Totalitarianism

the attempt to take complete control of a society - not just its government but all of its social, cultural, and economic institutions - in order to fulfill an ideological vision of how society ought to be organized and life ought to be lived. ex: this is what happened to the soviet union when stalin imposed his version of marxists socialism on that country. It is also what happened in Italy and Germany when Mussilini and Hitler introduced varieties of fascism.

took shape in the years following wwI as a reaction against the two leading ideologies at the time, liberalism and socialism. They were unhappy with the liberals emphasis on the individual and with the socialists emphasis on contending social classes - fascists believed that the individuals and classes were all together as a whole under a single party and supreme leader. Fascists also rejected faith

They did not react in order to turn back the clocks when soicety was rooted in ascribed status, nor have they wanted to return to old ways of life. Fascists want to change society dramatically.

Fascism is neither conservative nor simply reactionary.

nationalism - people of the world  fall into distinct groups, or nations, this political unit is supposed to draw together and express the needs and desires of a single nation

all nations give shape and signifgance to the lives of their people

The 19th century can be considered the age of democracy or the "common man" which helped expand opportunities and possibilities for the common people. This also posed a threat to individuality, "tyranny of the majority."

"Elite theorists" beleived that a classless society was impossible. Societies always have been and always will be ruled by a small group of leaders.

Roberto Michels -elitist- formed his "iron law of oligarchy. For a large organization to be effective, true power must be concentrated in the hands of a small group - an elite, or oligarchy

This helps to pave the way for the explicitly elitist ideology of fascism

the attempt to control every aspect of a country’s life by a single, all-powerful party that systematically smothers all opposition

Mussolini and Fascists coined the term

Sigmund Freud - founder of psychoanalysis, "the unconscious" in human conduct

William James - most people have a "will to believe" people need something almost anything to believe in

Gustav Le Bon - human behavior in crowds is different then their behavior as individuals. People will participate in acts of barbarism that they would never engage in as lone individuals. The psycology of lynch mobs is quite different from the pyscology of the individuals who compose that mob. A mob psycology or a "herd instinct" takes over and shuts down individual judgements regarding right and wrong.

• the party took shape after WWI as a reaction against the two leading ideologies of the time, liberalism and socialism.
  1.  
     • Unhappy with liberal emphasis on the individual and with social emphasis on contenting social classes.
     • Fascist emphasis-a world in which individuals and classes were to be absorbed into an all-embracing world—a nation under control of a single party and supreme leader.
     • Rejection the faith in reason—reason is less reliable than intuitions and emotions.

• Fascism grows out of the very different conviction that the ideals of the Enlightenment are not worth pursuing.
  1.  
     • John Herder
     • Joseph de Maistre
     • Gabriel de Bonald
     • Marquis de Sade
     • Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau

• diverse group of thinkers in the early and mid-nineteenth century who rejected some of the leading ideas of the enlightenment philosophers.
  1. Denouncing universalism as a myth; human beings are not all alike. The differences that distinguish groups of people run very deep and define who people are.

• the belief that the people fall into distinct groups with each nation forming the natural basis for a separate political unit- the nation-state.
  1. this sovereign, self-governing political unit is supposed to draw together and express the needs and desires of a single nation.

• a belief that there are a small number of people in any society who either should or necessarily will lead or rule the rest.
  1. Democracy expanded opportunities for the common people, but it posed a threat to individuality—tyranny of the masses.
  2. Socialist democracy would afford everyone an equal chance to live a fruitful life, but only in a classless society.

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  1. Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, and Roberty Michels concluded that a classless society was impossible.

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  1. concluded that societies have always been and always will be ruled by a small group of leaders, even when it appears that the majority is in rule.

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  1. power cannot be shared equally among all of the members. For an organization to be effective, true power must be concentrated in the hands of a small group-an elite, or oligarchy.
     • this iron law is destined to defeat the well-meaning designs of democrats and egalitarians
     • elites rules the world; they always have and always will

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  1. outstanding accomplishments were the work of a great man—the kind of person he called superman.

Irrationalism

the belief that human beings are moved more by instincts, urges, or subconscious forces than by reason.

Emotion and desire play a larger part in the actions of people than reason does.

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  1.  
     • Sigmund Freud: psychoanalysis; the power of instinctive drives of the unconscious
     • William James: American philosopher; most people have a will to believe. What they believe is less important than that they believe in something.
     • Gustav Le Bon: human behavior in crowds is different from their behavior as individuals. People acting en masse are not restrained by individual conscience or moral scruple.

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  1. Mosca suggested that people are moved more by slogans and symbols, flags and anthems—by political formulae—than reasonable debate.
  2. Georges Sorel: people are often moved to action by political myths; a powerful myth that can inspire people to act
  3. The slogans, mass demonstrations, and torchlight parades were all designed to stir the people at their most basic emotional levels.
     • Stir them to create powerful nation-states, then mighty empires, all under the leadership of the fascist elite.

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  1. Mussolini was an ideologue: someone who is strongly committed to a particular ideology and works to promote its triumph over rival ideologies.
  2. He broke with socialism during WWI—proved that Marx was wrong: workers do have a fatherland. Any political movement that denies this is doomed to failure.
  3. Fasci di combattimento “combat groups” to promote nationalism
  4. Fascism “to fasten, to bind”: the aim of the Fascist party was to bind the Italian people together to overcome the divisions that weakened their country.

• Appealed to the glories of the ancient Roman Empire by invoking the fasces—an axe in the center of a bundle of rods all fastened together to symbolize strength that comes from unity.
• Have to overcome certain obstacles:
  1. Liberalism-no nation can be strong if its members think of themselves first and foremost as individuals who are concerned to protect their own rights and interests.

Socialism-Italians must not think of themselves either as individuals or as members of social classes; they must think of themselves as Italians only.

• October 29, 1922-Italian king invites Mussolini to form a government as the new prime minister of Italy.
  1.  
     • He ignored Italian parliament, outlawed all parties except the Fascist Party, and gained control of the mass media to stifle freedom of speech.
     • Set out to make Italy a military power so that it would again be the center of a great empire.
     • “War is to the male as childbearing is to the female.”

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  1. an individual life only has meaning insofar as it is rooted in and realized through the life of the society or the nation as a whole.
  2. Fascists reject atomism and individualism, and subscribe to the organic view of society.
  3. Stress the value of the state which is the embodiment of power
  4. Freedom to fascists was not individual liberty, but freedom of the nation; the only freedom that truly matters is the freedom to serve the state.
  5. Mussolini used corporativism: in which property remains in private hands even as it was put to public use to encourage industrial production.

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  1. in which property remains in private hands even as it was put to public use to encourage industrial production.

19th century french diplomat

argued that the mingling of races led, and must continue to lead, to the downfall of great civilizations

He came to believe that race created culture, arguing that distinctions between the three "black", "white", and "yellow" races were natural barriers, and that "race-mixing" breaks those barriers and leads to chaos

Gobineau believed the white race was superior to the others

Hitler and Nazism borrowed much of Gobineau's ideology, though Gobineau himself was not particularly anti-Semitic.

Benito Mussolinim, Il Duce

The Doctrine of Fascism

Founder and leader of the fascist party of italy

WWI convinced him that nations, not social classes, are the primary forces in history and politics

A key concept of the Mussolini essay was that fascism was a rejection of previous models:

"Granted that the XIXth century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State."

"The proud motto of the Squadrista, "Me ne Frego" [ "I don't give a damn"]" - proud fighters, militant state.

Alfredo Rocco

The Political Theory of Fascism

Stressed the Fascists differences with liberalism and socialism

Defined a coherent and distinctive fascist ideology.

Adolf Hitler

Nation and Race

Mein Kampf

His blend of fascism and racism proved to be one of the most potent ideological forces in history.

Reveals Hitler's racial ideas and anti-semitism, his hatred of socialism

Liberation Ideologies and the Politics of Identity

New distinctive ways for overcoming oppression

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  1. Each addresses a particular audience
  2. Which is oppressed
  3. The group needs to be freed from internal/external restraints
  4. Must include consciousness raising
  5. Liberation of both oppressed and oppressor

Black Liberation

• Agent: Blacks, Obstacle: racist laws, discrimination, Goal: equality
• The major division is between those advocates of black liberation who take an integrationalist or assimilationst approach—separatist or nationalist policies.
• MLK (integration) and Malcolm X (black nationalism)
• Integration approach: assimilation of black people into society.
  1. Blacks to be treated first as individuals, with the same rights and liberties as anyone else in society.
  2. If justice is blind, it must also be color-blind.
  3. Essentially liberal in outlook.
  4. Take legal and political action to overturn laws and break down the prejudices that enforced racism.
  5. Goal: MLK-a society in which people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Separatist approach

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  1. To build racial pride and economic self-sufficiency among black people—something that can be done if blacks recognize they are not merely individuals but members of a distinct community, nation, or people.
  2. Some nationalists have campaigned for separate homeland or territory. (Marcus Garvey)
     • United Negro Improvement Association: aim of establishing an independent, black-governed nation in Africa.
  3. Most nationalists/separatists devote themselves to promoting a stronger sense of identity, community, and pride.
     • 1960s Black Panthers- “black power”

• led a black movement for “Black Consciousness”. Black people must take charge of their own lives. Cannot do this as long as they are in the illusion that they can become free and equal members of societies that are racist. Need liberation from racist thinking.

Women’s Liberation (Feminism)

• Agent: women, Obstacle: sexist beliefs, Goal: power and respect for differences
• the 19^th century- suffragists in England and US demanded that women be allowed to vote, while others lobbied for changes in the laws regulating marriage and divorce.
• Sarah Grimke, Margaret Fuller, Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton—active in the antislavery movement.
  1.  
     • The condition of women and slaves were similar in many ways: both couldn’t vote, run for office, own property, or leave an abusive master or husband.

• active in temperance movement because many wives and children were sexually abused, beaten, neglected, and abandoned by alcoholic husbands and fathers.
  1.  
     • Women’s movement began as an attempt to further the cause not only of women but of other oppressed people.

• argue that women cannot be free until capitalism has been replaced by socialism.

• claim that women will be suppressed as long as the state exists

• claim that women will be oppressed as long as they associate with and are dependent on men.

• : desire to overcome overt forms of discrimination
  1.  
     • 1920- 19^th Amendment-women receive the right to vote
• Radical feminist: 1960s; concerned with overt sexual discrimination and with exposing and overcoming more subtle forms of sexism.
  1.  
     • Sexism: set of beliefs and attitudes about women’s supposedly innate inferiority and various inadequacies that prevent them from being men’s equals.
• Women need to recognize and overcome their own internalized sexist attitudes and beliefs about their sex’s supposed limitations.
  1. Consciousness raising groups-talk about experiences
  2. “Take Back the Night”-publicize rape

Martin Luther King Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

MLK wrote the essay while confined in a cell after leading a march against segregation.

Black people had already waited too long and too patiently to be "given" rights that were already theirs. The time for waiting was over, he said, and the time had come to act decisively, albeit nonviolently.

The third liberation characteristic is: The group needs to be liberated from the restraints holding them back; internal and external restraints. An example of internal restraint is MLK's daughter who internalized the racism she has faced which is distorting her personality "nobodiness" these attitudes which move from the outside to the inside

Steve Biko

Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity

Leaders of the black consciousness movement in south africa during the era of apartheid.

The fourth characteristic of liberation ideologies is: to raise consciousness - overcoming external and internal restraints

ex: Biko raising black consciousness - movement Biko was involved in was based on the idea of black pride and raising consciousness - you have to understand so you can free yourself

Mary Wollstonecraft

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Argues that the rights of man must extend to the other half of the human race, namely, women. She places a lot of stress on the importance of education. Education is vital to men and women alike, it enables them to acquire knowledge and to develop reason and virtue.

Her claim is that women are in common with men , they are placed on this earth to unfold their talents and abilities.

The fifth characteristic of liberation ideologies is to liberate the opressors and the oppressed. Therefore Mary W. believes that you must educate the men so that they understand they are not the superior.

Olympe de Gouges

Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen

Sarah Grimke

Letters on the Equality of the Sexes

Marilyn Frye

Oppression

Oppression takes many forms, including those subtle forms that are half hidden in our language and habits of thought.

There is a difference between suffering and being oppressed. It is not just one thing; it has a systemic quality. A series of connected wires to form a cage that affects things; cage metaphor

John Corvino

Homossexuality: The Nature and Harm Arguments

One of the aims of the Gay Liberation movement is to enable "gays" to be happy, healthy, contributing members of a society that recognizes and accepts differences in sexual orientation among its members.

This requires educating or "raising the consciousness" not only of gay people but of their heterozexual or "straight" neighbors

Corvino believes that confronting their own homophobia can lead gays and straights alike to overcome homophobia's stunting and stifling effects.

Taiaiake Alfred

Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom

Gustavo Gutierrez

Liberation Theology

Peter Singer

All Animals Are Equal

• the warming of the earth’s atmosphere due to the build up of carbon dioxide that results from the burning of fossil fuels and destruction of forests.

Agent: humans, Obstacle: humanism, Goal: survival and flourishing of all species

• each generation has a duty to leave to posterity a habitation not a ruin.

• believe the free market competition and private ownership of property are the best means of protecting the natural environment.

• has the power to mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us together and propel us forward.
• Human species is deeply dependent on other species of plants and animals. All species in the world are interdependent.
  1.  
     • Tale of the tree: trees are a source of not only shade and lumber but also oxygen, which they exchange for carbon dioxide.
     • To clear cut tropical rain forests or destroy other forests is to reduce the amount of oxygen available for us to breathe.
• Liberals, socialists, and individualist conservatives have shared a similar attitude about nature.
  1. Celebrates the increasing human conquest or mastery of nature.
  2. It is a resource that needs to be harnessed for such human purposes as growth and economic development.
  3. Sir Francis Bacon- “conquest of nature”
• Russia, China, and other countries are producing deadly nuclear and chemical wastes without any means of storing them safely for the thousands of years that they remain highly dangerous to the health of humans.
• Greens see little difference between communism and capitalism.

• an attitude of reverence and respect for the land and the myriad life-forms it sustains.
• We rarely pause to reflect upon what makes things possible and available to us.
  1.  
     • This sense of disconnect is an illusion that unless dispelled will doom our species and many others to extinction.

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  1. Respect for life—from the tiniest microorganism to the largest whale
     • The fate of our species is tied to theirs and their to ours.
  2. We have an obligation to respect and care for the condition that nurture and sustain life in its many forms.
  3. We recognize the extent of our power.
  4. Greens must work for peace—nonviolent protest and resistance

• an orientation emphasizing human beings’ responsibility for protecting, preserving, and sustaining the natural and social environment for the sake of future generations.

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  1. “time horizon” refers to how far ahead people think when they are deciding what to do.
     • When Greens urge people to sacrifice now for the sake of the future—they are asking people to adopt a time horizon that extends far beyond their own lives.
     • Persuading people to care about the well-being of future generations may not be enough to persuade them to make sacrifices for the future.
  2. Collective action: when they urge people to consume less and conserve more for the benefit of the future.
     • Private goods: anything that can be divided or distributed.
     • Public goods: invisible goods that cannot be divided; air

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  1. reform-minded environmentalists who favor laws and public policies that serve human needs and wants while minimizing damage to the natural environment.
     • Shallow environmentalism: puts human beings at the center of concern and view environmental problems in instrumental terms.
     • Favor saving the spotted owl or some species of whale so that human owl or whale watchers might derive satisfaction from seeing such animals.
     • Garden view: Rene Dubos, Wendell Berry- hold that human beings are a part of nature and that part of their nature is to cultivate the earth.

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  1. favor more radical measures to roll back development and to protect and even extend wilderness areas.
     • Deep ecology: contends that all living creatures are intrinsically valuable; they have value apart from the value that human beings may place on them.
     • Biocentric (life-centered) perspective that places other species and ecosystems on a par with human beings.
     • Wilderness view: Edward Abbey and Dave Foreman-humans have taken over and despoiled too much of the earth. Humans are not masters of nature

Wendell Berry

Getting Along with Nature

Kentucky farmer

Berry offers an eloquent defense of the "garden" view against advocates of the "wilderness" vision. Human beings are not a species set apart from nature and from nonhuman animals. They are natural creatures whose "nature" is to cultivate the earth. Such intervention does, of course, affect nature, but it need not always of necessarily do so for the worse. to cultivate the earth in ways that respect and protect its fertility and diversity is not contrary to nature but is to "get along with nature"

Dave Foreman

Putting the Earth First

Vandana Shiva

Women in Nature

Describes herself as an "ecofeminist"

argues that economic "development: in the third world comes at a high human and environmental price, doing more harm than good for those whom it purports to help.

• Agent: Muslims, Obstacle: Western world, Goal: destruction of Israel, Islamic law
• It is only through submission to God’s will that the individual can find peace in this life and paradise in the next.
• Islam is a way of life with political and social implications: the law of the land and the precepts of the faith should be one and the same.
  1.  
     • Shar’ia prohibits usury, and prescribes severe punishment for premarital sex and adultery.

• a form of government in which religious leaders try to enforce divine commands by making them the law of the land.

• the tendency to turn away from religious considerations and to emphasize the value of earthly life as a good in itself.  (betrayal of faith)

• Radical Islamism differs from mainstream Islam because the radicals see the threat of external enemies as greater and the danger more imminent.
• Threats come in 4 waves:
  1. Christian Crusades- expeditions to take back the Holy Land
  2. European expansion into North Africa and the Middle East
  3. Establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine after WWII
  4. Western ideas—liberalism, secularism, materialism, religious toleration, and sexual equality.

• : it is an ideology that aims to restore Islam to its pure state, untouched by the secularism that marks so many of the intellectual, political, and scientific developments of the last several centuries. Radical Islamism is directed not only against the West but also against Muslims who subscribe to Western ideas and aspiration that make Islam into a more open and tolerant religion.

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  1. Attack those Muslims who have supposedly betrayed the faith by adopting secular or western ideas and institutions.
  2. Launch terrorist attacks directly on western countries and their troops
  3. Education—the indoctrination of young people, and boys in particular.

• Islam shares the view that there is one God who created the heavens and the earth.
  1.  
     • Humans are weak and prone to sin by nature.
     • Must engage in jihad at individual and collective level to overcome temptation.
     • Strict regimen: praying 5 times a day, fasting during Ramadan, giving to the poor, and making the hajj to Mecca.
• Racial Islamism is anti-liberal/anti-individualist and has no room at all for the idea of the individual as distinct from the larger society.
• Reactionary ideology that seeks to return its adherents to a culturally and theologically purer time.
  1.  
     • such a reversal was required if the lessons of the Prophet are to be learned and applied to everyday life.
     • It represents a reaction against the threats posed by the pressures of modernization and secularization.
• No room or sympathy with a liberal view of freedom.
  1. True freedom comes only when one surrenders and submits one’s will to Allah.
  2. Only this submission can humans be truly free.
• Islam is a declaration of the freedom of man from servitude to other men. Thus it strives to abolish all those systems and governments, which are based on the rule of man over man.
• How can Radical Islamists justify the killing of other Muslims and innocent civilians?
  1.  
     • Terror and killing is takfir-the excommunication of Muslim apostates who have forfeited their status and Muslims and can be justifiably killed.
     • Civilians in Western democracies are not really innocent. They can be targeted as enemy combatants.

Sayyid Qutb

Milestones

Western liberalism and secularism must be resisted by Muslims who are resolute in their faith and prepared to engage in jihad (struggle)

Highly critical of muslims who seek to "modernize" and "reform" arabic societies

Ruhollah Khomeini

The Necessity for Islamic Government

harm principle

"one very simple principle"

everyone should be free to say or do whatever he or she pleases without harming anyone else. government may interfere only if you harm or threaten to harm another.

herbert spencer, william s sumner

neoclassical liberal