Totalitarianism isn’t something that happens to other countries, those less fortunate or less civilized or a few times in our own shameful history. It’s a constant travel companion in a technocratic society that overvalues rationality and believes oneself capable of steering that which will not be steered. It is usually suppressed and kept well-controlled, yet always lurking beneath the surface of even the friendliest of populations.
The fascinating and terrifying thing about totalitarian regimes isn’t the horrific deeds they commit – mere dictatorships and warlords and psychopaths are fully capable of that too. Instead, as Hannah Arendt so forcefully explored, it’s that their overwhelming ideological control seeps into every fabric of society. It’s the fervor with which neighbor turns on neighbor, and friends and family members happily denounce trespasses of the stated dogma.
Nobody really seems in control of whatever force is pulling it forward and usually nobody is pulling corrupt, invisible strings: everyone is enchanted by the ideological spell under which they all operate. Once an avalanche has begun tumbling down the mountain, it exerts the most unstoppable of forces.
The collective hums together and upholds the rules, no matter how insane or ineffective at achieving their supposed aim. Totalitarianism is the blurring of fact and fiction, yet with an aggressive intolerance for diverging opinions. One must toe the line.
It’s not the topics themselves or the merits of their respective case that interests Desmet, but the way populations process them, get wrapped up in them, and psychologically attach themselves to their ideas.
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