. Available at: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PcxC1p-Z-g]