Talk:Totalitarian democracy

message: Just a terrible article - giving the impression that Talmon argued the opposite of what he did argue.
The examples of "dissent" in the United States that the article gives (the Communists of the 1940s, then Herbert Marcuse and the pro Marxist elements of the 1960s) are exactly what Talmon would have considered part of the tradition of "totalitarian democracy" in that they claimed to speak for "the people" and believed in a "total state" (although some of them did not use the word "state" for their collectivism). Clue - North Vietnam (or the Soviet Union) was not what Talmon had in mind by "Liberal Democracy", and nor were the Black Panthers, the SDS or the Weather Underground. All of whom denied the legitimate existence of civil society - i.e. the distinction between voluntary institutions (such as churches, or business enterprises, or non political clubs and societies) and coercion.90.217.200.219 (talk) 17:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

message: Fundamentals of totalitarian democracy and comparison with liberal democracy.
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The term "totalitarian democracy" is obscure enough that I would expect this article rather than simply saying "totalitarian democracy is..." to explain who coined the term and roughly who uses it. Without that, this comes off as awfully fringy. -- Jmabel 06:30, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  untitled 

message: This paragraph was added to the article on  by :
"Moreover, a different aspect of 'totalitarian democracy' has come to be known with respect to powerful states that function by democratic principles internally, but act with force and hegemony outside of its borders. The United States is the current superpower state, with a long history of operating with near-impunity outside of its borders, at the same time that it espouses and prescribes the application of its own internal democratic principles to other states. The key point is that even should all states develop solid and standardized democratic principles, the international wealth and power control systems remain firmly in the hands of the master society.  This is a rather common external view of the United States, which claims that it's Dulles-Kennan-influenced policies of social, military, and economic diplomacy, are equivalent to hegemony, almost regardless of the internal democratic process by which the US elects its representatives."
I believe this paragraph is an accurate reflection of the current state of affairs, but I also consider it highly POV, and have replaced it with this paragraph:
"Moreover, a different aspect of 'totalitarian democracy' is portrayed by powerful states that function by democratic principles internally, but act with force and hegemony outside their borders. Both the former Soviet Union and the United States have enjoyed so-called "superpower" status and both have had a long, well-documented history of acting both overtly and covertly to "protect the national interest" outside of their borders. At the same time, the United States espouses and prescribes the application of its own internal democratic principles to other nations. But even should all nations develop and embrace standardized democratic principles and practices, whatever nation has the military or economic capacity to set expectations for the behaviors of other nations has historically chosen to do so.  This is a rather common external interpretation of American policy, a view which holds that America's Dulles-Kennan-influenced social, military, and economic foreign policies are equivalent to hegemony, and bear no relationship to the internal democratic processes by which the US elects its representatives."
Please comment.
: I certainly think this is an improvement. -- Jmabel 06:30, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: American hegemony

message: Dwindrim recently added the following:
:In the extreme, this freedom is also the freedom to fail. Just as individuals are free to reap the reward of a democratic and capitalistic system with no financial assistance from the government, so too will a strictly liberal democracy refuse state capital to aid in individual crisis. In a true liberal democracy, there will be no social assistance, no federal health care plan, and no old age pension.
The way it sits in the article, I can't tell whether it is presented as the view of Talmon (who I have not read, but I'm ready to accept it if you tell me in good faith that he said this -- just let's make that clear) or is being stated as fact, in which case it is a controversial/POV claim about the nature of a "true"/"strict" liberal democracy presented in the narrative voice of the article. "Liberal democracy" does not necessarily imply the politics of the U.S. Libertarian Party. And even they have no objection to charity or to mutual aid societies, simply to these things being government functions. -- Jmabel 04:26, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Dwindrim, I'm not sure you and I will easily reach consensus, but let me go on a bit. This is an article about a political system, not an economic system. And it's not an article about liberal democracy. Whether liberal democracy is or is not compatible with some degree of social safety net seems an odd topic to take up here. (If it were in Talmon's work, or that of another significant theorist of totalitarian democracy, it would be relevant.) In practice, to the best of my knowledge, virtually all actual liberal democracies in the last 100 years or so have had some degree of social safety net, so the "In a true liberal democracy, there will be..." seems very tendentious. Our own article on liberal democracy begins "Liberal democracy is a form of representative democracy in which majority rule is qualified by respect for liberal rights such as freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of religion, the right to private property and privacy, as well as equality before the law and due process under the rule of law." None of that seems in any way incompatible with a social safety net. -- Jmabel 06:01, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Nope, not looking for a scrap, just thought I'd fallen into one when your proposed edit didn't really strike me a lot better than the original. Looks like on re-reading, you reached the same conclusion. Great! -- Jmabel 01:31, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Freedom to fail, etc.

message: Here was the phrase:
:In the West, in the meantime, Americans were under siege by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others who had made it their mission to rid the United States of Communists and Communist sympathizers. 
Problems: (1) In the West, Americans were under siege...
::(2) by Senator McCarthy and others
::(3) made it their mission
::(4) rid the United States
Actually, the revised text as it now stands moreless takes care of all the problems.  I don't wish to take too much time, but Senator McCarthy appointing himself the guardian of Western Civilization by holding 180 million Americans under siege in order to "rid the United States", as the arcticle suggested, had serious NPOV problems.  The article, in fact, totally ignored the Constitutional issues as to how the American people have elected a Congress, which then divides itself into Congressional Committees, and then authorizes investigations on behalf of the American people who elected the Congress, etc., etc. etc., etc., etc.   But the issues appear O.K. as of now.  Thank you. Nobs01 17:12, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Issues

message: The section Modern contexts and Western powers cites no sources. I find it unlikely that Talmon, in a 1952 book, predicted all the developments described. Looks like WP:OR to me (and POV, too). Qwertyus 15:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only does it not cite sources but this section is highly subjective/POV and doesn't seem to add anything to the article. For example an argument can be made that torture is not only known but regularly used by the west and its proxies. For example, see the recent use of torture and the more general article on torture. Further, it may add to the argument if you define what constitutes torture. Some people, for example, do not believe that certain techniques which may be defined as torture is torture, such as sleep deprivation, which many Americans apparently don't see as torture. Further, the declaration that the media makes governments more accountable is highly debateable. See for example, discussions on media manipulation and  embedded journalism.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.20.61.25 (talk) 12:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern contexts and Western powers 

message: This article misrepresents Social Contract. If Talmon did in fact argue something as absurd as that Rousseau considered the State's interest to be equivalent to the general interest, Talmon should be quoted. Rousseau favored neither simple faith in a newly general-will-minded existing state, nor, as is the common misconception, majority rule(reiterated "tyranny of the majority") Instead, he advocated a system of such equality that there would be no minority to oppress. If, as was earlier said, the "roots" of totalitarian majority rule can be traced to Rousseau, that's something other than his actually advocating it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomblikebomb (talk • contribs) 22:44, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social Contract 

message: === Criticism of Talmon ===
Many historians, including Victor Gourevitch, have challenged the notion that Rousseau advocated totalitarian democracy. They maintain that such authoritarianism is incongruous with most if not all of his works, many of which are neither explicitly anti-religious nor conformist. It is seen to be an exercise in revisionism and contextonomy. Furthermore, it has been suggested that Talmon's emphases on tradition and religiosity are in themselves an anathema to progressive thought. However "Progressive" thought has historically been hostile to individual liberty (as opposed to the collective "liberty" of "the people") - see the American Progressive movement of Richard Ely and so on, itself an outgrowth of German philosophical and political thought of the collectivist (or semi collectivist) sort. As for Rousseau - his belief that the "General Will" (what people should believe - as decided by the "Law Giver")trumps the "will of all" (the actual opinions of ordinary people - hence "forced to be free" with "free" being defined as obeying the Law Giver or being part of the collective) is clear in his "The Social Contract". Also Rousseau's hostility to private employment (as a form of slavery or serfdom) and his belief that working for the collective was some sort of freedom, is also a matter of record.90.217.200.219 (talk) 17:10, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excised &sect; 

message: Many historians, including Victor Gourevitch, have challenged the notion that Rousseau advocated totalitarian democracy. They maintain that such authoritarianism is incongruous with most if not all of his works, many of which are neither explicitly anti-religious nor conformist. It is seen to be an exercise in revisionism and contextonomy. Furthermore, it has been suggested that Talmon's emphases on tradition and religiosity are in themselves an anathema to progressive thought. However "Progressive" thought has historically been hostile to individual liberty (as opposed to the collective "liberty" of "the people") - see the American Progressive movement of Richard Ely and so on, itself an outgrowth of German philosophical and political thought of the collectivist (or semi collectivist) sort. As for Rousseau - his belief that the "General Will" (what people should believe - as decided by the "Law Giver")trumps the "will of all" (the actual opinions of ordinary people - hence "forced to be free" with "free" being defined as obeying the Law Giver or being part of the collective) is clear in his "The Social Contract". Also Rousseau's hostility to private employment (as a form of slavery or serfdom) and his belief that working for the collective was some sort of freedom, is also a matter of record.90.217.200.219 (talk) 17:10, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of Talmon 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: After reading Talmon again and in detail, I see that much emphasis has been put on critiqueing and misreading Talmon. There are various sections in the article that have nothing to do with Talmon's conception, and I suspect that these sections have been edited in to push a specific political narrative by forces that have an interest in discrediting Talmon's ideas.
Under the heading "Differences in Democratic Philosophy" one should expect a presentation of Talmon's idea that in the aftermath of the French Revolution two concurrent yet separate political philosophies of democracy have evolved, namely liberal and totalitarian democratic thought - both of which refer the idea of freedom and liberty, but with very distinct connotations. These should be quoted and spelled out in this section, but they are largely (and painfully) missing...
Yet, instead we read 
"In his paper Advances in Chinese Social Sciences (2001), Mao Shoulong, a professor of Public Policy at Renmin University of China, takes a different position."
This has nothing to do with Talmon! And - for what it's worth - Shoulong is neither a renowned scholar (as can easily be shown by tracking the number of citations he gets in Google Scholar) nor an expert on Talmon.
Talmon has neither known Shoulong and would likely subsume Shoulong's idea of an equality-oriented democracy' under his totalitarian heading as soon as the telos (or messianic utopia) of equality (which supposedly someday is maintained to lead to a greater degree of universal liberty in an equity-based or equality-of-outcome-based scenario) prevails over the concept of individual civil rights, liberties and interests (which may likely differ from society- or state-prescribed virtues and conceptions of equity)! 
Talmon himself does not investigate liberal democracies in detail (and he says so), but from his investigation of the totalitarian philosophies of democracy one can clearly derive that he sees the philosophy underlying liberal democratic thought as a favourable and preferable counterpoint. Keeping this in mind, Shoulong's purported idea that "rights and freedoms of people ..." (i.e. basic individual civil liberties) "...ought not be held hostage to traditions and social arrangements" is nothing but 1984-like Newsspeak aimed at discrediting Talmon's idea of liberal democracy and formulated in this way only to lend credit to the idea that a messianic, totalitarian democracy can be a good thing.
Rogmann (talk) 16:18, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Totalitarian China (or its minions?) have hijacked this article 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Democratic fascism and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at  until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Hildeoc (talk) 21:42, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Democratic fascism" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: Anarcho-monarchism redirects here, but is not defined.  Either the term should be defined, or the redirect should be deleted. ZFT (talk) 06:18, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anarcho-monarchism