The Totalitarian Paradox

All totalitarian systems through history have relied heavily on the myth that totalitarian control is the ultimate end towards which we are moving due to modernity and progress.

This myth is widely accepted, both by those who long for a totalitarian future and by those who fear it. But nowhere in history do we find any evidence in support of this. Totalitarian systems last at most a few generations, and very imperfectly at best. They are therefore nothing to be feared.

Fear is counter productive. It prevents us from acting rationally. Instead of us taking practical steps to rearrange our personal lives and finances, we sit petrified and frustrated at home, arguing among ourselves about what totalitarian candidate to vote for. But the way to deal with totalitarian tendencies has never been through petitions and voting. It has always been through subversive measures at the private level. The very opposite of totalitarianism is after all the private sphere. It is the private sphere that the totalitarians cannot ever conquer. There's simply too many people with too many connections and too many ideas for the totalitarians to ever come to grasps with.

Private interactions and conversations cannot be conquered. Not even the most totalitarian nut-job will propose a world in which no-one interacts with anybody else without their permission and a full transcript of what took place. Such a world would be impossible. There's no way to implement something like that. This means that there will always be room for private deals. Commerce, justice and law will always exists in the private sphere no matter how much totalitarians wish it otherwise.

Private relations and independent thinking extends all the way into the bureaucratic machine of the totalitarians themselves. The top layer may be fully staffed by totalitarians, and the bottom layer may be full of unthinking drones. But the executive layer is by necessity filled with individuals skilled in logical reasoning. Otherwise, no rational commands can be made, which would render the bureaucracy impotent.

The paradox of totalitarianism is that it requires individuals to be both rational thinkers and mindless drones at one and the same time. The more advanced and sophisticated the totalitarian system appears to be, the more it relies on this paradox. As a consequence, we get odd episodes where a single individual like Edward Snowden brings down decades of propaganda related to the nature of government surveillance.

Similarly, something interesting just happened over at Sandia Labs. A scientist pointed out the incoherent and baseless nature of claims pushed by his superiors. All it took was a short video for the entire establishment of his industry to be thoroughly shaken.

From history, we know that this is how sophisticated totalitarian states like the Austrian-Hungarian empire end. When the thinking part of the bureaucracy starts protesting, things come unglued. At some point, the totalitarians become so unhinged that no thinking person is willing to execute their orders.

This will happen again. In the meantime, whenever totalitarians are out in force, our best line of action is to strengthen our private ties so that we suffer as little damage as possible from the insanity that they unleash.

Surveillance

By CC BY-SA 3.0, Hustvedt - Own workLink