Totalitarianism in modern social philosophy: to the problem of conceptual definition

Abstract

The main stages of transformation of the concept «totalitarianism» in the sphere of social and humanitarian knowledge are considered. The problem of expanding the range of existing concepts of totalitarian regimes in post-industrial and information societies is revealed. At the same time, a special role in the development of the theory of totalitarian society is assigned to the Frankfurt School, which made it possible to free the concept «totalitarianism» from etatistic connotations by pointing to the special role of cultural and psychological factors in the formation of totalitarian thinking. It is argued that modern technologies, mostly concentrated in the hands of transnational corporations, are a key reason for continuing the heuristic search for a suitable descriptive model of the concept of totalitarianism. The current state of discussions around the concept of totalitarian society is analyzed, in which the connection with current technological trends and future social challenges is traced.

Author Biography

Vladislav O. Stashis, Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus

postgraduate student at the department of philosophy and methodology of science, faculty of philosophy and social sciences

References

  1. Mihailenko VI. [The contemporary research of the totalitarianism]. Izvestiya Ural’skogo federal’nogo universiteta. Seriya 1. Problemy obrazovaniya, nauki i kul’tury. 2011;86(1):181–192. Russian.
  2. Petersen J. The history of the concept of totalitarianism in Italy. In: Maier H, editor. Totalitarianism and Political Religions. Volume 1. Concepts for the comparison of dictatorships. London: Routledge; 2004. p. 3–20.
  3. Bongiovanni B. Totalitarianism: the word and the thing. Journal of Modern European History. 2005;3(1):5–17. DOI: 10.17104/1611-8944_2005_1_5.
  4. Mel’vil’ AYu, Shmachkova TV, editors. Kategorii politicheskoi nauki [Political science categories]. Moscow: Moscow State Institute (University) of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation; 2002. 656 p. Co-published by the «Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya». Russian.
  5. Shanin AA. [New totalitarianism]. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Seriya 9. Issledovaniya molodykh uchenykh. 2007;6:90–92. Russian.
  6. Strada V. [Totalitarianism/totalitarinisms]. In: Blumenkrants M, compiler. Vtoraya navigatsiya [Second navigation]. Kharkiv: Prava ljudyny; 2011. p. 84–98.
  7. Berdyaev NA. Istoki i smysl russkogo kommunizma [The origin of Russian communism]. Moscow: Nauka; 1990. 224 p. Russian.
  8. Ustryalov NV. Germanija. V krugovorote fashistskoi svastiki [Germany. In the curcle of fashist swastika]. Moscow: Algoritm; 2012. 272 p. Russian.
  9. Igrickij JuI. [Concepts of totalitarianism: lessons from many years of the discussions in the West]. Istoriya SSSR. 1990; 6:172–190. Russian.
  10. Cubeddu R. Liberalizm, totalitarizm i demokratiya: politicheskaya filosofiya avstriiskoi shkoly [Liberalism, totalitarianism and democracy: the political philosophy of the Austrian school. Philosophy of the Austrian school]. Chelyabinsk: Sotsium; 2014. 406 p. Russian.
  11. von Mises L. Die Gemeinwiztschaft: Untersuchungen uber den Sozialismus. Jena: Verbag von Gustav Fischer; 1922. 502 S. Russian edition: von Mizes L. Sotsializm. Ekonomicheskii i sotsiologicheskii analiz. Moscow: Catallaxy; 1994. 416 p.
  12. Slutckaya LV. The phenomenon of totalitarianism in modern Western European political science. Vesnіk BDU. Seryja 3. Gіstoryja. Jekanomіka. Prava. 2012;1:56–59. Russian.
  13. Malyshev MA. Concept of totalitarianism in the works of Hannan Arendt. Nauchnyi ezhegodnik Instituta filosofii i prava Ural’skogo otdeleniya Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. 2010;10:297–328. Russian.
  14. Arendt H. Istoki totalitarizma [The Origins of totalitarianism]. Kovaleva MS, Nosov DM, editors; Borisova IV, Kimelev YuA, Kovalev AD, Mishkenene YuB, Sedov AA, translators. Moscow: TsentrKom; 1996. 672 p. Russian.
  15. Friedrich СJ, Brzezinski ZK. Totalitarian dictatorship and autocracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; 1965. 439 p.
  16. Brzezinski Z. Dysfunctional totalitarianism. In: Friedrich CJ, Beyme K. Theory and politics. Festshrift zum 70. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff; 1971. p. 375–389.
  17. Fromm E. Begstvo ot svobody. Chelovek dlya sebya [Escape from freedom. Man for himself]. Laktionov A, compiller; Shveinik GF, Chernysheva LA, translators. Moscow: AST; 2006. 571 p. Russian.
  18. Markuze G. Eros i tsivilizatsiya. Odnomernyi chelovek. Issledovanie ideologii razvitogo industrial’nogo obshchestva [Eros and civilization. One-dimensional man. The study of the ideology of a developed industrial society]. Moscow: AST; 2003. 526 p. Russian.
  19. Diamond L. The road to digital unfreedom: the threat of postmodern totalitarianism. Journal of Democracy. 2019;30(1): 20–24. DOI: 10.1353/jod.2019.0001.
  20. Pugachev VP. [Information and financial totalitarism: a Russian experiment on American scenario]. Vestnik MGU. Seriya 12. Politicheskie nauki. 1999;4:3–32. Russian.
  21. Hendricks VF, Vestergaard M. Epilogue: digital roads to totalitarianism In: Hendrieks VF, Vestergaard M. Reality lost. Cham: Springer Open; 2019. p. 119–137. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-00813-0_7.
  22. Wolin SS. Democracy incorporated: managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2017. 376 p.
  23. Cesaratto T. Changes in Totalitarianism: Hannah Arendt, Franz Fühmann, and George Saunders. The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory. 2011;86(2):73–92. DOI: 10.1080/00168890.2011.564109.
Published
2020-09-19
Keywords: ideology, totalitarian regime, liberalism, fascism, religion, utopia, information society
How to Cite
Stashis, V. O. (2020). Totalitarianism in modern social philosophy: to the problem of conceptual definition. Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology, 2, 25-32. Retrieved from https://journals.bsu.by/index.php/philosophy/article/view/2131
Issue
No 2 (2020): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology
Section
Social Philosophy

Copyright (c) 2020 Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The authors who are published in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The authors retain copyright on the work and provide the journal with the right of first publication of the work on condition of license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
  2. The authors retain the right to enter into certain contractual agreements relating to the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. post it on the institutional repository, publication in the book), with the reference to its original publication in this journal.
  3. The authors have the right to post their work on the Internet (e.g. on the institutional store or personal website) prior to and during the review process, conducted by the journal, as this may lead to a productive discussion and a large number of references to this work. (See The Effect of Open Access.)