Politeia: The New Totalitarianism That Dares Not Speak Its Name

As the world's leaders are battling it out in Toronto at the G8/G20 summit (comedic zombies photo gallery) - Obama proposing socialist Keynesianism to 'stimulate the economy', Europe embarking on a counter movement instead curbing spending - we are today the recipients of great news!

Ever since we embarked in 2006 on our quest to discover what foul ideology is nibbling away at the foundations of Western civilization, culminating in a manuscript entitled "The Dystopia of Paradise", the contours of the new, post Cold War, global mindset has become increasingly visible.

For want of a clear identity we called it Neo Communism (an epithet they feared most for propaganda reasons), Neo Totalitarianism, Postmodernism, subjectivism, the Unholy Alliance, the Counter Enlightenment movement, Leftist (and Rightist) Fascism, Transnational Progressivism and various other ugly names, depending on whether in a political, philosophical, rhetorical or historical context. We declared it Ideology of the Year 2007!

Although rooted in the world of academia, apart from the odd conservative researcher like Hudson senior fellow, John Fonte who coined the term Transnational Progressivism, and liberty authors like Mark Levin, higher education to date just produced adherents who did their utmost to further the notions while obfuscating its existence and identity. Recently that has changed - more about that later.

In fact, lack of identity and its undeclared war are one of the most typical aspects of the new anti-philosophy. This is not so strange when one realizes it has left a trail of blood and bodies throughout history. It is particularly hard to chase a nameless ghost that only surfaces for short periods of time, and is just discernible on the philosophical level and then only if one is inclined to spot it. There have been times fellow researchers as wel as self have felt like paranoid conspiracy theorists. It has been a quest akin to planet chasing.

I believe we are well past that period now with Professor Ernest Sternberg's publication, "Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For" (Orbis 54:1, Winter 2010, pp. 61-86) - Hat Tip: Peter. Sternberg is coining yet another epithet for the new radical thinkers: the global purifiers. Non of these terms are factually incorrect and are all descriptive of various aspects of the dogma.

However, I believe when reduced to the historical and philosophical root the best identity description would be Rousseauism, or Utopian collectivism of the Rousseau variety. The fine, freedom-loving, individual-nurturing citations in this page, are his. The pristine, ideal tribal world as envisioned by Rousseau has a frightening, religious component.

It suffered in communism and fascism which largely preferred the cult of personality. But since the coalition between Western secular and Eastern religious collectivism (the Unholy Alliance) took shape, and has indeed now merged seamlessly (!) (women and gays be damned), the integration of ideas as put forward by Rousseau, is complete once again. From "Ideological Archeology":

In Roussea's ideas we find the source of every anti-Liberal, violent revolution ever since the French Revolution went off the Lockean track. Rousseau is ultimately the father of many noxious and lethal traditions besides: nationalistic Romanticism, redistributive Socialism, philosophical agrarianism, conservative and progressive Communitarianism, Nazism, and more to the point, the Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism. Cultures, adopting Rousseauian ideas found in them a mirror of some aspect of their own identity. [Another great analysis, by Wildmonk].

Many have descended into the abyss of collectivist hell. In France his radical egalitarianism led to The Reign of Terror, in Germany to Left and Right Socialism with known results, in Russia and the Far East to communism, starvation and slaughter on grandiose scales. In China Mao Tse Tung's Great Leap Forward resulted in the greatest mass murder in human history and in Cambodia the Khmer Rouge's extermination campaign to establish Rousseauian agrarianism resulted in the deaths of well over twenty percent of the population. [Wildmonk] If this is not evil, frankly I don't know what is.

The event of the Gaza propaganda flotilla two weeks ago - the fleet of barely disguised 'aid' ships whose proper description should have been raid ships - sought not to deliver goods to Gaza, but to break the blockade which the legitimate and autonomous nation of Israel put in place around the Hamas terrorist hell hole of Gaza.

It is but the latest strategy by which the Unholy Alliance seeks to deligitimize Israel's right to exist and the right to defend itself. This event is an indication how far the Alliance is willing to go: all the way. Sternberg explains that the secular component has largely refrained from serious violence because they see their religious terrorist comrades as proxies.

Sternberg is pointing out that the current status of World Purification is an ideology, not yet a regime. But I believe he is overlooking the existence of another Axis, the one of Evil, an alliance now of North Korea, Iran, Syria, a number of other Middle Eastern and South American dictatorships like Venezuela et al. - the Gaza propflot perilously adding NATO member, Turkey to the toxic brew.

Sternberg is apparently also unaware of the radical background and ideas of his own president, Barack Hussein Obama, the leader of what used to be known as the free world, which seems to be unaware of the silent, covert war being waged against it.

If you care to know where they are, read "Where Have All the Radicals Gone?".

Update

Andrew Thomas on American Thinker is also on the case of Prof. Sternberg's essay. He has this to add:

(...) The article(...) will open your eyes and scare you to death. In Sternberg's analysis, from the historical ashes of failed fascist and communist regimes a new totalitarian ideology is emerging (...) One issue that Sternberg does not address is the pervasive, unrelenting propaganda machine that constitutes the progressive mainstream media.

As long as free-thinking individuals are misled and kept ignorant of the purificationist agenda, the infiltration of our institutions and the destruction of our freedoms and values will continue. We (...) must do everything possible to educate others and disrupt this movement. Otherwise, the sweet dreams of the purifiers will inevitably result in an unending totalitarian nightmare of global proportions. (...) >>>

Update