Totalitarianism

For Hannah Arendt, spontaneous, ‘initiatory’ human action and interaction are suppressed by the normalizing pressures of society once ‘life’ – that is, sheer life – becomes the primary concern of politics, as it does, she finds, in the modern age. Arendt’s concept of the social is indebted to Martin Heidegger’s analysis of everyday Dasein in Being and Time, and contemporary political philosophers inspired by Heidegger, such as Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Giorgio Agamben, tend to reproduce her account of the withdrawal of the political in modernity. In this article, I complicate Arendt’s theory by turning to Michel Foucault’s parallel but diverging understanding of the nature of power in modern society to show, surprisingly, that Foucault’s narrative of the emergence of modern power pictures a society that is more, not less, politicized.

Any cursory review of the past five years of Italian historiography on fascism obviously would be subject to multiple criticisms and be Condemned for partiality, especially since the time span under investigation is relatively brief and only the work of select Italian scholars can be considered.
Not all the published literature on fascism could be taken into
account, given the enormous attention still given to the subject in academic monographs and journalistic accounts.

This article follows and reconstructs the question of reality in and throughout in the work of Hannah Arendt. I argue that Arendt had always been concerned with this question: in her early work on Augustin in a philosophical way, in her book on totalitarianism in a political way, and as of The Human Condition and "Truth and Politics" explicitly as a problem concerning the relation between philosophy and politics. Her late writings on The Life of the Mind finally move from a critique to a certain understanding of the philosophical urge to "overleap" reality, a tendency Arendt subverts by insisting on our fundamental "being of the world." The main aim of my paper is to show how throughout these differentiated treatments of the question of reality during her whole intellectual career, Arendt herself develops a philosophically refined thesis of the constitution of reality through plurality and "reality" as a politically relevant category.

OPEN LETTER TO PM MODI
SIR, YOU RESPECT DIVERSITY BUT RSS MOURNS IT, WHOM DO WE BELIEVE?
My Dear Prime Minister Modi ji,
Namaskar.
It is heartening to note that you as PM of our democratic-secular state have underlined the great diversities in the Indian nation which needed to be celebrated. While addressing a conference on 'Islamic Heritage: Promoting Understanding and Moderation' in the presence of the King of Jordan, Abdullah II in Delhi on March 1, 2018 you were kind enough to declare that India's democracy was "a celebration of our age-old plurality" recalling that "religions and beliefs from all over the world" flourished in the country. It was great to hear you to commit that "We Indians are proud of our diversity." While specially addressing the Muslim youth of India you were kind enough to advise them to hold Quran in one hand and computer in the other for an all-inclusive progress and welfare. However, I would beg to say that this call for Quran or any other scripture in one hand is a risky proposition. The US taught Afghan youth Quran in one hand and AK47 in other hand and what price Afghan Muslims paid for it is well known.
Read the whole letter....

Providing an innovative conceptualization to extremist political movements founded upon "world-historic" populations and vanguard party organizations, Vanguardism sets out a new path in investigating the intellectual and historical influences that created extremist politics, the totalitarian movements and regimes of the twentieth century, and a framework for interpreting extremism in the present.

Expanding its view across the turbulent intellectual currents of the nineteenth century, Philip W. Gray illustrates how these ideas shaped the shared ideational and organizational structures that would develop into Leninism, Fascism, and Nazism in the early twentieth century. Moving beyond the Second World War, the book explicates how vanguardism did not vanish with the war’s conclusion, but was modified throughout the period of national liberation movements and Western extremist groups over the ensuing decades. Concluding in the present with an eye to the future, Gray presents a framework for comprehending the extremist movement of today, and how organizational shifts can give us clues to the forms of totalitarian politics of tomorrow.

Original and provocative, Vanguardism will become essential reading for everyone looking to understand totalitarianism and extremist politics of our time.

Face aux totalitarismes, la résistance au féminin FIGAROVOX/ENTRETIEN-En participant à un ouvrage récent sur la lutte des femmes contre le totalitarisme, Biljana Vučetić met en lumière le rôle joué par plusieurs femmes engagées du XXe siècle. Un récit poignant et documenté, qui permet de revisiter une page parfois méconnue de l'histoire yougoslave.

The volume introduced by this paper consists of a number of papers focusing primarily on theoretical, methodological issues pertaining to the book’s general theme, whereas the majority of papers focus on a country or region where a fascist movement or regime flourished between the wars and during World War II, and where there was a significant catholic presence in society. The different chapters cover almost the entire European continent, and they explore a wide range of relevant methodologies and contexts.

Han Fei’s doctrine of absolute monarchy is one of the most sophisticated political ideologies ever devised in any ancient society, and it proved critical to the foundation of the first imperial dynasty. One must nonetheless acknowledge that it remains problematic. What are the reasons for the shifting and contradictory attitudes in the Han Feizi concerning the nature of sovereignty, the distribution of political roles, and the vexed question of the delegation of authority? Cornered by the ever-clashing perspectives of history and doctrine, which imply the simultaneous mistrust of both rulers and ministers, the Han Feizi’s authors were forced into conceiving a sublime rulership figure that was tantamount to a metaphysical dummy. This empty silhouette was the result of the contradictory attempts to destroy all possible factors weakening monarchical authority but yet, at the same time, to nullify all potential damage that the monarch could inflict on the state and on himself. The fascinating figure of a spirit-like Prince fusing with the Principle (Dao) imposed a long-lasting ideological paradigm of rulership on China, one that may account for many of the weaknesses of and tensions in its political culture.

Democracy in a post-colonial Africa has not replicated the “Westminster model” that was inoculated upon the continent by its former colonial masters. African democracy, which is flawed mainly in comparison to the West, has posed different characteristics mostly, an extended stay in power by some of its leaders. The emergence of the strong man leader has been a critical point of debate as scholars in the field of comparative politics and government continue to wrestle with the question of how African dictators have maintained a stronghold on power. These extended incumbencies, which are becoming the norm, are best understood if they are analyzed using the theoretical frameworks of; cooptation, coercion, repression, colonial legacies, and elements of foreign direct investment/ influence. To put democracy and dictatorship in conversation, this paper examines Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi, whose rule discombobulated the young nation. Gadhafi’s reign, in its nativity, was a harbinger for hopes of democracy in Africa as it promised participation of all citizens; however, relations soured throughout what was an egregious 42-year presidency.

Príspevok má za cieľ facilitovať reflexiu o dejinách saleziánskej charizmy v Strednej Európe. Vnímanie podobností a zároveň rozdielov v prežívaní charizmy v „post-komunistických“ zemiach je štartovný bod príspevku. Spôsob prezentácie je sled „obrazov“ objasňujúcich niektoré aspekty charizmy: dejinné, zemepisné, politické, kultúrne, komunikatívne, organizčné, koordinačné. Rozvinuté body:
1. Zemepis a história: Centrum, alebo hranica Európy ?
2. Ekonómia: Dôvod rastu a pádu komunizmu
3. Oratórium bez štruktúr ako antropologická skúsenosť: Slovensko 1950-1989
4. Kultúry, komunikácia a riadenie: habsburská, poľská a ruská mentalita
5. Železná opona a dva paralelné príbehy Európy
6. Post-komunistická antropológia medzi históriou, kultúrou, zemepisom,
totalitnými dynamikami a skúsenostnými danosťami

Under dekke av vitenskap settes likhetstegn mellom nazisme/fascisme og kommunisme/alle marxistiske retninger i internasjonal og norsk arbeiderbevegelse – også de anti-autoritære og demokratiske. På den måten tilsløres fascismens og nazismens røtter i det kapitalistiske borgerlige samfunn. Og gjennom brunskvetting av marxismen bidrar totalitarismenettverket til å begrense ytringsfriheten for dem som i politikk og forskning gjør bruk av marxistisk samfunnsanalyse. Institutter ved Universitetet i Oslo og mediebedrifter som NRK og VG lar "totalitaristene" boltre seg uten å etterspørre kritiske innvendinger. Pressen påvirkes og vegrer seg for å slippe til marxistisk orientert samfunnskritikk i form av bokomtale/-anmeldelse og artikler. Å gå totalitarismepredikantene og deres teser nærmere etter i sømmene, slik de fire forfatterne gjør i dette skriftet, er høyst betimelig og nødvendig.

Wie arbeiten undemokratische Regime? Die Autoren geben einen Überblick über totalitäre und autoritäre Regimen (sowie Mischformen) und stellen anhand Fallstudien die Funktionsweise derartiger Regime dar.
Die Autoren diskutieren unterschiedliche Hintergründe, Ideologien und Mentalitäten in modernen undemokratischen Regimen. Dabei dienen spezifische Länder als Beispiele für die zuvor eingeführten theoretischen Konzepte. Das Buch ist in acht Hauptkapitel eingeteilt. Im ersten Kapitel geht es um terminologische Probleme in Bezug auf undemokratische Formen der Regierung. In den folgenden Kapiteln wird die Theorie totalitärer und autoritärer Regime dargestellt. Das vierte Kapitel behandelt andere Formen undemokratischer Regime, die nicht der klassischen Zweiteilung von Totalitarismus vs. Autoritarismus entsprechen. Im sechsten Kapitel werden auf der Grundlage der politischen Psychologie Aspekte der autoritären Persönlichkeit und des politischen Führungsverhaltens untersucht. Die letzten beiden Kapitel beschäftigen sich mit den praktischen Fragen der Funktionsweise von undemokratischen Regimen.

“Prison and the Subject of Resistance: A Levinasian Inquiry” imbricates Emanuel Levinas’s ethics of the care-for-the-other and the experience of resistance and capitulation in the context of political prisons.  It responds to basic questions: Why, under the paideia of the totalizing system, do we so often come to lose our ethical bearings, our social identities, such that we capitulate in this way?  Yet again, why is it that we also so often resist when resistance seems impossible? Through textual analysis of publicly documented memoirs, interviews, letters and of my own experiences, this article analyses the paideia of totalizing systems and illustrates with Levinas not only the indispensability, however occluded, but also the living presence of ethics of the other in the political realm.

Ведибіда Б.О. Інформаційно-методичний огляд Висвітлення історії політичних репресій і радянського тоталітаризму в експозиціях музеїв Західної України / Б. О. Ведибіда (автор-упорядник); Національний музей історії України. – К. : НМІУ, 2017. – 80 с.

Course Description & Aim
The rise of National Socialism to power prompted an unprecedented large-scale exodus of Central European scholars who have had an enormous impact on American cultural life in particular, and the post-World War II world of politics in general. The primary aim of the course is to introduce students to the key ideas and classical writings of these figures, and to examine their responses to and analysis of the age of extremes. We will begin our journey with the writings of Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm – the founders of the Frankfurt School – and will continue with the analyses of totalitarianism and " political Messianism " offered by Hannah Arendt, Gershom Scholem, Jacob L. Talmon, and Karl Popper, which we will then compare and contrast with the evaluation of liberalism one finds in the writings of Leo Strauss, Isaiah Berlin, and Arthur Koestler. We shall examine these thinkers' analyses of enlightenment, nationalism, socialism, and totalitarianism, their life stories, and their direct and indirect role in creating a transatlantic political discourse in postwar years. We will try to ask ourselves to what extent were their political and philosophical writings designed as a response to the maladies of the twentieth century, and to what extent did their Jewishness notify their writings, if at all. By doing so we shall be able to contextualize historically the fundamental features of Jewish intellectual activity after 1945.
*No prior knowledge of political science, philosophy and/or Jewish studies are required.

¿Qué características son inherentes al totalitarismo? Esta pregunta fue expuesta tanto por Hannah Arendt como por George Orwell, y ambos respondieron a su manera muy particular. Este texto busca alinear las visiones de estos dos escritores para comprender mejor a los totalitarismos, tomando como base a la novela 1984, y
aplicando algunos conceptos teóricos tanto de Arendt, como de Juan Linz y Robert Dahl.

This book centres on four Portuguese artists’ journeys between Portugal and Britain and aims at rethinking the cultural and artistic interactions in the post-war Europe, the shaping of new identities within a context of creative experimentalism and transnational dynamics and the artistic responses to political troubles.
Leonor de Oliveira examines the contributions of the work of Paula Rego, Barto dos Santos, João Cutileiro and Jorge Vieira, among other artists, to shape referential images of Portuguese identity that not only responded to the purpose of breaking with dominant iconographic and aesthetic representations but also incorporated a critical perspective on contemporaneity.
This title will appeal to scholars interested in art history, Portuguese and European art, and the mid-twentieth-century art scene.

The paper presents one of the tools of indoctrination of Czechoslovak
society after 1948 – the building of the cult of personality, namely Stalin's cult of personality. In the introduction, it discusses the starting points of the cult of personality of Stalin and briefly presents its manifestation in the Soviet Union. It maps the period from the turn of the 1920s and 1930s to the end of World War II. The text also deals with
the form and methods of cult behavior, its aim and content. The article talks about the spread of popularity and respect for this native of Gori across Europe after 1945 and the causes that led to his cultivation in Czechoslovakia, too. It presents the regime, in which this behavior was embedded and in which it had been intensively promoted for several years. The core of the text maps one of the concrete manifestations of building a cult of personality – the celebration of the 70th birthday of ‘generalissimus’. It describes the origin, establishment and activities of the government commission that was in charge of preparing the
elebrations. It presents the first plans for the realization of celebrations and reflections on the appropriate content of the feast. It includes the time and organizational problems that accompanied this mass-popularization event and analyzes the form and possible impacts of propaganda content disseminated through the celebrations. The text also deals in more detail with some of the main parts of the celebrations, such as the event of gifts that traveled from Czechoslovakia to the
USSR. It talks about ‘zdravica’ – about the written congratulations of the Czechoslovak people to Stalin, but also about the network of lectures and discussions and also about the laying of the foundations of the monumental statue, which was later erected in the country's capital. The authoress also declares a tendency of the state party seeking to
establish itself in the newly dominated territory, to transform the wide diapazon parts of the everyday life of a Czechoslovak citizen. The paper, by its timeframe, falls into the so-called founding period of the communist regime (1948 – 1953), with an accent on the end of 1949.

The Exceptional State is an exercise in comparative politics. The course is intended to clarify the meaning and uniquely political form of (some) modern societies. To this end, we contrast two exceptional state forms, namely liberal-democratic and totatalitarian regimes; understood here, respectively, as societies in which the fallibilistic character of knowledge and the associated indeterminacy of the social is celebrated, and societies that treat the individual as always-already constituted, and which seek to occupy the ‘place of power’ (Lefort) in such a way that power law and knowledge becomes an effect of a master narrative.

Constructed largely through a critical engagement with Claude Lefort, the course presents a particular reading of the liberal-democratic state form in which the ‘place of power’ is said to be empty, and acknowledged openly as such, and in which the markers of certitude once derived from a master narrative or Truth (god, history, etc.) are displaced. Importantly, this reading locates the individual subject within a web of inherently subversive social relations, a ‘political form’ (Lefort) at odds with both the ancien régime and (to varying degrees) actually existing liberalism in modern capitalist societies. This makes possible a politics of open-ended discovery and socio-political contestation, which is contrasted with the type of ‘anti-political politics’ and state form that emerged in twentieth century totalitarian regimes.

This reading of the democratic revolution and its political possibilities is not taken as given, and students are expected to engage critically with it.

The following is an analysis of an excerpt titled “Thoughts on the Baptism of D.W.R.” derived of German Theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s "Letters and Papers from Prison." Unfortunately, no argument will be rendered, rather it will be a historical-theological analysis trying to make sense of a particular excerpt from a particular historical era written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Concerning Bonhoeffer, his life was cut short due to the Fascist rule of Nazi Germany as the young theologian was fully involved in a resistance party plot attempting in the assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer, was imprisoned and lynched by the Nazi-Germanic-State in 1945. “Thoughts on the Baptism of D.W.R.” is largely in the form of a letter to Bonhoeffer's great-nephew celebrating his baptism as he renders counsel, while Bonhoeffer simultaneously sheds his insight on his own theological situatedness during the year of 1944 amidst the plight of a World War against totalitarian government where Bonhoeffer exposes some of his novel theological developments in his prison writings. The following focuses on the aforementioned.

Trent'anni fa sbocciò una vera, autentica "Primavera democratica", più popolare e avanzata nelle sue richieste rispetto a molte che si sono consumate nell'Africa mediterranea di otto anni fa. Accadde in Cina, sotto il regime comunista a partito unico della Repubblica Popolare Cinese.

Abstract:This essay explores how a recent body of work by Thai artist Piyarat Piyapongwiwat uses an immersive video installation to create a context that affectively connects the viewer with a group of exploited Cambodian labourers. While the struggles of these labourers—whose livelihoods are being eroded as the mountain that has sustained them for generations is fenced off, privatized and mined to supply urban development with limestone—may seem remote and disconnected from the lives of privileged, urban exhibition-goers, Piyapongwiwat’s work belies this disconnection. The affective portal created by the video installation allows us to not only empathize with the labourers, but to see how their sense of their own agency and power to change their plight is negated by what seem to be inexorable autonomous processes of capitalist development beyond their control or influence. At the same time, she enables us to see how we (the privileged viewers) can conveniently ignore our own complicity in these exploitative conditions through that same ideological sleight of hand that allows us to abdicate our responsibility for these seemingly autonomous processes from which we indirectly benefit. This learned acquiescence to exploitation, and concomitant alienation from a sense of agency to challenge these processes, benefits State-sanctioned extractive capitalist exploitation and perpetuates the power to oppress. The essay explores how Piyapongwiwat interweaves fictive, poetic narrative with documentary footage of the limestone quarry labourers, offering critical distance to examine the workings of the ideologies that perpetuate this status quo. The juxtaposition of documentary and poetic, philosophical and political narratives in the artwork offers a fertile space in the imagination for resistance and reclamation of agency through a search for truth beyond the ideologies that serve State and capitalist power.

Chociaż termin "totalitaryzm" jest przedmiotem wieloletniej debaty akade-mickiej, w której niejednokrotnie był dyskredytowany, w krajach postsocjali-stycznych, które miały w pewnym okresie cierpieć pod tegoż "totalitaryzmu" jarzmem, wciąż potrafi wzbudzać spore emocje jako oręż polityczny (Conelly 2010). Celem artykułu jest pokazanie ograniczeń funkcjonalności tego terminu na bazie istniejących studiów krytycznych, jak również przykładów niespójno-ści koncepcji tych myślicieli, którzy go szczególnie afirmują i propagują. Za-sadniczym punktem wyjścia są tutaj znakomite analizy, które wykonali włoscy badacze-Domenico Losurdo (2004) i Enzo Traverso (2017). Ponadto w ni-niejszym artykule wykorzystano szereg innych studiów odwołujących się do badań historycznych, analiz politologicznych i społecznych, a także refleksji filozoficznej poświęconej "totalitaryzmowi". W pierwszej części została przed-stawiona geneza terminu "totalitaryzm" i zarysowany stan debaty akademickiej towarzyszącej jego konceptualizacji. W drugiej części została zakwestionowa-na słuszność esencjonalnego utożsamienia nazizmu z komunizmem. W trze-ciej przeanalizowano próby prezentacji marksizmu jako "ideologii totalitarnej" w zimnowojennej filozofii politycznej. W ostatniej zaś zostały podkreślone niektóre rasistowskie i imperialistyczne konotacje związane z koncepcją "to-talitaryzmu". Prowadzi to do konkluzji, gdzie pokazano główne kontrowersje "modelu totalitarnego".

In this paper I examine how Hobbes’ philosophy can be read from an Arendtian perspective. I argue that Arendt provided two different interpretations of Hobbes: one set down in The Origins of Totalitarianism, where Hobbes is depicted as the spokesman of the emerging bourgeoisie; and another that she developed later, scattered among various texts such as The Human Condition and Between Past and Future. I focus on this second interpretation and on her analysis of concepts such as common sense, authority and sovereignty. Firstly, I examine how she changes the meaning of common sense, and how this shift is linked to what Arendt understands by the expression “estrangement from the world.” Secondly, I explain how Hobbes redefined the concept of authority and how his notion of sovereignty deliberately conflated the dual concepts of authority and power.

Link: https://brill.com/abstract/journals/hobs/32/1/article-p71_71.xml

Further research on this topic can be read here:
https://www.academia.edu/30502447/Ph._D._Hannah_Arendt_on_the_question_of_authority_Concluding_Remarks_

Or here: https://www.academia.edu/31488906/Hannah_Arendt._Una_lectura_desde_la_autoridad_Tesis_doctoral_

In de strijd tegen Islamitisch radicalisme richten wetgevers en beleidsmakers zich meer en meer op de vraag of en hoe men niet-gewelddadige, islamistische en salafistische organisaties kan verbieden.
De ratio hierachter is dat hun zendingswerk de basis legt voor antidemocratische bewegingen en zij met een beroep op het Europees Verdrag voor de Rechten van de Mens trachten de rechten uit dat verdrag aan anderen te ontzeggen.  Een beroep op artikel 17 EVRM ligt dan ook voor de hand, maar is dat ook haalbaar?
In dit artikel beargumenteer ik dat een parallel kan worden getrokken tussen deze organisaties en een zaak van het Europees Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens uit 1988: de zaak Kuhnen tegen Duitsland. Hierin concludeerde het Hof dat neonazi organisaties geen beroep kunnen doen op de vrijheden uit het EVRM aangezien hun activiteiten, zelfs wanneer deze geen wet breken, tot doel hebben de democratische rechtsorde teniet te doen. Ditzelfde kan worden gesteld over salafistische-islamistische organisaties. Hiermee wordt wetgevers en beleidsmakers een precedent aangereikt om het beleid jegens eerstgenoemde aan te scherpen.

"Wolin’s Democracy Incorporated struggles with one of the most
persistent questions in social sciences – the challenge and perils of democratic systems as a ceaseless struggle
between the political demos and selected few elites. The question is carried to a contemporary, but equally crucial
phenomena – the transformation of the US political system harbouring ambitions of being the world’s longest democratic
champion and promoter of democracy abroad. The book, thus, raises a very provocative question – does democracy
truly describe the US politics, or is it a cynical gesture used to camouflage a deeply manipulative politics? (242) Could we and/or should we think of an American version of totalitarianism? In that case, how can we notice it?"

Artigo publicado no Dossiê Temático "Usos Práticos do Passado" na Revista Temporalidades: v. 9 n. 1 (2017): Edição 23.

RESUMO:A série televisiva Black Mirror, criada por Charlie Brooker, nos apresenta um futuro de distopia, onde a tecnologia avançada tomou conta da vida das pessoas, e com tons de ficção científica. A série, apesar de se passar em um espaço de tempo desconhecido, nos apresenta elementos sociais muito familiares. O episódio retratado nesse texto, Engenharia reversa (Men against fire), nos coloca questionamentos e desconfortos que o sociólogo Zygmunt Bauman há muito tempo nos alertava: de que não aprendemos nada com o Holocausto e de que a sociedade estaria em perigo até hoje, do mesmo jeito que estava em perigo em 1933. O objetivo desse artigo é fazer uma relação entre esse episódio e as teorias de Bauman e Hannah Arendt, acerca das lições do totalitarismo, dos elementos modernos que tornaram o Holocausto possível e da cegueira moral que acomete a sociedade moderna, fazendo com que não estejamos livres de outro Holocausto. Essa concepção se insere na proposta de Pierre Rosanvallon, nos usos da história para o presente e no constante diálogo entre o passado e o presente na história filosófica do político.

ABSTRACT: The science fiction television series Black Mirror, created by Charlie Brooker, presents a dystopic future in which high technology embraces and overpowers people‘s lives. The series, although set in an unknown historic period, shows very familiar social elements. The episode analyzed in this paper is entitled Men against fire and it raises some of the questions and discomforts that sociologist Zygmunt Bauman warned us about: for instance, the fact that we have learned nothing from the Holocaust, and that society is still in danger today as it was in danger in 1933. This article aims to relate Men against fire to the theories of Bauman and Hannah Arendt about the lessons of totalitarianism, the modern elements that made the Holocaust possible and the moral blindness that afflicts modern society – thus showing us that we are still in the possibility of another Holocaust. This proposal echoes the theories of Pierre Rosanvallon regarding the uses of history for the present, and the constant dialogue between past and present within the philosophical history of politics.

Le rapport entre Platon et Rousseau est significatif en ce que ces deux philosophes présentent chacun un projet de refonte radicale de la société. L’un fondé sur l’égalité géométrique, telle qu’elle est précisée d’une manière fondamentale à la fin du Gorgias, et développée successivement dans la République et dans les Lois, l’autre fondé sur l’égalité arithmétique, dans le cadre d’un paradigme moderne promouvant l’idée de liberté, en ayant néanmoins perdu de vue le principe d’égalité géométrique. Cette différenciation doit néanmoins être nuancée par le fait que Rousseau, lecteur assidu de Platon, a retenu de son lointain devancier l’idée que la cité doit être un holon vivant (le corps politique). Se pose alors la question des modalités selon lesquelles doit s’établir l’intégration totale de l’individu dans le corps social, et le fait est que l’on s’est souvent demandé si les deux projets ne portaient pas en eux, par la représentation holistique de l'État, les germes théoriques du totalitarisme. Cette question, sitôt posée, se voit assez rapidement résolue par le fait que l’holisme chez ces deux penseurs ne peut aucunement être assimilé au processus de déshumanisation mis en œuvre par les totalitarismes récents de nature industrielle, dans lesquels l’homme a perdu sa dimension d’homo laborans, selon l’expression d’Hannah Arendt. S’il y a un totalitarisme chez Platon, il reste « artisanal » et n’a jamais pu voir le jour, alors que le totalitarisme industriel, lui, a pu malheureusement se concrétiser, comme s’il avait fallu compter sur la puissance des machines pour cela. Le totalitarisme de type artisanal poursuivait la mission d’harmoniser les classes et les individus, le totalitarisme industriel sera systématiquement uniformisateur. Les réflexions de Karl Popper et d’Hannah Arendt ont été sollicitées et discutées pour résoudre cette question récurrente.


The relationship between Plato and Rousseau is meaningful in that these two philosophers each present a plan to radically change society. One based on geometric equality, as it is specified in a fundamental manner at the end of the Gorgias, and developed successively in Republic and in the Laws, the other based on arithmetic equality, in the setting of a modern paradigm promoting the idea of liberty, having nevertheless lost from view the geometric equality principle. This differentiation calls for some nuance in the fact that Rousseau, a regular reader of Plato, kept from his distant predecessor the idea that the city must be a living holon (the political body). One of the issues that was raised is that of the modes according to which the individual's total integration in the social body could be achieved, and the fact is that it has often been wondered if the two plans didn't carry in them, by the holistic representation of the state, the theoretical seeds of totalitarianism. This question, as soon as posed, sees itself answered quickly enough by the fact that the holism in these two thinkers cannot be assimilated by any means to the process of dehumanization put in place by recent totalitarianisms of industrial nature, in which man lost his dimension of homo laborans, according to Hannah Arendt. If there is totalitarianism in Plato, it remains "artisanal" and could never actually have existed, whereas industrial totalitarianism, itself, could unfortunately be established, as if it had been necessary to count on the power of machinery to do it. The artisanal type of totalitarianism wanted to harmonize the classes and individuals, whereas the industrial totalitarianism would be systematically homogenizing. The arguments of Karl Popper and Hannah Arendt have been solicited and have been discussed to solve this recurrent question.