Totalitarianism eluded systematic study until war’s end because of its secrecy and deliberate fact-torsion

Evidence

That totalitarianism was a new species of power had confounded its analysis from the start, as both its Russian and German variants swept through those societies, challenging the foundations of Western civilization. Although these totalitarian regimes began to take root years before World War II—first in Russia in 1929 with Stalin’s ascension to power and then in Germany in 1933 with Hitler’s installation as chancellor—they eluded systematic study until the end of the war. Analysis was impeded in part by the sheer mystery and perpetual movement of the whole enterprise: the secret plans executed by secret police, the silent complicities and hidden atrocities, the ceaseless transformation of who or what was up or down, the intentional torsion of facts into anti-facts accompanied by a perpetual deluge of propaganda, misinformation, euphemism, and mendacity. The authoritative leader, or “egocrat,” to use the French philosopher Claude Lefort’s term, displaces the rule of law and “common” sense to become the quixotic judge of what is just or unjust, truth or lie, at each moment. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1128

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Lefort’s ‘egocrat’ — the leader who displaces law and common sense to judge truth and justice arbitrarily. A useful term for characterizing surveillance capitalism’s authority figure.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the ‘egocrat’ concept as a lens — is Google’s unilateral redefinition of privacy norms an egocratic move in Lefort’s sense? The author herself may be building toward this parallel.
• XREF: connects to: The crisis seemed confusing because elites deliberately obscured the truth — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1769; Eyewitness-era contemporary histories of totalitarianism outlasted later academic biographies; Nazi secrecy about extermination emerged only during the fully totalitarianized wartime phase — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2678 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Eyewitness-era contemporary histories of totalitarianism outlasted later academic biographies #complicates (0.75)
• Nazi secrecy about extermination emerged only during the fully totalitarianized wartime phase #qualifies (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2678
• Soviet bureaucratic record-keeping itself destroyed reliable historical evidence #exemplifies (0.75)
• Totalitarian regimes adopt compartmentalized secrecy only when fully consolidated #qualifies (0.72)
• Both totalitarian and instrumentarian power defied comprehension when new #expands (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1122