Effects of the storage conditions on the stability of natural and synthetic cannabis in biological matrices for forensic toxicology analysis: An update from the literature

Totalitarian democracy is a term popularized by Israeli historian Jacob Leib Talmon to refer to a dictatorship based on the mass enthusiasm generated by a perfectionist ideology.^[1]

This idea that there is one true way for a society to be organized and a government should get there at all costs stands in contrast to liberal democracy which trusts the process of democracy to, through trial and error, help a society improve without there being only one correct way to self-govern.^[2]

The phrase had previously been used by Bertrand de Jouvenel^[3] and E. H. Carr,^[4] and subsequently by F. William Engdahl^[5] and Sheldon S. Wolin.^[6]

J. L. Talmon

In his 1952 book The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy Talmon argued that the totalitarian and liberal types of democracy emerged from the same premises during the eighteenth century. He regarded the conflict between these two types of democracy as of world-historical importance:

Indeed, from the vantage point of the mid-twentieth century the history of the last hundred and fifty years looks like a systematic preparation for the headlong collision between empirical and liberal democracy on the one hand, and totalitarian Messianic democracy on the other, in which the world crisis of to-day consists.

The political neologism messianic democracy (also political Messianism)^[7] also derives from Talmon's introduction to this work.

Differences between totalitarian democracy and liberal democracy

Talmon identified the following differences between totalitarian and liberal democracy:^[2]

The totalitarian approach is based on the assumption of a total and exclusive truth in politics. It postulates a preordained, harmonious and perfect scheme of things, to which men are irresistibly driven and at which they are bound to arrive (see historical determinism).

The liberal approach assumes politics to be a matter of trial and error. It regards political systems as pragmatic contrivances of human ingenuity and spontaneity. The totalitarian approach views politics as an integral part of an all-embracing and coherent philosophy. It defines politics as the art of applying this philosophy to the organisation of society, and the final purpose of politics is only achieved when this philosophy reigns supreme over all fields of life.

The liberal approach recognises a variety of levels of personal and collective endeavour, which are altogether outside the sphere of politics. The totalitarian approach recognises only one plane of existence, the political. It widens the scope of politics to embrace the whole of human existence. It treats all human thought and action as having social significance, and therefore as falling within the orbit of political action.

The liberal approach finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion. The totalitarian approach believes freedom to be only realised in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose.

Historical development

Talmon argued that totalitarian democracy arose in three stages:^[2]

The eighteenth century postulate: the intellectual developments in eighteenth century France spurred by the collapse of feudal and ecclesiastical authority in the early modern era. Key figures: Morelly, Helvetius, Mably, Rousseau.
The Jacobin improvisation: the development during the Reign of Terror of single-party dictatorship and the use of terror as a political instrument, based on a doctrine of total popular sovereignty. Key figures: Sieyes, Saint-Just, Robespierre.
The Babouvist crystalisation: the extension of totalitarian logic to property, leading to Communism.

Engdahl, Wolin and Žižek

Engdahl and Wolin add some new dimensions to the analysis of totalitarianism.

In his 2009 book Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy and the New World Order, Engdahl portrays America as driving to achieve global hegemony through military and economic means. According to him, U.S. state objectives have led to internal conditions that resemble totalitarianism: "[it is] a power establishment that over the course of the Cold War has spun out of control and now threatens not only the fundamental institutions of democracy, but even of life on the planet through the growing risk of nuclear war by miscalculation"^[8]

Wolin, too, analyzes the symbiosis of business and public interests that emerged in the Cold War to form the tendency of what he calls "inverted totalitarianism":

While exploiting the authority and resources of the state, [inverted totalitarianism] gains its dynamic by combining with other forms of power, such as evangelical religions, and most notably by encouraging a symbiotic relationship between traditional government and the system of "private" governance represented by the modern business corporation. The result is not a system of codetermination by equal partners who retain their respective identities but rather a system that represents the political coming-of-age of corporate power.^[9]

Elsewhere, in a 2003 article entitled "Inverted Totalitarianism"^[10] Wolin cites phenomena such as the lack of involvement of citizens in a narrow political framework (due to the influence of money), the privatization of social security, and massive increases in military spending and spending on surveillance as examples of the push away from public and towards private-controlled government. Corporate influence, he argues, is explicit through the media, and implicit through the privatization of the university. Furthermore, he contends that many political think-tanks have abetted this process by spreading conservative ideology. Wolin states: "[With] the elements all in place...what is at stake, then, is nothing less than the attempted transformation of a tolerably free society into a variant of the extreme regimes of the past century."^[10]

Slavoj Žižek, in his 2002 book of essays Welcome to the Desert of the Real, comes to similar conclusions. Here he argues that the war on terror served as a justification for the suspension of civil liberties in the US, while the promise of democracy and freedom was spread abroad as the justification for invading Iraq and Afghanistan. Since Western democracies are always justifying states of exception, he argues, they are failing as sites of political agency.^[11]

Notes

^ Macpherson, C. B. (1952). [Review of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, by J. L. Talmon]. Past & Present, 2, 55–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/650125
^ ^a ^b ^c Talmon, J. L. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. Britain: Secker & Warburg, 1968.
^ de Juvenel, Bertrand. On Power: Its Nature and the History of its Growth, Salt Lake City: Hutchinson, 1948.
^ Carr, Edward Hallett. The Soviet Impact on the Western World. New York: MacMillan Company, 1947.
^ Engdahl, F. William. Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. Boxboro, MA: Third Millennium Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9795608-6-6.
^ Wolin, Sheldon S. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
^ J. L. Talmon, Political Messianism – The Romantic Phase, 1960.
^ Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance, 2009, pg. viii.
^ Wolin, Democracy Incorporated, pg. xxi.
^ ^a ^b Wolin, Sheldon S. "Inverted Totalitarianism". The Nation magazine, May 19th, 2003.
^ Žižek, Slavoj. Welcome to the Desert of the Real, London and New York: Verso, 2002

[1] Macpherson, C. B. (1952). [Review of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, by J. L. Talmon]. Past & Present, 2, 55–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/650125

[:0-2] Talmon, J. L. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. Britain: Secker & Warburg, 1968.

[3] Juvenel, Bertrand. On Power: Its Nature and the History of its Growth, Salt Lake City: Hutchinson, 1948.

[4] Carr, Edward Hallett. The Soviet Impact on the Western World. New York: MacMillan Company, 1947.

[5] Engdahl, F. William. Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. Boxboro, MA: Third Millennium Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9795608-6-6.

[6] Wolin, Sheldon S. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.

[7] J. L. Talmon, Political Messianism – The Romantic Phase, 1960.

[8] Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance, 2009, pg. viii.

[9] Wolin, Democracy Incorporated, pg. xxi.

[:1-10] Wolin, Sheldon S. "Inverted Totalitarianism". The Nation magazine, May 19th, 2003.

[11] Žižek, Slavoj. Welcome to the Desert of the Real, London and New York: Verso, 2002

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{short description|Democracy where voting is a citizen’s only right}}
+{{short description|A dictatorship based on the mass enthusiasm generated by a perfectionist ideology}}
 {{Forms of government}}
 {{Politics}}
 {{Democracy}}
+'''Totalitarian democracy''' is a term popularized by Israeli historian [[Jacob Talmon|Jacob Leib Talmon]] to refer to a dictatorship based on the mass enthusiasm generated by a [[Perfectionism_(philosophy)|perfectionist]] ideology.<ref>Macpherson, C. B. (1952). [Review of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, by J. L. Talmon]. Past & Present, 2, 55–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/650125</ref>
-'''Totalitarian democracy''' is a term popularized by Israeli historian [[Jacob Talmon|Jacob Leib Talmon]] to refer to a [[system of government]] in which lawfully [[elected representatives]] maintain the integrity of a [[nation state]] whose [[citizen]]s, while granted the [[right to vote]], have little or no [[participation (decision making)|participation]] in the decision-making process of the government.<ref>Talmon, J. L. ''The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy.'' Britain: Secker & Warburg, 1960.</ref> The phrase had previously been used by [[Bertrand de Jouvenel]]<ref>de Juvenel, Bertrand. ''On Power: Its Nature and the History of its Growth,'' Salt Lake City: Hutchinson, 1948.</ref> and [[E. H. Carr]],<ref>Carr, Edward Hallett. ''The Soviet Impact on the Western World''. New York: MacMillan Company, 1947.</ref> and subsequently by [[F. William Engdahl|F. William Engdahl,]]<ref>Engdahl, F. William. ''Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.'' Boxboro, MA: Third Millennium Press, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-9795608-6-6}}.</ref> [[Sheldon S. Wolin]],<ref>Wolin, Sheldon S. ''Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism.'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.</ref> and [https://csupomona-fong.org/ Jack Fong]<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Fong |first=Jack |title=Employing Nietzsche’s Sociological Imagination: How to Understand Totalitarian Democracy |publisher=[[Lexington Books]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-7936-2042-2 |location=Lanham, Boulder, New York, London |pages=185 |language=en}}</ref>
+This idea that there is one true way for a society to be organized and a government should get there at all costs stands in contrast to [[liberal democracy]] which trusts the process of democracy to, through trial and error, help a society improve without there being only one correct way to self-govern.<ref name=":0">Talmon, J. L. ''[https://archive.org/details/originsoftotalit0000talm/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy].'' Britain: Secker & Warburg, 1968.</ref>
+The phrase had previously been used by [[Bertrand de Jouvenel]]<ref>de Juvenel, Bertrand. ''[https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1320669W/Du_pouvoir?edition=key%3A/books/OL24630643M On Power: Its Nature and the History of its Growth],'' Salt Lake City: Hutchinson, 1948.</ref> and [[E. H. Carr]],<ref>Carr, Edward Hallett. ''The Soviet Impact on the Western World''. New York: MacMillan Company, 1947.</ref> and subsequently by [[F. William Engdahl]]<ref>Engdahl, F. William. ''Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.'' Boxboro, MA: Third Millennium Press, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-9795608-6-6}}.</ref> and [[Sheldon S. Wolin]].<ref>Wolin, Sheldon S. ''Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism.'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.</ref>
 ==J. L. Talmon<!--'Messianic democracy' and 'Political Messianism' redirect here-->==
+In his 1952 book ''The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy'' Talmon argued that the totalitarian and liberal types of democracy emerged from the same premises during the eighteenth century. He regarded the conflict between these two types of democracy as of world-historical importance:
-[[J. L. Talmon]]'s 1952 book ''The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy'' discusses the transformation of a state in which [[tradition]]al values and articles of [[faith]] shape the role of government into one in which social utility takes absolute precedence. His work is a criticism of the ideas of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], whose political philosophy greatly influenced the [[French Revolution]], the growth of the Enlightenment across Europe, as well the overall development of modern political and educational thought. In ''[[Social Contract (Rousseau)|The Social Contract]]'', Rousseau contends that the interests of the individual and the state are one and the same, and it is the state's responsibility to implement the "[[general will]]".
+:Indeed, from the vantage point of the mid-twentieth century the history of the last hundred and fifty years looks like a systematic preparation for the headlong collision between empirical and liberal democracy on the one hand, and totalitarian Messianic democracy on the other, in which the world crisis of to-day consists.
-The [[political neologism]] '''messianic democracy'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> (also '''political Messianism'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->)<ref>J. L. Talmon, ''Political Messianism – The Romantic Phase'', 1960.</ref> also derives from Talmon's introduction to this work:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Excerpts from the Origins of Totalitarian Democracy by Jacob L. Talmon |url=http://rousseaustudies.free.fr/ReeditionTalmon.htm |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=rousseaustudies.free.fr}}</ref>
-:Indeed, from the vantage point of the mid twentieth century the history of the last hundred and fifty years looks like a systematic preparation for the headlong collision between empirical and liberal democracy on the one hand, and totalitarian Messianic democracy on the other, in which the world crisis of to-day consists.
+The [[political neologism]] '''messianic democracy'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> (also '''political Messianism'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->)<ref>J. L. Talmon, ''[https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4476072W/Political_Messianism?edition=key%3A/books/OL5800726M Political Messianism – The Romantic Phase]'', 1960.</ref> also derives from Talmon's introduction to this work.
-== Differences in democratic philosophy ==
-{{More citations needed section|date=December 2022}}
-The [[philosophy]] of [[totalitarianism|totalitarian]] [[democracy]], according to Talmon, is based on a top-down view of society, which sees an absolute and perfect political truth to which all reasonable humans are driven. It is contended that not only is it beyond the individual to arrive at this truth independently, it is his duty and responsibility to aid his compatriots in realizing it. Moreover, any public or private activities that do not forward this goal have no useful purpose, sap time, money and energy from those that do, and must be eliminated. Thus economic and social endeavors, which tend to strengthen the collective, are seen as valuable, whereas [[education]] and [[religion]], which tend to strengthen the individual, are seen as counterproductive. "You cannot be a citizen and a Christian at the same time," says Talmon, referring to Rousseau's arguments, "for the loyalties clash."
+===Differences between totalitarian democracy and liberal democracy===
-In his paper ''Advances in Chinese Social Sciences'' (2001), [[Mao Shoulong]], a professor of [[Public Policy]] at [[Renmin University of China]], takes a different position. He posits that totalitarian democracy, or what he terms "equality-oriented democracy," is founded on the idea that it is possible, and necessary, that the complete [[rights]] and freedoms of people ought not be held hostage to traditions and social arrangements. Mao recognizes that the term "totalitarian" has a connotation attached to it, used as it was by [[Giovanni Gentile]] to apply to the [[Fascist Italy (1922-1943)|Italian]] [[Fascism|fascist]] government led by [[Benito Mussolini]]. He sees the proponents of [[liberal democracy]] (or "Western" democracy) as holding a negative attitude to the word and believing that force is not an appropriate way to achieve a goal no matter the value of that goal. He prefers the term "freedom-oriented democracy" to describe such a political entity.
+Talmon identified the following differences between totalitarian and liberal democracy:<ref name=":0" />
-===Fundamental requirements===
+* The totalitarian approach is based on the assumption of a total and exclusive truth in politics. It postulates a preordained, harmonious and perfect scheme of things, to which men are irresistibly driven and at which they are bound to arrive (see [[historical determinism]]).
-A totalitarian democracy, says Talmon, accepts "exclusive territorial [[sovereignty]]" as its right. It retains full power of [[Nationalization|expropriation]] and full power of imposition, i.e., the right of control over everything and everyone. Maintenance of such power, in the absence of full support of the citizenry, requires the forceful suppression of any [[dissent]]ing element except what the government purposely permits or organizes. [[Liberal democrat]]s, who see political strength as growing from the bottom up (cf: "[[grass roots]]"), reject in principle the idea of [[coercion]] in shaping political will, but the totalitarian democratic state holds it as an ongoing [[Moral imperative|imperative]].
+* The liberal approach assumes politics to be a matter of trial and error. It regards political systems as pragmatic contrivances of human ingenuity and spontaneity. The totalitarian approach views politics as an integral part of an all-embracing and coherent philosophy. It defines politics as the art of applying this philosophy to the organisation of society, and the final purpose of politics is only achieved when this philosophy reigns supreme over all fields of life.
-A totalitarian democratic state is said to maximize its control over the lives of its citizens by using the dual rationale of general will (i.e., "public good") and [[majority rule]]. An argument can be made that in some circumstances it is actually the [[politics|political]], [[economics|economic]], and [[military]] [[elite|élite]] who interpret the general will to suit their own interests. Again, however, it is the imperative of achieving the overarching goal of a political [[nirvana]] that shapes the vision of the process, and the citizen is expected to contribute to the best of his abilities; the general is not asked to guide the plow, nor is the farmer asked to lead the troops.
+* The liberal approach recognises a variety of levels of personal and collective endeavour, which are altogether outside the sphere of politics. The totalitarian approach recognises only one plane of existence, the political. It widens the scope of politics to embrace the whole of human existence. It treats all human thought and action as having social significance, and therefore as falling within the orbit of political action.
-It can approach the condition of [[totalitarianism]]; totalitarian states can also approach the condition of democracy, or at least [[majoritarianism]]. Citizens of a totalitarian democratic state, even when aware of their true powerlessness, may support their government. When [[Germany]] started World War II, the [[Nazism|Nazi]] government had the support of the majority of Germans{{citation needed|date=April 2022}} and it was not until much later, after Germany's losses began to mount, that support for [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] began to fade. [[Joseph Stalin]] was practically worshipped by hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens, many of whom have not changed their opinion even today,{{citation needed|date=April 2022}} and his status ensured his economic and political reforms would be carried out.  The term has also more recently been applied to [[South Africa]] under the rule of the [[African National Congress]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mynhardt |first1=Monica |title=Nuuskommentaar: Diktatuur in die gedaante van demokrasie |url=https://maroelamedia.co.za/nuus/nuuskommentaar/nuuskommentaar-diktatuur-in-die-gedaante-van-demokrasie/ |website=Maroela Media |date=31 July 2020 |access-date=2 August 2020 |language=af}}</ref>
+* The liberal approach finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion. The totalitarian approach believes freedom to be only realised in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose.
-===Cold War and socio-economic illustrations===
+===Historical development===
-The period of the [[Cold War]] following WWII saw great [[Ideology|ideological]] [[Polarization (politics)|polarization]] between the so-called "[[Free World]]" and the [[Communist state]]s.  In the East, religious and intellectual repression was met with increasing resistance, and the [[1956 Hungarian Revolution|Hungarian revolt of 1956]] and [[Alexander Dubček]]'s [[Prague Spring]] in 1968 are two well-known acts of defiance. The [[Tienanmen Square Massacre]] was a similar example of repressive violence leading to hundreds of deaths. In the United States, alleged Communists and Communist sympathizers were investigated by Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] in what later generations would recall as a "[[witch hunt]]"; many accused Communists were forced out of their jobs or their reputations were scandalized. Shortly after the time of Talmon's book, the [[Vietnam War]] brought active hostility between elements in the U.S. government and political factions within the American people. One faction insisted that the U.S. government did not represent them in levying war in Southeast Asia, protesting the war, as well as undemocratic or oligarchical power-structures within U.S. society{{Citation needed|date=May 2015}}; [[anti-war movement|this faction]] occasionally saw repression from the government, such as through "dirty tricks" aimed at "[[subversives]]" by the [[FBI]] in [[COINTELPRO]]. This conflict within U.S. society rose to violence during the protests and riots at the [[Democratic National Convention of 1968]] in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], and in the [[Kent State Massacre]], where four anti-war protesters were shot dead by U.S. [[National Guard of the United States|National Guard]] forces.
+Talmon argued that totalitarian democracy arose in three stages:<ref name=":0" />
-One concept fundamental to both "liberal" and "totalitarian" democracy is that of [[liberty]]. According to Talmon, totalitarian democracy sees freedom as something achieved only in the long term, and only through collective effort; the political goal of ultimate order and ultimate harmony brings ultimate freedom. In addressing every aspect of the lives of its citizens, the totalitarian democratic state has the power to ensure that all material needs are met from cradle to grave, and all that is required of the citizen is to carry out his role, whatever it may be, to the best of his ability. Liberal democracy, on the other hand, posits freedom as something that can and should be achieved by the individual in the short term, even at the expense of things such as material well-being, and sees as an element of this freedom a "freedom from government" wherein the individual is able to exercise "freedom" in his own terms to the extent that they do not contravene the law. Proponents of both kinds of democracy argue that their particular approach is the best one for the citizens of their respective countries.
+# '''The eighteenth century postulate''': the intellectual developments in eighteenth century France spurred by the collapse of feudal and ecclesiastical authority in the early modern era. Key figures: [[Morelly]], [[Claude Adrien Helvétius|Helvetius]], [[Gabriel Bonnot de Mably|Mably]], [[Rousseau]].
+# '''The [[Jacobin]] improvisation''': the development during the [[Reign of Terror]] of single-party dictatorship and the use of [[political terror|terror]] as a political instrument, based on a doctrine of total popular sovereignty. Key figures: [[Sieyes]], [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]], [[Robespierre]].
+# '''The [[Babeuf|Babouvist]] crystalisation''': the extension of totalitarian logic to [[property]], leading to [[Communism]].
+== Engdahl, Wolin and Žižek ==
-It is Mao Shoulong's contention that "equality-oriented democracy recognises the value of freedom but holds that [it] can't be attained by individual efforts," but rather, by collective efforts. He argues that while equality-oriented democracy stresses the value of equality over [[individual freedom]]s, the reverse is true for freedom-oriented democracy, and in each case, the state will move either to ensure equality by limiting individual freedom, or to ensure individual freedom by giving up equality. Some critics of this view may argue that equality and individual freedoms are inseparable, and that one cannot exist (or be sustained) without the other.<ref>[[Social anarchism]]</ref> Other critics argue that equality can only be ensured by continuous coercion, while ensuring individual freedom only requires force against coercive individuals and external states.
+Engdahl and Wolin add some new dimensions to the analysis of totalitarianism.
+In his 2009 book ''Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy and the New World Order,'' Engdahl portrays America as driving to achieve global [[hegemony]] through military and economic means. According to him, U.S. state objectives have led to internal conditions that resemble totalitarianism: "[it is] a power establishment that over the course of the [[Cold War]] has spun out of control and now threatens not only the fundamental institutions of democracy, but even of life on the planet through the growing risk of [[nuclear war]] by miscalculation"<ref>Engdahl, ''Full Spectrum Dominance,'' 2009, pg. viii.</ref>
-Shoulong also holds that a law is not valid if it does not have the approval of the public. Laws passed by the state do not require approval by the citizen on a case-by-case basis, and it can be easily argued that some laws currently in place in some countries purporting to be liberal democracies do not have the approval of the majority of citizens. For one, Rousseau argued in "The Social Contract", that in the stereotypical liberal democracy, individuals are politically "free" once every Parliamentary term, or every two to four years, when they vote for their representatives, in their General Election or on Election Day. Yet, Rousseau fails to consider that the state is not a [[total institution]] within the liberal democracies, and that the freedom of the citizen in between the elections is the freedom of the citizen to live their life in pursuit of their own happiness, subject to the law made by their elected representatives, who are, in turn, subject to popular pressure, [[protest|public protest]], [[right of petition|petition]], [[recall election|recall]], [[referendum]], [[initiative]], and ultimately, electoral defeat if they fail to heed the views of those they represent. This is in contrast to a totalitarian democracy, with the state as a total institution, where the individual is truly not free without constant participation in their "democratic" government; and thus, the individual in the totalitarian democracy must be "forced to be free" if the totalitarian democracy is not to become a totalitarian [[oligarchy]].
-== F. William Engdahl and Sheldon S. Wolin ==
-Engdahl and Wolin add some new dimensions to the analysis of totalitarianism. In ''Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy and the New World Order,'' Engdahl focuses on the American drive to achieve global [[hegemony]] through military and economic means. According to him, U.S. state objectives have led to internal conditions that resemble totalitarianism: "[it is] a power establishment that over the course of the [[Cold War]] has spun out of control and now threatens not only the fundamental institutions of democracy, but even of life on the planet through the growing risk of [[nuclear war]] by miscalculation"<ref>Engdahl, ''Full Spectrum Dominance,'' pg. viii.</ref>
 Wolin, too, analyzes the symbiosis of business and public interests that emerged in the Cold War to form the ''tendency'' of what he calls "[[inverted totalitarianism]]":
@@ Line 43: / Line 45: @@
 <blockquote>While exploiting the authority and resources of the state, [inverted totalitarianism] gains its dynamic by combining with other forms of power, such as evangelical religions, and most notably by encouraging a symbiotic relationship between traditional government and the system of "private" governance represented by the modern [[business corporation]]. The result is not a system of codetermination by equal partners who retain their respective identities but rather a system that represents the political coming-of-age of [[corporate power]].<ref>Wolin, ''Democracy Incorporated,'' pg. xxi.</ref></blockquote>
-Elsewhere, in an article entitled "Inverted Totalitarianism"<ref>Wolin, Sheldon S. [http://www.thenation.com/article/inverted-totalitarianism "Inverted Totalitarianism"]. ''The Nation'' magazine, May 19th, 2003.</ref> Wolin cites phenomena such as the lack of involvement of citizens in a narrow political framework (due to the influence of money), the privatization of social security, and massive increases in military spending and spending on surveillance as examples of the push away from public and towards private-controlled government. Corporate influence is explicit through the media, and implicit through the privatization of the university. Furthermore, many political think-tanks have abetted this process by spreading conservative ideology. Wolin states: "[With] the elements all in place...what is at stake, then, is nothing less than the attempted transformation of a tolerably free society into a variant of the extreme regimes of the past century"<ref>Wolin, 2003.</ref>
+Elsewhere, in a 2003 article entitled "Inverted Totalitarianism"<ref name=":1">Wolin, Sheldon S. [http://www.thenation.com/article/inverted-totalitarianism "Inverted Totalitarianism"]. ''The Nation'' magazine, May 19th, 2003.</ref> Wolin cites phenomena such as the lack of involvement of citizens in a narrow political framework (due to the influence of money), the privatization of social security, and massive increases in military spending and spending on surveillance as examples of the push away from public and towards private-controlled government. Corporate influence, he argues, is explicit through the media, and implicit through the privatization of the university. Furthermore, he contends that many political think-tanks have abetted this process by spreading conservative ideology. Wolin states: "[With] the elements all in place...what is at stake, then, is nothing less than the attempted transformation of a tolerably free society into a variant of the extreme regimes of the past century."<ref name=":1" />
-[[Slavoj Žižek]] comes to similar conclusions in his book ''[[Welcome to the Desert of the Real]].''<ref>Žižek, Slavoj. ''Welcome to the Desert of the Real'', London and New York: Verso, 2002</ref> Here he argues that the [[war on terror]] served as a justification for the suspension of civil liberties in the US, while the promise of democracy and freedom was spread abroad as the justification for invading [[Iraq]] and [[Afghanistan]]. Since Western democracies are always justifying [[state of exception|states of exception]], they are failing as sites of political agency.
+[[Slavoj Žižek]], in his 2002 book of essays ''[[Welcome to the Desert of the Real]]'', comes to similar conclusions. Here he argues that the [[war on terror]] served as a justification for the suspension of civil liberties in the US, while the promise of democracy and freedom was spread abroad as the justification for invading [[Iraq]] and [[Afghanistan]]. Since Western democracies are always justifying [[state of exception|states of exception]], he argues, they are failing as sites of political agency.<ref>Žižek, Slavoj. ''Welcome to the Desert of the Real'', London and New York: Verso, 2002</ref>
-== Jack Fong ==
-A sociological positioning of the concept can be seen in Jack Fong’s 2020 work, ''[https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793620422/Employing-Nietzsche%E2%80%99s-Sociological-Imagination-How-to-Understand-Totalitarian-Democracy Employing Nietzsche’s Sociological Imagination: How to Understand Totalitarian Democracy]''. Harnessing the empowering ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to read the human condition of modern existence through a sociological lens, Fong confronts the dysfunctions of modernity’s utopianisms and their effects on one’s ability to purpose existence with self-authored meaning. By critically assessing the ideals of democratic institutions and imposed scripts generated to exact conformity from the population, the motives of their pundits and their political ideologies are seen as expressions born from the social decay of exhausted dreams and projects of modernity. Fong assembles Nietzsche’s existential sociological imagination from the latter’s critical view of the utopianism of democratism, in hopes of empowering actors to emancipate the self from its double-standards, segmented, and incomplete outcomes in a manner that also pays homage to the sociology of Jürgen Habermas. Illuminating the merits of assembling new meaning for life affirmation beyond the false promises offered by conforming sycophants of the state, corporatocracies, and religious authorities because of their inability to remove socially-limiting conditions, Fong argues that overcoming a disingenuous democracy with a Nietzschean will to power actualizes and empowers the self toward new emancipatory horizons of being, existential horizons liberated from convention, groupthink, cultural scripts, and punitive measures that exact deference from society’s captive audiences. He notes:
-<blockquote>At a time when the leaders of the “free” world can run systems in an authoritarian manner, replete with their jingoisms and subtexts of internal colonialism, it is rather urgent that we demystify democratism, one that in its current iteration in the United States has enabled the emergence of what can be seen as a totalitarian democracy; additionally, where informal cultural forces coexist by punishing one another through, say, the panopticons of identity politics, we can also argue that this is a form of totalitarian democracy. The tragic irony of modernity is how it has become bloated in its systemic, panoptic, and cultural enforcement of democratism, creating a variety of contradictory pieties and tensions within society.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fong |first=Jack |title=Employing Nietzsche’s Sociological Imagination: How to Understand Totalitarian Democracy |publisher=[[Lexington Books]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-7936-2042-2 |location=Lanham, Boulder, New York, London |pages=vii |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>Thus, where scholars such as Talmo and Mao view the systemic and conceptual integrity of democracy, Fong assesses its outcomes. In Fong’s view, notions of totalitarian democracy can also be seen in the United States, where its democratism has been rendered a teleology, thus obscuring the violent foundations from which were born the pieties of American democracy. Fong provocatively reminds readers, for example, of how US “democracy” was built off slavery and the attempted genocide of indigenous populations, one mimicked by European and American use of imperialism and colonialism solely for the purpose of exploiting populations for their democracy and “civilization.”<ref name=":0" /> In more current times, American “democracy” has placed into power despotic dictators that littered the Central and South American landscape, as well as across Asia, such as Indonesia’ Suharto, Philippines’s Ferdinand Marcos, Chile’s Pinochet, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein (when he was useful for its foreign policy aims), or through support of the Israel’s apartheid system. That “politics makes strange bedfellows” is relegated to non-importance in spite of the meaning’s capacity to illuminate the hypocrisies of democracy, thus invalidating its legitimacy.
 == See also ==
@@ Line 60: / Line 57: @@
 *[[Guided democracy]]
 *[[Illiberal democracy]]
-*[[Inverted totalitarianism]]
 *[[National Anarchism|National anarchism]]
 *[[Neocameralism]]
@@ Line 72: / Line 68: @@
 == Notes ==
 {{Reflist|30em}}
-== External links ==
-* [http://www.polyarchy.org/paradigm/english/democracy.html Paradigm: from totalitarian democracy to libertarian polyarchy]
-* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040520221240/http://www.new-thinking.org/journal/totalitariandemocracy.html Criticizing Totalitarian Democracy: Herbert Marcuse and Alexis de Tocqueville  (Zvi Tauber)]
-* [http://www.panarchy.org/talmon/totalitariandemocracy.html J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy - Introduction] (1952)
-* [http://cdn.theologicalstudies.net/13/13.4/13.4.2.pdf John Courtney Murray, The Church and Totalitarian Democracy]
 {{Authoritarian types of rule}}
@@ Line 86: / Line 76: @@
 [[Category:Philosophy of history]]
 [[Category:Totalitarianism]]
-[[Category:Types of democracy]]
+[[Category:Dictatorship]]
 [[Category:Works about totalitarianism]]
+[[Category:Democratic backsliding]]

Authoritarian and totalitarian forms of government
Forms	Absolute monarchy Autocracy Tsarist Communist state Counterintelligence state Dictatorship Benevolent Constitutional Dictablanda Military Right-wing Dominant-party system Illiberal democracy Totalitarian Mafia state Managerial state Ochlocracy One-party state Oligarchy Police state Socialist state Theocracy Islamic state Tyranny Majoritarian Soft
Ideologies	Authoritarian conservatism Authoritarian capitalism Authoritarian socialism Marxism–Leninism Stalinism Maoism Caesaropapism Despotism Enlightened Soft Ecoauthoritarianism Fascism Eco Neo Imperialism Nazism Neo
See also	Democracy indices Deep state Inverted totalitarianism Left-wing authoritarianism Right-wing authoritarianism Social dominance orientation Statism Strongman List of totalitarian states