Totalitarianism introduces unprecedented concepts of power and reality

Evidence

In respect of administrative resources, tendencies towards increasing democratic involvement have as their dark side possibilities for the creation of totalitarian power. The intensifying of surveillance operations provides many avenues of democratic involvement, but also makes possible the sectional control of political power, bolstered by monopolistic access to the means of violence, as an instrument of terror. Totalitarianism and modernity are not just contingently, but inherently, connected, as Zygmunt Bauman in particular has made clear. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 401 (#expands, via linked claim)

Totalitarianism is distinct from traditional despotism, but is all the more frightening as a result. Totalitarian rule connects political, military, and ideological power in more concentrated form than was ever possible before the emergence of modern nation-states. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 31 (#expands, via linked claim)

Reality is, above all, a scarce resource. Like any scarce resource it is there to be struggled over, allocated to various purposes and projects, endowed with given meanings and potentials, spent and conserved, rationalized and distrib- uted. The fundamental form of power is the power to define, allocate, and display this resource. … It is above all a conflict not over the effects of communication but of the acts and practices that are them- selves the effects. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 387 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ideological scientificality overrides factual reality in totalitarian action; Totalitarianism is inherently, not just contingently, connected to modernity — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 401; Totalitarianism concentrates state powers in ways traditional despotism could not — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 31 (+9 more)

Related

• Totalitarianism is inherently, not just contingently, connected to modernity (similarity 0.89)
• Totalitarian government differs categorically from dictatorship and tyranny (similarity 0.88)
• Totalitarianism concentrates state powers in ways traditional despotism could not (similarity 0.86)
• Totalitarian ritual idolatry is an organizational device, not a religion (similarity 0.85)
• Imperialism’s global politics supplied the preconditions for totalitarian rule (similarity 0.84)
• Gramsci’s ‘totalitarian intelligentsia’ means a unified, all-absorbing intellectual stratum, not a despotism (similarity 0.81)
• Totalitarian regimes own reality by manufacturing a malignant normality people must inhabit. (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarianism works through manipulated needs, not terror (similarity 0.80)
• Tyranny is dissolved by predictability or by independent overriding power (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian propaganda organizes masses through existing ideas, not new doctrine (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian propaganda constructs a consistent fictional world that shelters uprooted masses from reality (similarity 0.80)
• The despotism analogy for totalitarian police applies only in early rule (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian power makes systematic lying possible because everyday reality is already fictitious (similarity 0.79)
• Totalitarian power requires remaking individuals from inside outward with terror. (similarity 0.79)
• Totalitarianism’s novelty was so extreme it paralyzed even great minds (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarianism is inherently, not just contingently, connected to modernity #expands (0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 401
• Totalitarianism concentrates state powers in ways traditional despotism could not #expands (0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 31
• The fundamental form of power is defining reality #expands (0.80) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 387
• Totalitarian power aims to render human beings superfluous, not merely to rule them #expands (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1025
• Totalitarian propaganda constructs a consistent fictional world that shelters uprooted masses from reality #expands (0.80)
• Confused hierarchies make totalitarian rule shock-proof and command-certain #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 922