“And it is useless to try to redeem ‘totalitarianism’ through division into subcategories (emphasizing the difference between the Fascist and the Communist variety): the moment one accepts the notion of ‘totalitarianism’, one is firmly located within the liberal-democratic horizon. 1 The contention of this book is thus that the notion of ‘totalitarianism’, far from being an effective theoretical concept , is a kind of stopgap: instead of enabling us to think, forcing us to acquire a new insight into the historical reality it describes, it relieves us of the duty to think, or even actively prevents us from thinking.”
“– the moment one shows the slightest inclination to engage in political projects that aim seriously to challenge the existing order, the answer is immediately: ‘Benevolent as it is, this will necessarily end in a new Gulag!’ The ‘return to ethics’ in today’s political philosophy shamefully exploits the horrors of Gulag or Holocaust as the ultimate bogey for blackmailing us into renouncing all serious radical engagement. In this way, conformist liberal scoundrels can find hypocritical satisfaction in their defence of the existing order: they know there is corruption, exploitation, and so on, but every attempt to change things is denounced as ethically dangerous and unacceptable, resuscitating the ghost of ‘totalitarianism’.” -Zizek, Slavoj (2014-04-08). Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: 5 Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion (The Essential Zizek) (Kindle Locations 99-105). Verso Books. Kindle Edition.
Now think about it: given the way that global producer/consumer Capitalism is undermining our democracies while making it SEEM as if our democracies are still intact, doesn’t it seem possible that a benign dictator might actually be better at giving us an authentic experience of freedom by being able to do what they think is best for people (that is being a person themselves (rather than the system we have now that deludes us into believing we are electing people who represent our interests when, in fact, all they are actually representing is the interest of their country club buddies?
Of course, we should take pause at this because as Hollywood (the so-called leftist conspiracy (repeatedly tells us: while power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The notion, according to Hollywood, is that no matter how well intended a dictator may start out, they will always end up in folly. But how do we actually confirm this assertion?
And this is not to assert that we should necessarily look to a dictatorship as the answer to our problems. It is simply to point out that liberal democracy may not be the ultimate antidote to oppressive social and political systems that we’re led to believe it is, especially when you consider the emerging aristocracy/oligarchy that we’re dealing with now via global producer/consumer Capitalism.
Of course, thinking this way, of thinking outside the so-called box, puts us at a risk that, as Zizek rightly points out, even the academic so-called left are willing to avoid by keeping their arguments within the perimeters of producer/consumer Capitalism.
They, like the rest of us, have fallen under the spell of defining totalitarianism as what happened in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia when, in fact, true totalitarianism cannot actually exist. Think about it: the only real totalitarianism we have experienced is in fiction such as Orwell’s 1984 or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid Tale.
But allow me to make a point based on personal experience: when 1984 actually came along, we all breathed a sigh of relief that it didn’t fulfill the Orwellian vision. But at that very time, L.A. was chasing the hookers off Sunset Boulevard and closing down Glendora Mountain road (a favorite party spot on weekends (while Nancy Reagan was repeatedly saying “just say no to drugs”, thereby taking part in the initiation of the war on drugs (that is along w/Joe Biden who was screaming for the creation of a drug czar (while her husband, Ronny, was overseeing the beginning of a reactionary movement (motivated by us finding ourselves in the economic shadow of Japan (and the economic movement based on the philosophy of Freidman and Greenspan: all of which haunts us to this day in very real forms of oppression.
The point is (and I believe this is the point that Zizek is trying to make in this book (we need to let go of the term “totalitarianism” (something that has only existed in works of fiction (and start focusing on the forms of oppression we are actually dealing with.