What are some of the first things that come to your mind when thinking about the great dictators of the 20th century?
Doubtless there are an array of attributes that are associated with men such as Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, but I can venture that qualities such as “caring” and “compassionate” are probably not the first things that spring to mind.
And that is unfortunate, because it obscures an important part of why individuals and nations find totalitarianism initially so attractive. Totalitarianism never starts with steel fences and ID checkpoints. Rather, it begins with a leader who is human enough to empathize with your needs and just possibly shrewd enough to fulfill those needs as soon as sufficient power is entrusted to him.
When totalitarianism does arrive, it arrives as the concomitant of a population that has been oriented to view the state as benefactor and protector, even as the great mother. When Mussolini (above) first coined the term “totalitarianism” it was not a pejorative slur, nor was it something connoting tyranny. Rather, he used the word to refer to a humane society in which everyone was taken care of and looked after by a state which encompassed all of life within its grasp.
Even before he was elected President, Obama identified himself with a type of “caring totalitarianism”, echoing the Prussian Chancellor Heir Bismarck (a similarity I have noted
here) in elevating security above liberty. That is why the Obama administration
has made clear that they never want a good crisis to go to waste. Times of crisis are opportunities for the government with totalitarian aspirations if the populace can be convinced that the needs of the crisis can only be addressed by the augmentation of power. If the people have already been oriented to view their leader as caring, they will gladly yield up their liberty for the security he promises to bring.
Because it is not the job of the government, compassion from the state is usually a prelude to tyranny. The beneficent state naturally morphs into a malignant state….And that is why I did not vote for Obama. I see in him someone who is honestly, sincerely and wholeheartedly acting from altruistic motives, and that is why I consider him so dangerous. As C.S. Lewis again put it, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." See R. Andrew Newman, ‘Stay Out of Our Wardrobe! The libertarian Narnia state’
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Comments
I must be missing something when I read this article. I'm trying to understand what aspects of the Obama administration that the author considers to be totalitarian. I would've liked to have seen some specific examples of that included in the article.
Also, I find this interesting that the author of this article mentions "elevating security above liberty" by utilising a crisis to pass overbearing government legislation. Mainly because that's exactly what Bush did after 9/11 when he passed the Patriot Act. If I had read the Patriot Act before the 2nd election for Bush and realised how much it stomped all over our civil liberties, I would've never voted for him. Alas, that was my ignorance for that one.
I agree. You are missing something.
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