Quotes About Totalitarianism

The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives, and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction, while the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they're supposed to repeat and the society deteriorates at home.

Come negli stati totalitari, anche nelle società aperte esiste la censura, anche se assume forme diverse. Le domande offensive o imbarazzanti per il sistema dottrinale sono bloccate. Le informazioni scomode vengono soppresse. Non serve guardare lontano per giungere a questa conclusione; basta analizzare onestamente che cosa viene riportato dai media e cosa viene tralasciato.

The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning and are interpretable only at the level of 'Fuck You', so they can then elicit a perfectly predictable torrent of abuse in response. We've long ago reached that level.

Then he quotes Hannah Arendt from her book The Origins of Totalitarianism: "The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies with factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed" (quoted in Hedges 2017).

Propaganda is to Democracy what violence is to Totalitarianism

In October a decree barred non-Aryans (or persons married to non-Aryans) from work as editors. Nazi officials denounced "Jewish culture" in literature and the cinema; storm troopers burned books.1

That is the fantastic thing about the National Socialists, that they simultaneously share in a community of ideas with Soviet Russia and with Zion.

man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism). A

How is the existential vacuum to be explained? Unlike the animal, man is no longer told by his instincts as to what he must do. And in contrast to former times, he is no longer told by traditions and values what he should do. Now, knowing neither what he must do nor what he should do, he sometimes does not even know what it is that he basically wishes to do. Instead, he gets to wish to do what other people do (conformity) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

Instead, either he wishes to do what other people do (conformism), or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

Literature under despotism: "The personality of the artist should develop freely and without restraint. One thing, however, we demand: acknowledgement of our creed." - Dr. Rosenberg, Minister of Culture – Third Reich "Every artist has the right to create freely; but we, Communists, must guide him according to plan." - Lenin pg. 7

The truth has been abused under every Communist regime, due to the fact that no higher authority or greater good is recognized than the state itself.

Violence, of course, is generally associated with frankly totalitarian forms of anti-political utopianism like Communism, but the Second World War shows that liberal universalists are as capable of violence as Communists. They are just less capable of honesty.

If no divine law is recognized above the law of the State, then the law of man has become absolute in men's eyes--there is then no logical barrier to totalitarianism.

The new myth will not come from above. Only totalitarian ideologies, or ego-crafted appeals to our complexes, will appear in such fashion.

The Soviet Union was a one-party state. In such states, enemies of the party become enemies of the state, and the state can punish with full weight of prosecution.

I was born too late to have any temptation with communism, or at least Soviet-type communism. Travelling in Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, you clearly don't want to defend a system that would have empty shops and a totalitarian regime and internal passports.

The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.

Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status.

in 1942 in an essay in which he meditated on some "visions of a totalitarian future." In it, he explained why he thought the working class would be most resistant to an intrusive right-wing state:

Nazism and communism were the same thing; every man on the street knew it. The difference between them was a semantical matter for the fancier poli-sci professors at Fordham.