The Return Of Totalitarianism: Ideology, Terror, And Total Control

Description

This book enters into a detailed discussion with many theorists of totalitarianism, and demands a re-evaluation of approaches that speak of mass manipulation of people and ideological control mechanisms. Žarko Paić shows that totalitarianism cannot be only a political-ideological problem, but rather a problem of the relationship between the technosphere, political power, and the narcissistic culture of the spectacle, which offers postmodern revisionism and forgetfulness of history as opposed to brave civic participation in the public sphere of acting together. He investigates the transformations the political and cultural processes linked to the notion of ‘totalitarianism’ undergo in the contemporary world, and the transformations (and differences) that this notion expresses today in comparison to what was realized by fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism in the 20th century. Preface Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Totalitarianism Without Subject: The End of the Total State and the “Ideology” of the Corporatism 2.1 Introduction 2.2 What Should Be Done with Totalitarianism Today? Destroyed “Societies” and Their Relationships 2.3 Ideology Without Politics? The Permanent Terror 2.4 Corporation and State: Bio-cybernetic Power 2.5 Conclusion References Chapter 3: The Mystery of the New Beginning: Hannah Arendt and the Political in Modern Times 3.1 The New Between Tradition and Utopia 3.2 History as Contingency 3.3 The Event and Openness of the World References Chapter 4: Metapolitics and Evil: Heidegger’s “Spiritual Nazism” 4.1 Introduction: New Evidence and Facts 4.2 State, Leadership, and Geopolitics: Seminars 1933/1934 4.3 Anti-Semitism and Metaphysics: Black Notebooks 4.4 Concluding Reflections: Event and Politics References Chapter 5: The Triumph of Political Religions: Identity Politics and the Twilight of Culture 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Voegelin’s Notion of History: From Gnosticism to Political Religions of Modernity 5.3 Political Islam as a New Totalitarianism? 5.4 Conclusion References Chapter 6: Ideology, Terror, Control: Does Totalitarianism Have a Prospect for the Future? 6.1 Introduction: Propaganda Beyond Manipulation 6.2 Ideology as an “Industry of Consciousness”: Kracauer’s Contribution to the Criticism of Nazism 6.3 Terror, Terrorism, Camps: The State of Exception and Its Victims 6.4 The Age of Total Control: Secret Police and Technosphere 6.5 Conclusion References Chapter 7: Power, Mass, and Brutality: Putin’s War Machine 7.1 The New Geopolitical Leviathan 7.2 Autocracy 7.3 Historical Revisionism 7.4 Totalitarian Rule 7.5 Imperialist Policy 7.6 Terror and Colonization Nuclear Winter of the People Epilogue References Chapter 8: Conclusion Reference Index