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 [[system of government]] in which lawfully [[elected representatives]] maintain 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 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> 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 their being only one correct way to self-govern.<ref name=":0" />
+'''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>
+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>
@@ Line 9: / Line 11: @@
 ==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, ''[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:<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.
-== Supporter of totalitarian democracy ==
-{{More citations needed section|date=December 2022}}
-In his paper ''Advances in Chinese Social Sciences'' (2001), [[Mao Shoulong]], a professor of [[Public Policy]] at [[Renmin University of China]] in Beijing,{{Unreliable source?|date=November 2023}} supports the idea of totalitarian democracy, or what he terms "equality-oriented democracy," saying it 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. Shoulong also holds that a law is not valid if it does not have the approval of the public. Shoulong argues that laws passed by the state do not require approval by the citizen on a case-by-case basis, arguing that some laws currently in place in liberal democracies do not have the approval of the majority of citizens.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}{{Unreliable source?|date=November 2023|reason=Academic independence in China is in doubt}}
+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.
-== Fundamental requirements ==
-{{Unreferenced section|date=November 2023}}
-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.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}
+===Differences between totalitarian democracy and liberal democracy===
-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>
+Talmon identified the following differences between totalitarian and liberal democracy:<ref name=":0" />
-== Cold War and socio-economic illustrations ==
-{{Unreferenced section|date=November 2023}}
+* 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 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.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}
+* 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:<ref name=":0" />
+# '''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 ==
@@ Line 36: / 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 a 2003 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, 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>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]], 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>
@@ Line 48: / Line 57: @@
 *[[Guided democracy]]
 *[[Illiberal democracy]]
-*[[Inverted totalitarianism]]
 *[[National Anarchism|National anarchism]]
 *[[Neocameralism]]
@@ Line 60: / 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 74: / 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