TOTALITARIANISM WITHOUT PREJUDICE: RECAP

(See my mega-entry Totalitarianism Without Prejudice, published on this blog on January 17^th, 2011.)

Before moving on, I’d like to pay a self-congratulatory tribute to the title of my comprehensive blog posting on totalitarianism, which was Totalitarianism Without Prejudice. Not only was it an excellent title for the whole Totalitarian subsection of the Collective Guilt And Glory section, but it is also a basic methodological tool, to apply to all controversial subject matter which, for any reason whatsoever, happens to be subjected to a serious scientific inquiry. It is, indeed, a continuing shame that whenever scholars address this fascinating subject, they mandatorily and invariably treat it with extreme prejudice, as if there were nothing more to the term than those “loser” regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, and the Western stamp of opprobrium on Stalin’s Soviet Russia. As if Giovanni Gentile, who ascribed a thoroughly positive meaning to this term, was some kind of deluded dirty-minded psycho! As if the old man Plato, who is universally recognized as one of the greatest minds, if not the greatest, in the history of mankind, had not a long time ago described a totalitarian society as the ideal society, in his Politeia! (See my entry Plato’s Totalitarian Politeia posted on this blog on December 2, 2011.)

In other words, there is a definite difference between, say, Hitlerism and totalitarianism. The latter term, as I said before, was not even invented by its post-WWII critics, but was treated as a positive term by its chief promoter (Gentile), a humanistic philosopher at that! Why aren’t we ever curious to look at the term as it evolved in historical usage, why aren’t we intellectually honest and politically brave enough to disassociate it from the stigma of its tainted use?

It is every scholar’s duty to approach all subjects of his or her study without prejudice, and yet they have all consistently failed this task whenever a subject has been tinged with political controversy where it seems to be their solemn duty to take sides on the “correct” side of the issue, and to heck with “objectivity”!

I am therefore gratified that at least I myself find it possible, no matter what, to present the reader with this honest and totally unbiased discussion of one of the most mishandled and politicized terms in the lexicon of political science. Totalitarianism without prejudice? Why don’t we study all controversial subjects without prejudice? Don’t we have enough confidence in our moral fiber that all such subjects which deserve severe condemnation can be properly condemned and sentenced without an a priori verdict?