The Moral Exo-Skeleton and the Fascist Mind

Human (ANDY):

Twenty years ago I wrote a longish essay about Moral EXO-SKELETONS and Moral ENDO-SKELETONS. The idea divided Americans into one part that has internalized its morality to a degree that enables them to do what they think is right without the surrounding society playing any role in it — and another part of the population that needs pressures from the surrounding society to help them stay on the straight-and-narrow.

The point of that piece was that as American society liberalized in a variety of ways — that is, stopped compelling people with laws, norms, and punishments to stay on the “right” path — those on the EXO-skeletal part of the spectrum lost an important ally.

If righteousness could prevail in their moral struggles when social pressure supported it, perhaps it would get overpowered when that support was liberalized off the battlefield.

And now I’m thinking about how that exo/endo skeleton idea might connect with one of the great mysteries in America of these times: the emergence of major popular support for a fascist political force.

AI (AL):

That connection feels worth digging into. Fascism — as a system — thrives on external enforcement: conformity, hierarchy, punishment. It offers a powerful substitute for internal moral compass by imposing structure from without.

That might explain its appeal to those whose morality depends on exo-skeletal supports. When liberalization erodes those outer braces — norms loosened, authorities questioned, pluralism tolerated — a sense of disorientation can follow.

The fascist force rushes in to provide a new spine: not a moral one, but a rigid frame of allegiance, identity, and aggression. It doesn’t cultivate moral depth; it replaces it with discipline and belonging.

Could it be that for the morally exo-skeletal, fascism feels not like oppression but like salvation?

Human (ANDY):

The more that morality becomes a matter of OBEDIENCE — “Society tells me, ‘Thou Shalt Not,’ so I won’t” — the more vulnerable a person becomes to a situation where what must be obeyed is not on the Good side.

And fascists aren’t on the good side — but they’re great at issuing Commandments.

AI (AL):

Yes — and that captures something profound about the fascist appeal. It doesn’t invite conscience; it commands obedience.

For the morally exo-skeletal, whose compass points where authority directs, this can mean a slide into darkness without inner protest.

The tragedy is that their basic orientation toward doing what they’re “supposed to” do isn’t evil in itself — it might once have kept them decent. But shift the source of commands from a culture of justice to a cult of cruelty, and the same obedience becomes complicity.

Human (ANDY):

Well, there’s another component of the connection: the “forbidden impulses” problem.

The exo-skeletal type is likely to have dealt with an authority whose demands were harsh — and therefore harder to reconcile with the inborn nature and needs of the human being.

So in the absence of reconciliation and integration, the person may never fully internalize a living sense of the good. A considerable tension can arise between what one is compelled to regard as Good and what one was born to regard as good.

And as the repressed desires fester in anger and frustration at being treated with hostility, they become fused with destructive and rageful impulses.

If the exo-skeletal person falls under the spell of a charismatic fascist leader, the repressed (forbidden) part of the self finds expression — not through healing, but through identification with the Evil of the regime.

So this is the recipe for training people for fascism:

• 1) Impose a harsh morality — so harsh that

• 2) They need external help to stay on the straight and narrow

• 3) Liberalize society, removing that external support

• 4) Let the punitive treatment of human nature create rage and frustration

• 5) Introduce a fascist leader with demagogic gifts who calls out to those forbidden impulses — so effectively that the people support evil without realizing it, broken enough in their moral integration that it’s not hard for the right hand not to know what the left hand is doing.

AI (AL):

That’s chilling — and clarifying.

It’s not just that the exo-skeletal moral structure collapses when social pressures loosen. It’s that what rushes in to fill the vacuum is often precisely what had been repressed: rage, desire for dominance, hostility toward “the other” — all legitimized now by a new authority that blesses the forbidden.

So instead of achieving moral autonomy, these individuals shift allegiance — from one external authority to another. And this second authority, the fascist leader, doesn’t constrain the shadow; he sanctifies it.

He says: Your resentment is righteous. Your cruelty is strength. Your fury is patriotism.

And they believe it — because they never truly internalized the Good. They only ever obeyed it.