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Title: The New Totalitarians Are Here
Source:
thefederalist.com
URL Source: http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/06/the-new-totalitarians-are-here/
Published: Jul 8, 2015
Author: Tom Nichols
Post Date: 2015-07-08 14:59:21 by CZ82
Keywords: None
Views: 1198
Comments: 20
The New Totalitarians Are Here Totalitarians want their rule, and their belief system, to be accepted and self-sustaining - even if it takes bludgeoning every last citizen who disagrees. By Tom Nichols July 6, 2015 There’s a basic difference in the traditions of political science between “authoritarians” and “totalitaritarians.” People throw both of these words around, but as is so often the case, they’re using words they may not always understand. They have real meaning, however, and the difference between them is important. Simply put, authoritarians merely want obedience, while totalitarians, whose rule is rooted in an ideology, want obedience and conversion. Authoritarians are a dime a dozen; totalitarians are rare. The authoritarians are the guys in charge who want to stay in charge, and don’t much care about you, or what you’re doing, so long as you stay out of their way. They are the jefe and his thugs in a brutal regime that want you to shut up, go to work, and look the other way when your loudmouthed neighbor gets his lights punched out by goons in black jackets. Live or die. It’s all the same to the regime. Totalitarians are a different breed. These are the people who have a plan, who think they see the future more clearly than you or who are convinced they grasp reality in a way that you do not. They don’t serve themselves—or, they don’t serve themselves exclusively—they serve History, or The People, or The Idea, or some other ideological totem that justifies their actions. They want obedience, of course. But even more, they want their rule, and their belief system, to be accepted and self-sustaining. And the only way to achieve that is to create a new society of people who share those beliefs, even if it means bludgeoning every last citizen into enlightenment. That’s what makes totalitarians different and more dangerous: they are “totalistic” in the sense that they demand a complete reorientation of the individual to the State and its ideological ends. Every person who harbors a secret objection, or even so much as a doubt, is a danger to the future of the whole project, and so the regime compels its subjects not only to obey but to believe. Authoritarians merely want obedience, while totalitarians, whose rule is rooted in an ideology, want obedience and conversion. This is what George Orwell understood so well in his landmark novel “1984.” His dystopian state doesn’t really care about quotidian obedience; it already knows how to get that. What it demands, and will get by any means, is a belief in the Party’s rectitude and in its leader, Big Brother. If torturing the daylights out of people until they denounce even their loved ones is what it takes, so be it. That’s why the ending of the novel is so terrifying: after the two rebellious lovers of the story are broken and made to turn on each other, the wrecks left by the State are left to sit before the Leader’s face on a screen with only one emotion still alive in the husks of their bodies: they finally, truly love Big Brother. Americans Are Getting Too Comfortable With Thought Control I’ve gone down this road of literary and academic exposition because I fear an increasing number of my fellow Americans are, at heart, becoming totalitarians. Now, by this I do not mean America is creating Nazis or Stalinists. It’s true, of course, that both Nazism and Stalinism were species of the genus “totalitarian,” but both have since died the deaths they deserved. I mean that ordinary people, and not a few opinion and thought leaders, are adopting the same insane belief that human minds can be molded and shaped and made to think in new ways by sheer force. People like Takei and Bennett-Smith are lighting their torches and demanding rough justice even on issues where they’ve already won. Yes, I mean people like actor George Takei and his odious attack on Justice Clarence Thomas. Takei called Thomas a “clown in blackface” and said Thomas had “abdicated” his status as an African-American. (Also, much like “1984,” some of the journals ostensibly committed to liberal thought have already tried to scrub their pages of Takei’s comments and consign the matter to the Orwellian memory hole.) I also include people like Quartz.com journalist Meredith Bennett-Smith, who disagrees with writer Cathy Young about sexual conduct codes on U.S. campuses, and thus wants the Washington Post never again to publish the “horrendous rape apologist” Young in its pages. This isn’t political debate or even name-calling: this is the incendiary dehumanization of an African-American judge and a female writer. I grant that overall, American political debate on all sides has become nastier and less tolerant. What makes these kinds of attacks, however, smack of totalitarianism—and I could reel off dozens more examples, but your computer would run out of pixels—is that people like Takei and Bennett-Smith are lighting their torches and demanding rough justice even on issues where they’ve already won. In other words, it isn’t enough that Thomas was in the Court’s minority, or that no college in America is bothering to listen to Young. They want Thomas and Young silenced, stripped of their status in their peer group, and to recant—even after being defeated in public on the issue at hand. That’s terrifying, because it means that for a fair number of people in what’s supposed to be a democracy, “winning” in any normal political sense simply isn’t enough. They are not really trying to capture something as pedestrian as political equality, nor are they satisfied if they get it. They are not really seeking a win in the courts, or a legal solution, or a negotiated settlement. Those are all just merit badges to be collected along the way to a more important goal: what they really want, and what they in fact demand, is that you agree with them. They want you to believe. Love Your Terror It is not enough for these Americans to say: “I have had my day in court and prevailed.” In effect, they now add: “You do not have the right to hold a different opinion, even if you lose in the public arena. You may not hold on to your belief as a minority view, or even as a private thought. And if you persist and still disagree, I will attack you without quarter and set others on you to deprive you of your status in your profession, of your standing in your community, and even of your livelihood.” Even after losing, you will be forced to admit the error of your ways. This attitude promises social warfare without end, because there is no peace to be had until the opposing side offers a sincere and unconditional surrender. It means that the people on the Left taking bakers to court, de-Africanizing Justice Thomas, and making Young an accomplice to rape will not be satisfied with winning. For the new totalitarians, prevailing in the courts or at the ballot boxes isn’t enough if there’s still a suspicion that anyone, anywhere, might still be committing thoughtcrime. Most of all, they do not want you, Present Reader, to even think about agreeing with people like Thomas or Young. By attacking everyone in the public sphere from judges to writers, they’re sending a clear warning that there’s plenty of room in the bonfire. It is a vow that you will be held to account for your personal thoughts, even if you’ve already been defeated in a democratic or judicial contest. No, even after losing, you will be forced to admit the error of your ways. You must accept that you’ve sinned. You must discard your own values and accept the ideas of your betters. You must denounce yourself for undermining the construction of a better world. You, too, must love Big Brother. Tom Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor in the Harvard Extension School. Views expressed here are his own.
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#1. To: CZ82 (#0)
Lotta meat in this excellent essay. No, even after losing, you will be forced to admit the error of your ways. You must accept that you’ve sinned. You must discard your own values and accept the ideas of your betters. You must denounce yourself for undermining the construction of a better world. You, too, must love Big Brother."
This should be required reading for every student in high school, and again for every student in his/her second year of college.
In two words: destructive cultists.
The only way the "decent" America will survive is if the 5-10% take it back from the subversives and make sure they are stripped of their rights, citizenship, ill gotten gains and sent elsewhere to be a festering boil on someone else's ass... “Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
Works for me. Heh...LOL@ festering boil on someone else's ass (Meggy's planet?) Who wouldn't love a new republic with and new constitution with those guidelines? Divvy it all up. We'll take our God, our new (slightly adjusted constitution) and new nation, and jettison those whose totalitarian, militant homofascist Godless fantasy and communistic nightmare of hate, sadomasochism, and "tolerance" for violence suits them. OH WAIT -- they've already chosen hell, haven't they?
and jettison those whose totalitarian, militant homofascist Godless fantasy and communistic nightmare of hate, sadomasochism, and "tolerance" for violence suits them. "Boat people" in reverse, talk about poetic justice! :) “Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
And Mike's!! “Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
Smart guy, this Tom Nichols.. Let's see if we can get some comments from the authoritarian crowd..
Uncle Willie-Joe posts...nods...posts...nods....clicks his boot heels...then salutes his choo-choo train set whirling around a track of a mock Kremlin, circa 1920. P.S. -- they ARE "on time" :-)
Excellent essay. I just posted it on FB so some of my **ahem** statist relatives might be educated. I won't hold my breath, though.
I get it. Establishment Rs are mostly authoritarians; I doubt any of them are actually totalitarians since they have no ideology. Pretty much all the Ds are totalitarians - the one's who rule, anyway.
That does seem to be where we are headed. It will most likely get pretty ugly before it is all settled. BLOAT Si vis pacem, para bellum
Excellent essay. Thanks for posting!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
150+ million people in America get monetary support from govt. 80 million working to keep them fed. The tipping point is long past, and we either keep the hamster wheel turning, or they will eat us. We need to get control fast, or many people die. Someday "daddy and mommy" have to retire, I say we cut off "their means of support". He who has "ears let him hear". We have the power to go "Galts gulch", and stay home doing it. Let them live on total deficit spending.
Orwell was probably too pessimistic. Imperfect, susceptible and changeable people cannot built a perfect, inexorable and permanent system of oppression. Or he was too optimistic - he had Germanic trust in unlimited potential of human ingenuity. That is why the original dystopia vision (the one that inspired 1984) might be more accurate - "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin. His quotes: “True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.” “You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.” “A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.” “The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.” “It is an error to divide people into the living and the dead: there are people who are dead-alive, and people who are alive-alive. The dead-alive also write, walk, speak, act. But they make no mistakes; only machines make no mistakes, and they produce only dead things. The alive-alive are constantly in error, in search, in questions, in torment.”
I'm actually surprised this has seen the light of day considering the author works as a government employee. “Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
Good article. Thanks.
"What makes these kinds of attacks, however, smack of totalitarianism—and I could reel off dozens more examples, but your computer would run out of pixels—is that people like Takei and Bennett-Smith are lighting their torches and demanding rough justice even on issues where they’ve already won. In other words, it isn’t enough that Thomas was in the Court’s minority, or that no college in America is bothering to listen to Young. They want Thomas and Young silenced, stripped of their status in their peer group, and to recant—even after being defeated in public on the issue at hand....
Yup. We must be compelled to love our perverted judge and executioner. Then tar and feather ourselves. About "justice"? Of course not -- never was. This is about ridicule, spite, revenge, and hate. By a bunch of totalitarians whose ironic mantra is..."love, tolerance, and kumbaya." As they walk you down the gangplank at the point of a machete. The tipping point is rapidly approaching. One America or the other will remain. Or even several Americas.
#2. To: CZ82 (#0)
#3. To: CZ82, Big Brother (#0)
You, too, must love Big Brother.
#4. To: CZ82 (#0)
#5. To: Liberator (#1)
One America or the other will remain. Or even several Americas.
#6. To: hondo68 (#3)
"If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever. The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one, don't let it happen, it depends on you"!!!
#7. To: CZ82 (#5)
The only way the "decent" America will survive is if the 5-10% take it back from the subversives and make sure they are stripped of their rights, citizenship, ill gotten gains and sent elsewhere to be a festering boil on someone else's ass...
#8. To: Liberator (#7)
festering boil on someone else's ass
#9. To: Liberator (#7)
(Meggy's planet?)
#10. To: misterwhite, gatlin, grandisland, willy green, nolu chan, Y'ALL (#0)
I fear an increasing number of my fellow Americans are, at heart, becoming totalitarians.
#11. To: tpaine, Willie Green (#10)
Let's see if we can get some comments from the authoritarian crowd..
#12. To: CZ82 (#0)
#13. To: All (#12)
Simply put, authoritarians merely want obedience, while totalitarians, whose rule is rooted in an ideology, want obedience and conversion.
#14. To: Liberator, tpaine (#11)
P.S. -- they ARE "on time" :-)
#15. To: Liberator (#1)
" The tipping point is rapidly approaching. One America or the other will remain. Or even several Americas. "
#16. To: CZ82 (#0)
#17. To: Stoner (#15)
#18. To: CZ82 (#6)
If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
#19. To: rlk, redleghunter (#2)
This should be required reading for every student in high school, and again for every student in his/her second year of college.
#20. To: CZ82 (#19)
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