RAKE'S LACK OF PROGRESS

There is a long series of entries within my Collective section, where I am playing devil’s advocate, that is, defending the seemingly indefensible: the totalitarian ideal, against the stigma put on it by free society. My reader is strongly recommended to read some of my blog postings on this subject, such as Totalitarianism Without Prejudice, etc., published in January, November, December 2011, July 2012, and elsewhere.

The paradox of free society is that society as such was historically formed to restrict individual freedom, as an institutional means of protecting the weak from the strong, the powerless from the powerful, etc., rather than to promote a “free for all,” and thus, come to think of it, “free society” is a subtle oxymoron, although such an idea would be angrily dismissed by an overwhelming majority of “free” citizens. At the same time, what I call the “totalitarian ideal” is the most consistent and organic consequence of the whole concept of “society,” the dream end result of the Hobbesian Commonwealth.

Let us not argue about specific instances where totalitarian society has misfired, as was the case in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. To be quite honest, without Stalin’s totalitarian society, the USSR would never have been able to repel German aggression and to defeat Hitlerism as such. As homeopathy puts it, “Like cures like.” It takes a totalitarian to crush a totalitarian, and such was the result of World War II.

One may argue, of course, that totalitarianism may be OK only in wartime, whereas in time of peace,” give me… free society, or give me death!” But the following story says otherwise.

This entry’s title is a direct allusion to Rake’s Progress, the eighteenth-century series of eight paintings by William Hogarth, which became extremely popular when engraved and copied, and much later became the inspiration for Igor Stravinsky’s eponymous opera. The essence of Rake’s Progress is a morbid version of the prodigal son’s tale about the sin of licentiousness and immorality, ending in its eventual punishment.

Tom Rakewell is the prodigal son and heir of a wealthy English merchant, who comes to London, spends all his money on large living, women, and gambling, is locked up in London’s Fleet Prison for debtors, and finally loses his mind, ending his days in Bethlehem Hospital, the infamous lunatic asylum, which became known in history as the Bedlam. Unfortunately, British “free” society could not save poor Tom from… his own folly!

The point of this polemic entry is to repeat what has been said again and again, in the course of this section, about the virtual impossibility of any rake’s progress within a totalitarian society, such as Stalin’s Russia, where hard times, literally and figuratively speaking, awaited the adulterers, the profligates, the parasites, and, in fact, all non-conformists to the general idea of the public collective good.

In other words, what constitutes the frequent and well-familiar phenomenon of rake’s progress in any free society, becomes rake’s lack of progress in totalitarian commonwealths, by establishing such stiff penalties for the misbehavers that large numbers of them are effectively discouraged from socially offensive actions, and through the fear of severe social retribution (physical, financial, and other kinds, such as stigmatization, etc.) obtain a chance of becoming better citizens. There is no better motivation to resist a temptation than a reasonable expectation of swift and inescapable punishment. On the other hand, by severely curtailing individual freedom, totalitarian society saves its own Tom Rakewells from themselves, and from their ultimate unenviable fates.

This consummately conservative idea of protecting public morality against all kinds of immoral libertines, cultural body-snatchers and saboteurs has an understandable appeal, in terms of the conservative Western values promulgated, among others, by the eminently conspicuous Bill O’Reilly in today’s America, but start telling him about this upside of totalitarianism, and he will cut off your microphone!