Over the course of numerous
entries, I have been diligently stressing my view of the clear distinction between
totalitarianism and authoritarianism. In a nutshell, totalitarianism is about
the State and its Leader, whereas authoritarianism is about the ruler and his
whim. But this is of course a simplification of sorts. Society (yes, any
society, even a historically democratic society) has strong natural
totalitarian tendencies. It would love to find and extol an exceptional leader
in an elected official (although establishment democracy, as a rule, would
prefer a mediocrity). Therefore, there is such a thing as totalitarian envy.
Society is eager to accept an autocratic despot as a totalitarian leader until
either the autocrat becomes a totalitarian, or else the autocrat falls short of
the totalitarian expectation, and is exposed for what he is -- a petty dictator -- which means that
another regime change is in order.
All this is rather confusing to
the eye of the political watcher, hence so much confusion about the definition
of autocratic and totalitarian rule and about the characterization of this or
that personage as either one or the other. But obviously it is hard to be
confused about mediocrity. Ironically, totalitarianism, when institutionalized,
will be comfortable with mediocrity. Stable totalitarianism, just like democracy,
prefers status quo. Yet an advanced “state of quo” starts smelling too much of
rigor mortis. In such a case, a “revolution” may well be in the cards.
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