AuthoritarianBeliefs

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Created: 2023-04-16

  • Belief in a strong central government with broad powers to control society and enforce its will.
  • The belief that individual liberties and rights should be subordinated to the interests of the state.
  • The use of force, coercion, or intimidation to suppress dissent or opposition.
  • The belief that certain groups or individuals are inherently superior or inferior to others, based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, religion, or gender.
  • The rejection of democratic values such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the rule of law.
  • The belief in the need for strict social and cultural norms, often enforced by the state.
  • The glorification of war, violence, or aggression as a means of achieving political goals.
  • The use of propaganda and censorship to control the flow of information and shape public opinion.
  • The belief that political power should be concentrated in the hands of a select few individuals or groups.

Social Totalitarianism

To summarise, I define totalitarianism as a) the attempt to use the power of the state to dictate, rather than reflect, culture, and b) the loss of any distinction between dissent and defiance that necessarily and inevitably results from this.

Social totalitarianism seeks to control and dictate culture in an oppressive fashion, just as state totalitarianism does. However, it does not seek (or perhaps more accurately, is not able) to use the state's monopoly on force to enforce this control. Instead, it uses methods of social incentivization. It establishes and enforces an orthodoxy by terrorising people not that they will be charged, abducted or killed if they offend the ruling orthodoxy, but that instead they will be socially excommunicated; that they will be fired; that they will be unpersoned; that their name will be slandered; that they will become a pariah; even that their bank accounts will be closed.

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