TOTALITARIANISM IN WIKIPEDIA

(This entry was originally titleless, being the second part of the preceding one, as it continues to tackle the overall subject of totalitarianism in popular definitions.)

Now, here is another characterization of totalitarianism, this time from the Wikipedia:

“Totalitarianism is a term used by some political scientists, especially in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.

The most influential scholars of totalitarianism have each described totalitarianism in a slightly different way. Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the official state ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, entailing repression or state control of business, labor unions, churches, or political parties. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, cult of personality, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, single-party state, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics.
Critics of the concept say that the term lacks explanatory power. They argue that governments which may be classified as totalitarian may lack the characteristics said to be associated with the term. They may not be as monolithic as they appear from the outside if they include diverse groups such as the army, political leaders, industrialists, competing for power and influence. In this sense, such regimes may have pluralism through the involvement of several groups in the political process.” (Wikipedia.)

My hat off to the Wikipedia for admitting up front, albeit not explicitly enough, that all modern definitions of totalitarianism are basically reduced to descriptions of specific regimes of the past and a few of them of the present, rather than treating totalitarianism as a general principle, and tackling it from that perspective. This is exactly my main objection to today’s political science, that instead of a dignified academic approach to this question, it indulges in passing its judgment on a number of selected cases, and having picked Hitler, among these cases, who on earth would dare defend totalitarianism, as in this deal defending totalitarianism appears tantamount to defending Hitler? By the same token, Stalin in this equation comes indistinguishable from Hitler, fellow totalitarians, and, once again, defending Stalin appears tantamount to defending Hitler!

Thus admitting the glaring inadequacy of defining a general through a handful of particulars, let us still try to glean some welcome generalities regarding totalitarianism, but first cleaning them up as much as we can from the prejudicial specific associations.

The key part in the Wikipedia quote above is that “the attempt to mobilize entire populations” is “common to all definitions” of totalitarianism. Ironically, the same definition can be equally applied to all democratic nations in a state of national war. (Such as, say, Britain in World War II.) Does it mean that, as the French saying goes, all cats are gray at night, or, in our case, all nations become totalitarian under attack? It was a totalitarian state of collective mind in America after September 11^th, 2001 that allowed the George W. Bush Administration to get away with the indefensible war in Iraq, although in normal times the false pretext and the real motives behind that war would surely have been severely questioned, and the war itself would have been prevented. Thus the American example supplies the second part of the Wikipedia quote as the attempt to mobilize population in support of the official ideology, in our case, the ideology of neoconservatism.

But enough of that for the moment. A second major flaw of political science, as reflected in the definitions of totalitarianism provided by the Wikipedia, is the probably deliberate incompetence of confusing wartime nations, serving as the specific substitute for the general phenomenon, with what I may call totalitarianism at peace. We will be talking about this in the next installment of this totalitarianism-in-definitions series.

It should be clear, however, that totalitarianism, both at war and at peace, presupposes a certain significant degree of political mobilization of society under the control of the state. This is wholly consistent with the nature of the nation-state, as long as we emphasize that the most natural organization of a totalitarian state is along the national lines. Incidentally, the last paragraph in the Wikipedia quote points not to the norm of a totalitarian state, but to deviations from the norm, which are bound to doom the totality-based principle of social organization for its ultimate corruption and degeneration. Mind you, I am not defending the purity of the totalitarian principle here, as if complaining about its distortion through improper practices, but I am as always only pointing to its legitimacy in social philosophy, its appealing consistency with certain historical forms of the expression of people’s will and its philosophical appeal as an ultimate objectification of the national will in the nation-state. As far as I am personally concerned, I would have much preferred a perfect apolitical utopia, where the government would dutifully take care of the absolute social necessities, and the good people would be left alone, to themselves, provided that such an Utopia had been at all possible. But unfortunately, when people are left to themselves, most of them tend to turn very ugly, and society suffers, often terminally and morbidly, as we have seen in many countries today, destroyed by ethnic, religious, and other animosities, just as their governments crumble.

…This discussion will continue in my next posting…

TOTALITARIANISM IN POPULAR DEFINITIONS

Having no friends in the world, totalitarianism, as a term, has been defined by its enemies. I am, therefore, welcoming the challenge of examining these hostile and prejudiced definitions, to find out whether in their unpleasant midst there might be hidden some clues in support of my thesis regarding the legitimacy of the totalitarian idea, and, going even further, that this totalitarian idea can be seen as a certain political ideal of what is known as the nation-state.


This entry opens a series on the conventional definitions of the term “totalitarianism,” and we start with the one provided by the fairly obscure conservative blogger Bruce Kelly, on the vox populi principle. Here it is:

“Totalitarianism, in political science, is a system of government and ideology, in which all social, political, economic, intellectual, cultural, and spiritual activities are subordinated to the purposes of the rulers of the state. Several features distinguish totalitarianism-- a form of autocracy, peculiar to the 20th century-- from such older forms as despotism, absolutism, and tyranny. In the older autocratic forms, people could live and work in relative independence, as long as they refrained from politics. In modern totalitarianism, however, people are made utterly dependent on the wishes and whims of a political party and its leaders. The older autocracies were ruled by a monarch or other aristocrat, who governed by a principle such as divine right, whereas modern totalitarian states are ruled by a leader or dictator, who controls a political party.” (From Brucekelly.com conservative blog.)

This very first definition that I am looking at already contains a fatal flaw that instantly disqualifies it from a meaningful consideration. Proposing to distinguish “totalitarianism” from “such older forms as despotism, absolutism and tyranny,” it only muddies the water, making the distinction virtually impossible. There is no mention, for instance, of the key relationship between totalitarianism and statism. Whereas the monarch’s motto is L’état c’est moi, the totalitarian leader’s motto is L’état c’est nous. This kind of distinction is never made here.

The drawing of a distinction between an autocrat “who governed by a principle” and a leader “who controls a political party.” is obviously a ridiculous charade. As if the notorious German Führerprinzip was not a principle, by which Hitler’s Germany was governed, the logical abracadabra here is too explicit, for us to engage ourselves its refutation.

As for the requirement of totalitarianism to “control a political party,” it is neither necessary nor sufficient, that is neither here nor there, as evidenced by the current totalitarian trend in President Putin’s Russia, as he has positioned himself above the partisan fray, allowing an ever-shrinking number of “parties,” subservient to his rule, to exist for the appearance of a pluralistic façade, but joining none, and relying in his power play on other, non-partisan, state structures. The United Russia Party today is by no means an equivalent of the old Communist Party of the USSR. It is not essential to the State, I repeat, although it can indeed serve as a useful tool for it. Incidentally, some military dictatorships do not require the forming of a supporting party at all, which does not suddenly make them exempt from their totalitarian tendencies.

And now, the last point about the above definition. It concerns the citizens’ participation in politics. Being apolitical is indeed not in line with the character of the totalitarian state, but then, putting oneself outside the polity, which is what the word apolitical actually signifies, should be hardly in line with the character of any nation-state, always built along the lines of social participation in the political process.

On the other hand, it is equally ridiculous to imply that non-totalitarian autocracies would prefer apolitical subjects, that is, would rather let them apolitically alone than have them drawn into the political process. I know for a historical fact that all classic autocracies just love to interfere in the lives of their subjects, thus it becomes impossible for the latter to stay apolitical, as their existence inevitably becomes politicized.

Our next entry will tackle the definition of totalitarianism in the Wikipedia.

WELCOME TO COMMUNITARIANISM!

The year was 1993. Just as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had fallen apart, and post-Soviet Russia had discarded her official adherence to Communism, The United States of America was about to embrace the ideas of a remarkable German-born Israeli-American sociologist, organized under the peculiar, similarly-sounding name “Communitarianism.”
What is the meaning of this suspiciously suggestive term “Communitarianism”? According to my intrepid old Webster’s Dictionary, “Communitarian is one who believes in, or is a member of, a communistic community.” Evidently, Communitarianism is an “-ism” having something to do with those “who believe in or are members of a communistic community”? Which, as I am finding out from more recent sources than my Webster’s, is not exactly the same thing, but not too far a cry either from what constitutes its modern-day attractiveness. In fact, both “old communitarianism” and” new communitarianism” are always about “community,” differing only in their prescribed dosage of the “communist” mother tincture.
Modern Communitarianism, particularly in the United States of America, is a response to the observed fact of a precipitous corruption of the foundations of American society, a fast-growing alienation of individuals from cohesive social groups, and a deepening degradation of the latter. Thus, the communitarian movement is presumably just an attempt to restore a sense of collective identity to American society, allegedly, without any effort on the part of the communitarians to set up communism in this country. Communitarianism, they say, “emphasizes the need to balance individual rights and interests with that of the community as a whole, and argues that individual people (or citizens) are shaped by the cultures and values of their communities.”

The Communitarian Network in America was created in 1993 by Amitai Etzioni [born Werner Falk; in my understanding, the assumed name Etzioni means “I am from Zion”], that German-born Israeli-American sociologist mentioned in the opening of this entry. The professed communitarian agenda seeks to bolster social capital and the institutions of civil society. “Many social goals require partnership between public and private groups. Though government should not seek to replace local communities, it may need to empower them by support strategies, including revenue-sharing and technical assistance. There is a need for study and experimentation with creative use of the structures of civil society, and also for public-private cooperation, especially where the delivery of health, educational, and social services are concerned.”

Judging by the sound of its name, “Communitarianism” would not be something that any aspiring American politician may openly want to support, although some of them, including President Clinton, have expressed their approval of Etzioni’s ideas, and President George W. Bush’s mostly declarative talk about the need for a public-private partnership in community programs, etc., under the umbrella of “compassionate conservatism,” sounds pretty much like an echo of Etzioni’s communitarianism, without having to say the bad word. Ironically, while these ideas seem likable enough for the politicians to raise them demagogically, the practice of them does not appear to be getting off the ground anywhere, and any time soon. There has to be a difference between capitalism and communitarianism, after all!

In my understanding, movements, such as Communitarianism, are a reflection of the failure of capitalism in America to solve the greatest social problem of alienation within the American society, threatening to tear it apart, and making the presumably preposterous predictions of an eventual disintegration and breakup of the United States into a number of smaller countries independent of each other, somewhat less preposterous and less surreal than what appears as the natural first reaction for someone, like myself, educated in the glorious history of this nation and accustomed to admire her from afar, until coming face to face with her present-day reality, which is becoming more and more incongruent with her much admirable past.

SOCIAL CONTRACT IN MY READING OF HOBBES

Although most citizens of free nations, even those who have read Hobbes, must ardently disagree with this pronouncement, both free and totalitarian societies are products of a social contract. While enough proof of this outrageous declaration, by circumstantial evidence, can be gathered from a multitude of entries generously sprinkled throughout this and other sections of my book, I am not too anxious to try to prove anything in this instance, because in cases like this, no matter how well one may argue his point, emotion will always trump logic, reason, or even a whole Harvard Law School of Devil’s Advocates.
Therefore, I simply and declaratively pronounce that Hobbes’s “great Leviathan, or rather that mortal god, to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defense” (Leviathan, Chapter XVII), the one, of course, born out of the free will of a free people, rather than out of the fear and necessity of the conquered, submitting to the power of the conqueror, contains in its character no indication of a particular inclination toward “representative democracy,” in our modern Western sense of the word.
My “agenda” here is not to promote some legitimate alternative to the Western-style democracy but only to clarify the reality of such alternatives under Hobbes’s own understanding of a social contract, or covenant. Read this:
“This is more than consent, it is a real unity (or “totality” in my description) of them all in one person made by covenant in such manner as if every man should say to every man: I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man or assembly on the condition that you likewise give up your right to him and authorize his actions... This done, the multitude so united is called a Commonwealth; or, in Latin, Civitas.” (Ibid.)
There is too much public fervor in the act of covenanting, as described by Hobbes, compared to the anemic acquiescence, indifference, and outright non-participation of the majority (not to be confused with the zeal of an enthusiastic, but preventively brainwashed, minorities of social activists) in our fêted “representative democracies.” This genuine total participation does not necessarily point to a totalitarian social order, but clearly indicates the presence of a strong element of the totalitarian ideal in all politically active societies.

EGALITARIANISM AND ARISTOCRATISM AS TWO FACES OF NATIONALISM

It is generally, and wrongly, assumed that the egalitarian slogans of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution point to the Marxian conception of a proletarian internationalism, which, in turn, must be by definition inimical to all forms of nationalism. What is completely lost in this mistaken assumption, is that the distinctive Russian brand of free brotherly egalitarianism has far more in common with these same concepts as promoted by the Great French Revolution, than with Marx, or any other internationalist ideas. In both cases, egalitarianism is a powerful expression of a self-asserting nationalism coming of age. In both cases internationalism serves only to bolster national pride, not as a substitute for it.

One people, one nation, one state. To understand these concepts, egalitarianism teaches that all citizens are parts of the whole, and, as such, all are equal. It was the caste internationalism of the French monarchy and by the same token, the caste internationalism of the Russian monarchy, where the upper classes seemed to have a much greater affinity with their rank-equals across Europe than with the lower classes of their own respective nations, that ushered in the nationalist revolts, and brought about irreversible historical changes. Without understanding this, it is impossible to understand history.

Curiously, Nietzsche, in this case, is resentful of egalitarian nationalism for the very same reason that he is resentful of religious egalitarianism, complaining that it is wrong not to take into account the difference in value between various individuals. His ideal of the new man is essentially internationalist, and in this rare blindness, disregarding the power of nationalism among the nations of Europe, and inflating the prospects of an internationalist transformation of world history, is his missed opportunity to appreciate and properly analyze subsequent history, which in large part he was able to predict with exceptional brilliance, but with a key piece missing, his jigsaw puzzle solution could not be, even at its very best, up to par.

However, nationalism is not all about egalitarianism. Only nascent nationalism is. As soon as nationalism matures, and this happens quickly, crude egalitarianism fades away, giving way to aristocratism in various forms. Thus, the French Revolution was quickly and fairly easily transformed into the Napoleonic Empire. In Russia’s case, however, society was transformed into a totalitarian entity, under Stalin, and the kind of aristocratism, which sprung out of it, would have been very much to Nietzsche’s liking: The Stalinist State placed an exceptionally high value on exceptional individuals, persons of superior skill, talent, and genius, recognizing that as they were all State assets, the difference in human value of these assets had to be just as important, or, perhaps, far more important than the difference between a skyscraper and a tool shack. No “egalitarianism” here, thank you!

Thus, the bottom line of what I have been saying here is, as reflected in this entry’s title, that egalitarianism and aristocratism in a nationalist society are by no means mutually exclusive, but that they represent the two faces, or, better to say, the two phases of nationalism: the lower and the higher one.

(In this connection, I advise the reader to read my entry Cult Of Personality, published on this blog as part of the multiple-entry posting under the title Sensus Communis, on January 16^th, 2011.)

FIFTH COLUMN

(Preface: A reference from Encyclopaedia Britannica: The term ‘fifth column’ originated with a 1936 radio address by Emilio Mola, a Nationalist General during the Spanish Civil War. As his army was approaching Madrid, a message was broadcast that the four columns of his forces outside the city would be supported by a “fifth column” of his covert supporters inside the city, intent on undermining the Republican government from within.
The term was used as the title of Hemingway’s only play, written while the city was being bombarded. The play was published in 1938 in his book The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories.)

This entry is a serious warning, with a touch of unavoidable sarcasm, to all societies of today and tomorrow. It is easy to see that its subject comes as an antipode to patriotism, but its ill effect on society is deliberately downplayed in the West. It used to be perhaps overplayed in Soviet Russia, tagged as cosmopolitanism, but after the terrible experience of the 1990’s, it must certainly have been put in the right perspective.

The bottom line is deceptively simple: each society has its own fifth column. Properly generalized, and put in historical perspective, starting with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, or, probably, even earlier, this is going to become a very interesting dissertation on the true meaning of the phrase “enemy among us.” (This critically important and explosively controversial subject is raised in different sections of this book.)

The least vulnerable to the virus of the fifth column society is the totalitarian nation-state: all for one, one for all. Uniformity, in this sense, if only in this sense, is a blessing.

It is easy to pinpoint a number of more or less obvious fifth-column problems in an empire state. However, the doom of the Roman Empire was not so much caused by an abundance of the foreign element within its borders as by the authorities in Rome developing an “outsourcing” mentality. By outsourcing their national security (relying on foreign mercenaries as their personal “bodyguards” in Rome and as armed protectors of the Empire along her borders), the “clever” leaders of Rome had signed her doom.

Another key feeder of the fifth column is the phenomenon of the so-called “dual citizenship.” In a separate Apte Dictum entry, I jokingly wrote that “Dual citizenship,” like “dual religion,” is a form of polygamy. It is no laughing matter, however, to allow dual citizenship to become a social norm. Strenuously disallowed in Russia, for instance (except for certain tightly controlled “exceptions”), it has become a rather common occurrence in the United States, boding ill for the future of the nation.

“Dual citizenship” means dual loyalties. I can well understand the position of  the American Globalists, who sincerely believe in the power of the dollar and in the power of the bomb, where the United States seems to hold a sure edge over all other nations. Consequently, they believe that such minor personal conveniences as multiple citizenships (and offshore bank accounts) do not matter on the large scale of things, as long as more dollars can be printed and more bombs are made. The concept of national interest has been effectively internationalized, and by being inordinately expanded to include every pan-globalistic whim of the imperial superpower, it has completely lost clarity and precision. If you start listening to the standard arguments of these neo-internationalist champions of a world without borders, where multiple citizenships are the norm, nationalism is… so yesterday! But, as modern history of colonialism, with its rise and eventual meltdown of capitalist empires, has shown us, nationalism in its fight against colonialism does not even require a parity of resources, but it successfully relies on asymmetrical struggle, in which national cohesion and collective loyalty to the same objective are bound to prove decisive against all types of superior force.

It is, then, within the context of a global clash between the self-imposing and the self-asserting nations, or, perhaps, under the conditions of any international conflict, where one side becomes blind to the nationalist factor, involved in such a conflict, that the issue of dual citizenship, or dual loyalty, becomes decisive, and may indeed upset the best-laid plans of arrogant giants turning themselves into mice, just because they can, and the irresponsible men behind the giants, who love to give them advice which does not hold water.

Returning to the question of each society having its own “fifth column,” it is too easy and too predictable to associate this “fifth column” with national sectarianism, quite successful in the last two decades in breaking up formerly cohesive composite groups into weaker and still unstable entities, ready to be exploited by the bigger players. But, ironically, the petty centrifugal forces at work here have found a far stronger centripetal counterforce, which leads to the emergence of new formations, held together by a combination of factors, which include religion, broader national and cultural affiliations, and, most importantly, a powerful spirit of resistance to the perceived neo-imperialist outside threat.

It is therefore not national sectarianism, but the internationalist diffusion of nationalism-as-such, promoted by the modern ideologues of Globalization, that I see as the greatest threat to the existing capitalist societies and as their most pernicious “fifth column.”

As for who is the ultimate beneficiary of their subversive actions, their “General Mola,” make your guess!

TOTALITY AND INTERNAL OPPOSITION

This entry continues the line of the previous one on Patriotism And Dissent. Considering that the essence of the totalitarian ideal is social totality, it appears that this ideal precludes internal opposition: otherwise, where do we find “totality”?

There are two interesting questions in this regard. Let us start with the first one: is an absence of opposition a good thing or a bad thing? A reasonable answer on the Western-type democratic-pluralistic side ought to be this: Opposition to power is historically a natural thing; it is also one of the prerequisites of civil society. Therefore, an absence of opposition is an unnatural thing, which implicitly indicates a bad thing.

It is hard to disagree with the logic of such an answer, but it does come from one side of the issue only. The other side, which in many societies constitutes an absolute majority of people, would argue that opposition is, on the contrary, a very bad thing, as it surely undermines social unity, cohesiveness, etc. In other words, it undermines the principle of social totality and weakens the nation’s ability to present a united front vis-à-vis her ever-watchful enemies, while providing no helpful reassurance to its friends.

Whom are we to believe? A Western democrat will definitely support the first opinion, while a totalitarian is sure to embrace the opposing view. But do we really have to jump to pre-packaged conclusions in this kind of debate? There can be no objectivity and no scientific value in taking sides before presenting an issue of this nature for a meaningful discussion. Indeed, we must first study an issue, especially one already tainted by prejudice, before taking sides. Otherwise, we become part of a herd, unthinkingly following the routine, pre-determined for us by the shepherds, rather than members of the human race distinguished from all other animals by our ability to think for ourselves.

In the present case, my purpose is not to uphold the totalitarian ideal against the Western democratic ideal, but only to restore the former’s legitimacy as a rightful participant in a serious intellectual discussion of the multitude of social issues that arise immediately whenever we stop taking the Western democratic ideal for granted by default, and deign to consider its theoretical alternatives.

Now, when we do consider the alternatives, we come to realize that here is not a black-and-white issue, but a full-blown case for a healthy debate, as each side comes to it armed to the teeth with its ‘pros’ against the other side’s ‘contras.’ Meantime, a follow-up question to the original first one comes up right now:

Regardless of its raw “democratic” appeal, how can we defend something evil, even if this evil did enjoy an undeniable mass support in its time? How can we defend the regimes that brought us Hitler and Mussolini? (Although Stalin was a bona fide totalitarian, I refuse to utter his name in the same breath as the other two. After all, Stalin was the great cause of those others’ defeat in World War II, and sparing him, the victor, the undeserved indignity of being put alongside the defeated, is only fair!)

To continue this logic, here is another subject of mass appeal: pornography. Are we going to defend it too, under the customary umbrella of free speech, and such?

No, I will never rise to the defense of pornography, seeing it as a horrific social evil. But in that case I shall never pretend to be an “objective rejecter.” On the contrary, I shall stipulate my treatment of that matter with an extreme prejudice. I do not have a similar prejudice, however, in the case of the totalitarian versus the democratic ideal.

Totalitarianism, and its logic of delegitimizing any opposition to itself, cannot be pronounced evil based on the experience of Hitler’s Germany. That will be a classic case of condemning the general on the basis of a particular: an elementary logical error. Curiously, there is a much better example of pure totalitarianism and its logical denial of the opposition. It is the Catholic Christian Church of yore, and the Vatican today. One can easily surmise the Church’s attitude to the opposition: as soon as a Church dogma becomes the law, its detractors are denounced as heretics, and anathemized. Can any modern detractor of totalitarianism speak out against the said practice of the Church, and against her attitude toward all opposition, and call her evil on that basis? I don’t think so. Mind you, I am not talking about an honest disagreement, but about a moral condemnation, which makes all the difference in the point that I am driving at.

Thus, we are coming to the concluding portion of this entry. There is an obvious contradiction between the principles of totality and opposition, in the sense that opposition is the logical nemesis of totality. Does this imply that the two are both physical and metaphysical foes? Yes! Does this imply that either one of them is evil? No!