Tyranny - A Part Of Our Civilizational History
Standing In the Light Under the Brutal Reality of Tyranny Has Never Been Easy
Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism, Naziism, Communism, Capitalism
Forward for April 13, 2024:
During these recent years of the return of authoritarian rule the above terms pop up - linked in various ways - with the ubiquitous term “Fascism” - to explain our current dilemma.
When I look at history I see them all linked in an unbroken line across the past several thousand years and - indeed - as we shall see the term Fascism originates in the Latin.
Although these are generally presented as modern phenomenon - and certainly they have become more prevalent in modern times - they are not modern but have been part of our civilized history for the past millennia.
The reasons why these - as tyranny - have become more widespread in modern times - and in fact now encompass the entire planet - can be explained through the size of our present population and through the explosive rise of technology in our midst.
In fact if we just look at the rise of modern technology since the 1800’s and the “Satanic Mills” days of William Blake, the “Frankenstein” days of Mary Shelley and the “Algorithm” days of Miss Ida Lovelace - we can also see and trace the concomitant rise of authoritarianism.
This essay concerns a few aspects of these issues going forward.
The Perceptions of Teenager Anne Frank on Totalitarianism
One of the things I have thought of often during these Covid years of totalitarianism are of people like Anne Frank who stood as a teenager - as a heroine - against Nazi totalitarianism.
She and her family were living in Germany as the Nazis gained power and as Jewish people became scapegoated as the cause of all society’s ills.
It had to be absolutely chilling and terrifying as the targeting and scapegoating of the Jewish people and those who failed to agree with Nazi ideology were increasingly targeted and carted away to death camps.
The family of Anne Frank were eventually forced to leave Germany for the Netherlands - but that too failed to protect them.
Anne’s diary begins on her thirteenth birthday, June 12, 1942, and ends shortly after her fifteenth. At the start of her diary, Anne describes fairly typical girlhood experiences, writing about her friendships with other girls, her crushes on boys, and her academic performance at school. Because anti-Semitic laws forced Jews into separate schools, Anne and her older sister, Margot, attended the Jewish Lyceum in Amsterdam.
The Franks had moved to the Netherlands in the years leading up to World War II to escape persecution in Germany. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the Franks were forced into hiding. With another family, the van Daans, and an acquaintance, Mr. Dussel, they moved into a small secret annex above Otto Frank’s office where they had stockpiled food and supplies. The employees from Otto’s firm helped hide the Franks and kept them supplied with food, medicine, and information about the outside world.
The Diary of Anne Frank Full Book Summary
It is a highly valuable work which gives the reader a front line viewpoint of what totalitarianism feels like.
And as our feelings are among the very best guides to understanding what is going on in our midst - being in touch with them is a highly trustworthy guide to our reality.
It was not easy then - and is not easy today - to live with the reality of the emotions fear, anger, shame and oppression which totalitarianism makes us feel.
The family of Anne Frank was hidden away in a garret where - with the help of others - they did everything possible to hide from the Nazis.
Anne Frank kept a diary of she and her family’s diligent work to protect themselves and others.
Her work stands as a monumental achievement in the world of letters and as a testament to human bravery - as a true heroine’s journey - in the modern world - one which has unfortunately trended steadily toward tyranny and oppression.
There are a surprising number of connections between what Anne Frank and what the scapegoated Jews endured during WW II and through the modern totalitarian agenda of this 21st century.
20th Century and 21st Century Tyranny
But the mammoth difference between the 20th century tyranny and the 21st century tyranny is the scale.
After all in the 20th century totalitarianism was geographically limited - but then not as much as our mainstream history may have been led to believe.
Although Nazi Germany was held up as the premier pinnacle of tyranny - and for good reason - it was far from the only 20th century example.
Although Hitler became the Great Dictator - he was hardly alone in his fascist ideology.
Even the mild mannered Encyclopedia Britannica tells us this.1
In The History of Western Civilization we are given the “structured learning” explanation of Fascism. 2
Even a cursory glance at world history illuminates a handful of fascist leaders. 3
Not an exaggeration to see a steady rise in fascism in modern times. 4
But the usefulness of the definition of fascism begins to break down as in the 21st century the term has been more loosely applied to define any perceived move toward totalitarianism.
In fact, what begins to happen is the old definition breaks down and is too easily confused with one political side or another - such as “liberal” or “conservative” - or “left wing” versus “right wing” - or “Democrat” versus “Republican” - or “Christian” versus “Atheist”.
And of course never shy about shaping public opinion to fit the mainstream narrative we have Time Magazine’s version.5
In other more perceptive analyses we begin to see that fascism fits into a far broader narrative which expands to an awareness of authoritarianism and/or totalitarianism - a definition which allows us to see the growth of tyranny - by any definition - in our own times. 6
We can see in this hodgepodge of thinking which appears to pass as logic - that the term can be inappropriately and easily applied to see anyone of any political stripe as “Fascist”. 7
All sorts of terms are thrown around and uselessness applied to what is far simpler in actuality.
TYRANNY IS TYRANNY BY ANY NAME
But in the distilled terror reflected by Anne Frank we can feel the feelings which tyranny invokes and come to recognize it for what it is - the ascendancy of classic dominance hierarchies of humans preying on other humans.
The simple understanding that there is a tendency for governments, corporations and institutions to become authoritarian or totalitarian is of far more value in recognition of the problem for the average citizen.
Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science.
As humans we know instinctively that at times other humans take unfair advantage and use all kinds of control tactics to gain power over us.
We are so accustomed this from governments, corporations and institutions that we have a whole genre of comedy, inside jokes and memes to share this understanding.
But this very comedic tendency also may indicate a subliminal acceptance of totalitarianism and authoritarianism.
We feel powerless to stand against it so we sublimate our fear and anger into shared comedy.
This is not to say the comedy and memes are not useful for sharing our feelings and observations in a kind of short hand - they certainly are.
The only danger is that these don’t become a way of dismissing our real responsibility to create actionable solutions for the problem.
As humans we have been living under rule by our leaders, our bureaucrats, and the elites of our hierarchical societies for thousands of years now and safe to say we have developed many coping mechanisms for feeling forced to live this way.
And unfortunately at this juncture are living under the logical historical extension of this - that these forces would eventually be in a position to take the entire world for their own increased power and benefit.
For we “ordinary people” the sole way of fighting this system has been limited to social movements of revolution which purport to offer a way to rid ourselves of these authoritarian forces.
But these revolutionary movements are never effective and often lead to tyranny from the very revolutionary figure who lead us into these “revolutions”.
And this now is the history of our so called civilizations.
Civilizations have turned out to be systems of hierarchical control - maybe better recognized as the dominance hierarchy we see in our less evolved fellow primates species.
This is not simply an observation but one I will take up in another essay where I discuss this dominance hierarchy - hopefully in more understandable fashion.
Italy, Russia, Spain, Hungary, Britain, Brazil, China, and Japan were all major examples of 20th century tyranny - and some incorporated elements of out right Fascism.
The term “fascism,” as we know it, originates in the Latin fasces, the name for the bundle of rods, with an ax projecting from the middle, carried by an official known as the lictor in ancient Rome as a symbol of the magistrate’s authority. More than just a symbol, the rods were also intended for these officials to beat back unruly crowds and administer corporal punishment; the ax advertised the threat of execution for those who committed especially severe offenses. The reverse side of Roman imperial coins featured a lictor with his rods, all the way up to the time of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The intimidatory intent was there for all to see.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fascism-comes-to-america-bruce-kuklick/
We understand all too well in this Spring of 2024 that we are under the grip of worldwide tyranny - where literally all nation states are under the grip of the New Totalitarian World Government.
Any modern definition of tyranny must demonstrate that it can arise in any political or economic system and that furthermore the system itself is the problem - the system is what selects for and encourages Fascism or in the Latin fasces.
Do we dare believe that these United States have been free of Fascism?
The answer is of course a resounding no - and attempts to link a figurehead like Donald Trump and the Republican Conservatives to fascism have failed in the widespread recognition that it is indeed the Democratic Left which now appears to be the leadership of the New 21st Century American Fascism.
And the further recognition by many that is is both parties which compose two halve of the same coin - a single Uniparty with totalitarianism as the aims of both - is the more logical analyses.
But then we must remind ourselves that the aim of tyranny is to appropriate both our thinking and our language as they seek to rule totally over the hearts and minds of all human beings.
But the main point I take away from all this is that tyranny is a manifestation of the particular dominance hierarchy which makes up the very fundamental structure of our civilizations.
This has not an easy conclusion to arrive at.
Furthermore - I believe we as humans are fully capable of building a civilization which is actually civilized.
A civilization capable of actually celebrating and honoring these creator-conferred unalienable rights so accurately identified by architects of the American system in that document known as the Declaration of Independence.
And as Thomas Paine insisted - this is not an American cause - but the cause of all mankind.
For too long we have lived in a system which brings out the worst in us as human beings.
That time is now coming to an end as the Great Awakening we now are a part of begins as I write this to direct our attention to far better achievements.