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Wingo 1 A Meditation on Totalitarianism The following is a reflection of my studies on Modernism and its influence on the rise of totalitarian followers, leaders, and regimes. This research is the result of conversations with a former student of mine. He is a brilliant young man and a graduate of a regional university, however, his parents were followers of Dr. William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, and he was raised in the Cosmotheist Community Church compound at Mill Point, West Virginia. Despite rejecting his parents’ ideology as a child, my student’s educational studies and business experience have led him to re-embrace National Socialism as the proper doctrine for his life and the goal for his country. As a liberal, in the original sense, and a proponent of free markets and globalization I found this extremely disturbing. It is my hope that the following paper will explain the logic of totalitarianism as a modernist expression and why Postmodernism is a dialectic reaction to this tendency in contemporary man. As often occurs I begin my discussion where I ended my research with the work of Eric Voegelin and his republished works edited by Manfred Henningsen under the title of Modernity Without Restraint. This volume contains three previous works of Voegelin: The Political Religions; The New Science of Politics; and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Voegelin is a victim of National Socialism and a contemporary of Horkheimer and Adorno of the original Frankfurt School. However, as Henningsen points out he differs from their view that the rise of National Socialism is a product of the Enlightenment culture in general but rather arises in Italy and Greater Germany due to the late experience of these cultural forces by the peoples of these regions. These same forces would also be played out in Wingo 2 other non-Western states under the Westernization of the global peoples in various totalitarian guises (4-6, 241). Voegelin states that “Totalitarianism, defined as the existential rule of gnostic activists, is the end form of progressive civilization” (195). He divides the gnostic into three forms: the teleological, the axiological, and the activist. He finds the first two forms firmly rooted in “the Christian ideal of perfection”. The movement of the mankind to reach and define the perfection for mankind is the focus of teleological and axiological gnosticism and Christianity from the advent of the great monastic movements of the High Middle Ages. The period of the Reformation commences the period of activist gnosticism with the paradigm shift from talking about perfection to the pragmatic pursuit of these goals and enactment of them. The end result is the formulation of the principles of the Enlightenment and the development of existential philosophy (298-303). Whether such continuity was evident to the general populace is inconclusive, however, the thread of thought is clearly there for the teleological and axiological thinkers. Gioacchino da Fiore formulated four critical components for the existential triumph of mankind: the Third Realm, the Leader, the Prophet, and the Free Community of Men. Each of these is a critical factor in the modern mass movements that Voegelin relates to the gnostic tradition (300-4). To apply these to Germany’s original National Socialism we would have the Third Reich (Third Realm), Hitler (the Leader), Hegel (the Prophet), and the Nazis and the German people (the Free Community of Men) in their final phase of theoretical development. Voegelin begins his modern analysis of events with the Puritan Reformation in the British Isles through the work of Richard Hooker. It is Hooker who discusses a revolutionary Wingo 3 concept of communication to the “multitude” that will enable the activist to pursue the implementation of the Puritan “cause”. Hooker’s analysis yields the following principles of Puritan doctrine: 1) The advocate will directly communicate with the target segment of society and deliver ongoing social critiques of the ruling class. 2) Communication will be consistent and regular in order to illustrate the outrage of the advocates and, thereby, develop in the mind of the receiver a sense of the forthrightness and dedication of the advocate. 3) All condemnation and errors will be placed at the feet of the ruling class and its institutions of government, thereby, providing a point of attack and a basis of change. 4) Execution of fundamental change mandate as the “sovereign remedy of all evils” (198). Clearly these are the same principles currently being utilized by the American polemicists and, basically, those of Joseph Goebbels’ principles of propaganda (Doob). Hooker also identified two other communicational innovations by the Puritans: the Manifesto, and the control and suppression of “theoretical debate”. Voegelin describes the concept of Manifesto as the creation of a “koranic” document, Calvin’s Institutes, which by virtue of its existence defines the standards of debate and empowers the Puritan government to dictate the correct evolution of the debate and the suppression of deviant opinions (200-5). Wingo 4 Obviously, the Reformation was still firmly rooted in the symbolism of Christianity even as it disrupted the basis of Christendom and the authority of the Catholic Church. It would be the work of Hobbes to remove God as the political determinate. His identification of the community of subjects whose social contract with “the Sovereign” is the rightful basis for government eliminates the need for God and the agency of the papacy. Voegelin states this is due to “the Hobbesian principle that the validity of Scripture derives from government sanction and that its public teaching should be supervised by the sovereign” (240). Only by surrendering personal freedom to the Sovereign, not God, can the individual man escape from “the state of nature” that “the human lust for power” has created in the human condition (307). With Nietzsche’s parable of “The Madman” gnostic thought eliminates the existence of God and reduces Him to a human construct. It also beckons for the advent of the “superman” who will reinvent himself as a god for mankind. It is only necessary for Marx to interpret Hegel’s “knowledge of the immediate or existent” into ‘the critique of heaven…into the critique of earth, the critique of religion into the critique of law, the critique of theology into the critique of politics” (282-6). In Voegelin’s conception it is through this evolution of thought that the social contract with the Sovereign is transformed into the “Volk” whose “spirit” is personified in “the Fuhrer” who verbalizes and enacts “the People’s Will” (65-6). Now we will examine totalitarianism from another philosophical perspective that of Alasdair MacIntyre. He is a confirmed moralist and his work, After Virtue, is an analysis of the defeat of moral and civic virtue by the Enlightenment. MacIntyre exhibits such a grasp of lingual analysis, use of historical techniques, and philosophical critique that one wishes Wingo 5 he was working on the present crisis of the Postmodernist condition rather complaining about the failure of Modernism. While a return to classical and Christian virtues is possible, it is also highly improbable that such a historical event would happen to mankind. MacIntyre is so consumed by a desire for a return to the classical orientation that he concludes his work with a call to arms for the formation of new institutions for the preservation of the classical tradition as occurred through the monastic period following the collapse of Roman civilization and the exclusion of the Enlightenment experiment within these institutions’ doctrinal foci (263). MacIntyre’s philosophical nemesis is Nietzsche and his ally is Aristotle in his moral debate. He feels these two philosophers comprehend the moral dilemmas of man better than any other philosophers of the two traditions. Due to the focus of this paper it is not the purpose to restate MacIntyre’s argument but rather to apply his analysis of Nietzsche’s thought to the Modernist affinity for totalitarianism. He recognizes Nietzsche as the new paradigm of Modernist moral thought through the rejection of the arguments of the Enlightenment: “…let will replace reason and let us make ourselves into autonomous moral subjects by some gigantic and heroic act of the will…” (113-4). MacIntyre feels that the superman is a fallacy, however, in his conclusion he admits that the concept has merit based on the historical condition of modernist societies (259). He also sees a clear link between the philosophy of Nietzsche and the managerial theories of Weber and states that in “...bureaucratically managed modern societies there will periodically emerge social movements informed by…” Nietzsche’s solutions (114). MacIntyre’s analysis of Weber is directed at the concept of power, authority, and effectiveness. He recognizes that “bureaucratic authority is nothing other than successful Wingo 6 power” and, therefore, there is a direct link between Nietzsche and Weber in the moral relativism of the Manager and the Superman (26-7). The line of thought has been further expanded on in the 2003 movie The Corporation. While the movie focuses on the sociopathic behavior of incorporated entities due to the profit motive, it also acknowledges the reality that the decisions of these entities are made by ordinary humans whose moral compasses have been eliminated in the pursuit of efficiency, effectiveness, and profit (Achbar). This leads one to see the difference between Weberian and Nietzschean concepts as merely a matter of degree not subject. MacIntyre sees the world as Weberian not Marxist. His basis is that “…in our culture we know of no organized movement towards power which is not bureaucratic and managerial in mode and we know of no justifications for authority which are not Weberian in form” (109). He also concludes that when Socialism does not embrace bureaucracy or totalitarianism it can only “…become Nietzschean fantasy” (262). Thus, mankind finds itself balanced between a world of consumerism operated by Weberian bureaucrats and lacking moral vision very like a stage performance with Supermen waiting in the wings to provide moral definition and a sense of fulfillment through their mass movements. MacIntyre’s work is also based on preexisting work by Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic. This is acknowledged by both writers and spoken to by Rieff in the 1987 preface of the reprint of his book. The Therapist of Rieff was combined with “…Nietzsche’s artist and Weber’s bureaucrat…” in After Virtue, and Rieff completes the actors of the contemporary world with the addition of the “Baconian Scientist” (ix-x). The Therapist is a corruption of Freud’s psychoanalytical process to the purpose of messianic movements in our society (Rieff). Rieff feels Freud’s practice of psychology was focused on preparing the Wingo 7 patient to be able to deal with the Hobbesian world through the individual’s balance within through self-analysis and that the use of psychoanalysis for cultural purposes amounted to the creation of a religion which to Freud would be an act of injuring the patient (33-4). In essence, Freud’s practice of psychology provides the individual the psychic basis for the role of Superman, Manager or Scientist in the world which the Modernist condition requires of them and presents the possibility of a “post-religious culture” (38-40). The first break with Freud is by Jung who formulizes archetypes as “…universal and historic forms of fantasy, sometimes memorialized as religions…” and, thereby, providing his patients and the community with a quasi-religious solution to Modernist condition (41-45). And what is critical to this discussion is that Jung has discovered a methodology for communication through the symbolic not as an art but as science – a science that will combine the arts from literature to architecture into a tool of politics in a rational way for the use by mass movements intent on societal disruption and change. Rieff specifically references the Puritans of England as “…the carriers of new moral demands…” who after utilizing their symbolic forms to achieve power will “…use the symbol system as a control device…for preservation and expansion of the system…first established…” by them and for their new order (64). The communicational methods of the Puritans, the Soviets, and the neoclassical economists of today are clearly apparent. Rieff also speaks of another student of Freud’s Wilhelm Reich who eventually followed his theories into the realm practiced by the Superman as a self-described FreudoMarxist. Reich felt that a successful revolution had a requirement to be “…psychologically deep as well as politically broad…” in order to avoid “…counter-revolution…” from the “masses” and this would be accomplished through a non-institutionally based religion of Wingo 8 the therapeutic (150, 177). This allows the Therapist to combine the role of the Scientist with the language of religion for purposes of cultural change and control (234-241). D. H. Lawrence is also treated by Rieff as a theoretical descendent of Freud. Lawrence rejects the sexual focus of Freud for love and sees love as the counterweight to psychoanalysis rationality (210). What is interesting about this theory is that in 1984 Orwell utilizes the power of love as the shield that protects his character, Julia, from the logic-driven control of the State (178). We must keep in mind that the emotive is a powerful force in mankind for contesting the rational. This is also the basis for Jung’s opinion of National Socialism in Germany. Rieff explains that from the Jungian perspective it represented “…a therapeutic realignment of an unbalanced German collective unconscious…” and a rejection of 19th century German rationalism (111, 132). This is due to psychoanalytic theory and Marxism sharing a belief in human power as a method for achieving an improved world condition for mankind (86). Rieff’s emphasis on the use of the arts as science reminds us of the importance of literature in reflecting and influencing the thoughts of a milieu. On this specific subject, it is important to look at the works of two writers in paraliterature, Jack London and Olaf Stapleton. In London’s totalitarian work, The Iron Heel, he outlines two alternatives for Man’s future, authoritarian capitalism and proletarian dictatorship. In the “Foreword” of the 1908 novel London details the historical narrative and academic basis of the events of the novel and post-novel: Out of the decay of self-seeking capitalism, it is held, would arise that flower of the ages, the Brotherhood of Man. Instead of which…capitalism, rotten-ripe, sent forth that monstrous offshoot, the Oligarchy. Too late did the socialist movement of the early twentieth century divine the coming of the Oligarchy…a fact established in blood, a stupendous and awful reality (13). Wingo 9 It is indeed possible to interpret the Fordist period of capitalism between the two eras of globalization as a “velvet-glove” version of London’s Oligarchy. This period is bounded by the Gilded Age and our current neo-Robber Baron mentality which are both the direct result of the globalization process. Fordism represents a progressive alignment of Big Business, Big Labor, and Big Government against the unskilled proletariat as London envisions in the novel but driven by welfare state cooption rather than direct class warfare. In 1935, Olaf Stapleton published Odd John, a doomed wish-fulfillment novel that acts as a Utopian criticism of a world balanced between the “communist” Soviet Union and the established fascism of Italy and Germany. Unlike London who writes from an IWW perspective, Stapleton springs from the British intellectual tradition. His Superhuman character provides a critique of his “current” state of modernism in three points: 1) The human mind has an innate propensity for hate. 2) The regime of capitalist accumulation forces the ruling class to fear the proletariat and to apply authoritarian measures of control. 3) Post-Great War and Great Depression society has begun to reject the teleological beliefs of modernism (62-63). Odd John’s prediction for Europe is “new Messiahs” based on “hate and ruthlessness” that will create societies “twisted into something bloody” (63). A sad, but unfortunately correct, prediction of the horrors of World War II for Europe and Asia, post-war China, Korea, Indochina, the post-colonial world, and the Stalinist Easter Bloc. Not surprisingly it is important that we review the founding of American science fiction in the 1920s. In discussing this subject we must remember that unlike for the Wingo 10 Europeans the experience of the Great War was not a collapse of Modernism but rather for Americans it was the triumph of technology, capitalism, and Americanism over the Greater German, French, and British empires and the rise of America’s proto-dominance of global commerce. As explained in Darren Harris-Fain’s Understanding Contemporary Science Fiction, 1926 was the year of creation by Hugo Gernsback of Amazing Stories, the first magazine dedicated to the promotion, in fictional format, of technology as the deliverer of humanity (9, 93). This is illustrated most vividly by Harris-Fain’s critique and the writing of the Postmodernist author, William Gibson, in his short story, “Gernsback Continuum”. Written in 1981, Gibson’s story is a denunciation of the ideals of Gernsback and Modernism through the adventures of a photographer on assignment to catalog the remaining architectural remnants of “American Streamlined Moderne” described by the character’s employer “…as a kind of alternative America: a 1980 that never happened. An architecture of broken dreams.” (Gibson p. 25, 28). As Harris-Fain explains “This futuristic yet historical architecture is explicitly connected with science fiction stories, pulp-magazine artwork…and movies such as Metropolis (1926) and Things to Come (1936)…” (94). The Gibsonian character’s immersion into this results in his timeslipping into Gernsback’s timespace continuum and seeing the following visions of this Modernist conception of the future world and its inhabitants: they were Heirs to the Dream. They were white, blond, and they probably had blue eyes. They were American….the Future had come to America first…in the heart of the Dream. Here, we’d gone on and on, in a dream logic that knew nothing of pollution, the finite bounds of fossil fuels, or foreign wars it was possible to lose. They were smug, happy, and utterly content with themselves and their world (HarrisFain p. 95, Gibson p. 33-4). Wingo 11 The character finds this a nightmarish experience due to the connection he has already made with the architecture that “…Albert Speer built for Hitler” (Harris-Fain p. 95, Gibson p. 27). He equates it to “…the sinister fruitiness of Hitler Youth propaganda” (Harris p. 96, Gibson p. 34). The character finds relief from these visions in what Fredic Jameson has described in Postmodernism, or The Culture of Late Capitalism as the “…degraded landscape of schlock and kitsch, of TV series and Reader’s Digest culture, of advertising and motels, of the late show and the grade-B Hollywood film, of so-called paraliterature with its airport paperback categories…” (55). This solution represents a connection that through Gibson gives us an insight into the dialectic importance of Postmodernism. As Jameson reminds us “…Marx powerful urges…to this development [of Capitalism] positively and negatively all at once; to achieve…a type of thinking that would be capable of grasping the demonstrably baleful features of capitalism along with its extraordinary and liberating dynamism…to lift our minds…to understand that capitalism is one and the same time the best thing that has ever happened to the human race, and the worst” (86). Let us turn now to another science fiction novel, The Plot Against America by the decidedly non-science fiction novelist, Philip Roth. I turn to Roth not for his novel but for his postscript entitled “Note to the Reader, A True Chronology of the Major Figures, Other Historical Figures in the Work, Some Documentation”. In this he records the actual historical record of the proponents and opponents of the America First Committee, a group of isolationists and anti-Semites such as Henry Ford and promoted by public figures such as Charles Lindbergh. Both Ford and Lindbergh have the dubious honor of being awarded the Service Cross of the German Eagle by Adolf Hitler and, despite much public criticism, of Wingo 12 refusing to return the award. Ford is the infamous author of the four-volume work, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem published in 1920. On September 11, 1941 Lindbergh delivers to the Des Moines’ America First Committee’s rally his “Who Are the War Agitators?” speech. Broadcast by radio across the United States, Lindbergh delivers a classic propaganda speech directed against the British, American Jewry, and the Roosevelt Administration and to the isolationist masses of America. It is made evident that Ford and Lindbergh favor a National Socialist state founded on Fordism rather than liberal democracy (364-391). It is not for nothing that Aldous Huxley’s ironically conceived and dystopian society in Brave New World takes its founding calendar from the birth of Henry Ford. Less we think that Western civilization is safe from a return to Modernism let us look at a recent article by Michael Lind, “America in the Age of Primitivism”. Lind fully recognizes the connection between Modernism and Totalitarianism; however, he states that “Totalitarianism is best understood as a perverted version of modernity.” Utilizing this rationalization he advocates the formation of “…a neomodernist party to oppose the reigning primitivists of the right, left and center… [who should] join the Regressive Party. Those of us who believe that the real, if exaggerated, dangers of technology, big government, big business and big labor are outweighed by their benefits can join the Modernist Party…the Modernists can resume the work of building a secular, technological, prosperous, and relatively egalitarian civilization…” Mr. Lind is the Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and the author of The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution (Lind). This is clearly a call for a return to Fordism, one that Lind is too clever to tie to the racism of Wingo 13 Americanism, and his organization, consciously or unconsciously, is on the forefront of a new American fascism based on the National Socialist model. Such reference to past solutions for contemporary problems was ruminated on by Jon Savage as early as 1984, “Craving for novelty may end in barbarism, but this nostalgia transcends any healthy respect for the past: it's a disease all the more sinister because it's unrecognised and, finally, an explicit device for the reinforcement and success of the New Right” (Merrick). This is a reflection of the transition from modernism to postmodernism, the shift from “accessibility and reliability of knowledge” to “being rather than knowing” (McHale). This death of critical knowledge is one of the central focuses of the transition from modernism and is one of the difficulties of postmodernity. It is evident to me that Jameson’s call for Postmodernism to create a “…new mode of representing [a pedagogical political culture]…in which may again begin to grasp our positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spatial as well as our social confusion” must be a critical priority (92). Jameson is not alone in this call for a redefinition of our culture from the collapse of modernity. Nancy Rose in her book, Marx, Nietzsche, and Modernity, illustrates the inability of thinkers to formulate a unified theory that effectively combines Marxian and Nietzschean thought which has created our current dilemma through Marx’ and Nietzsche’ destruction of the foundations of political theory. She states, “We have stood here for some time, trying to salvage something of our past. It is time to move on. We are left to create a new practical rationality which renounces domination and retains democracy. This end should be that beginning” (202-203). Wingo 14 In order to search for a postmodern solution it will be enlightening, and is in this specific case, entertaining, to turn to an artist of our times. In keeping with the nature of postmodernity it is important that we not seek among the intelligentsia but rather a man of the streets and Jameson’s aforementioned “Reader’s Digest culture” and “airport paperback categories”. While traveling to my father’s deathbed, like all of us on such a trip, I was reflecting on the life of my father who was born in 1919, came of age in the Great Depression, served in the U.S. military during World War II, and saw the collapse of Fordism and the American Dream. His life as a liberal thinker and entrepreneur had been embittered by the New Right and had left him cynical and detached from our current times. It was as though he had become a dying symbol of the impossible promises that Modernism and the Enlightenment had made to mankind. On one leg of this journey, I chanced upon an article in Delta’s Sky magazine on “The Black Eyed Peas”, one of today’s most successful and globalized musical groups. The creative force of the group is Will.i.am and his interests are not limited to club music but also the realm of ideas and their force upon mankind. In the interview by Steve Marsh, Will.i.am states the following: No, no, no. There’s no such thing as never said it before. Everything has been said. Anything that you can say, somebody’s said it already. It’s how you say it….There’s nothing new under the sun….It’s the combination. It’s like peanut butter and jelly. Now everybody wants peanut butter and jelly, but a long time ago when somebody wanted to put some old grapes and some crushed peanuts together, you woulda thought that s*** was nasty. [Question from Marsh]: Or the people who started drinking milk. No, the metaphor is cheese – because cheese is old milk. Like, ‘Dude, that milk has been sitting there for a month.’ ‘Dude, chill out. I’m making me some cheese.’ ‘What the hell is cheese?’ ‘Taste it’. ‘Mmm, this is good.’ ‘Now put it on a pizza.’ ‘What’s pizza?’ ‘You know, throw some tomatoes on it.’ ‘Tomatoes and old milk?’ Taste it!’ ‘This is good.’ That’s what music is. (54) Wingo 15 It is clear from this exchange that postmodern philosophy like Art Deco’s chromed toasters and Esso stations has become the popular and dominant perspective in our times. It is also apparent that similar to my father and Gibson’s character; we have abandoned the pursuit of discovery for the recycling of ideas from Marx’ dustbin of history in order to create the simulacra of our commoditized reality. As Jameson and Rose both correctly demanded of postmodernism, it must create a new rationale upon the foundation of modernism otherwise it will be just irrationalism or reactionary. This formulation of a new philosophical basis is critical to resisting the seduction of modernism and its offspring, totalitarianism whether in its benign version known as Fordism or its malignant, authoritarian forms. The story of my student, the turmoil between Islam and the West, and the spread of the security apparatus across liberal democracies illustrate concretely the danger of our foundationless condition. We will not solely find solutions in the religiosity of Rieff, the classic virtues of MacIntyre, or the Christianity of Voegelin or the relativism of postmodern philosophy. It must come from within our Postmodernist condition as expressed by our art, our diversity, our globalized perspective, and our 9/11 experience. We must find and make our pizza. Anything else will be Regressivism or the totalitarianism of Lind. Wingo 16 Works Cited Achbar, Mark and Jennifer Abbot. dir. The Corporation. Writer. Joel Bakan. Zeitgeist Films, 2003. DVD. Doob, Leonard. “Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda.” Public Opinion and Propaganda; A Book of Readings. www.psywarrior.com/Goebbels.html, n.d. Web. Gibson, William. “The Gernsback Continuum.” Burning Chrome. New York: EosHarperCollins, 2003. Print. Harris-Fain, Darren. Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Age of Maturity, 1970-2000. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. Print. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” www.scribd.com, n.d. Web. Lind, Michael. “America in the Age of Primitivism.” www.salon.com, 18 Jan. 2011. Web. London, Jack. The Iron Heel & Other Stories. Leonaur Ltd., 2005. Print. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. 2nd Ed. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984. Print. Marsh, Steve. “Black Eyed Peas.” Sky. February 2011: 52-55. Print. McHale, Brian. “What was Postmodernism.” www.electronicbookreview.com . 20 Dec. 2007. Web. Merrick, Jay. “PoMo: Everyone is Doing It.” www.independent.co.uk . 12 Sept. 2011. Web. Rieff, Philip. The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud. 1966. Preface. Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1987. Print. Rose, Nancy S. Marx, Nietzsche, and Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Print. Wingo 17 Roth, Philip. The Plot Against America. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Print. Stapleton, Olaf. Odd John and Sirius. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1972. Print. Voegelin, Eric. Modernity Without Restraint. Ed. Manfred Henningsen. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 2000. Print.