quote:) the distinction matters because it clearly illustrates that some people really do not know what they are talking about (because it is not controversial, it is commonly taught in University political science courses)
A lot of things that are taught in undergraduate courses are controversial.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Stop saying "deflection tactics." You have worn it through the floor.
Screw off? If I say a true thing a hundred times, it doesn't matter if I say it 10, 100, or 10,000 because it is still true.
It's not; we have multiple examples in this thread where you throw the term out inappropriately against someone who's not trying to engage in 'deflection tactics,' and then do something suspiciously like deflection tactics. Certainly well more deflective than what you had accused others of, too. Speaking of which, you still haven't responded to my challenge.
quote:. After all what is your best evidence? Nitpicking the grammarical wording of a wikipedia article?
One government suppresses human rights, so does another, therefor they are the same!
Nitpicking the what? My best 'evidence?'
Anyway, I'm not saying that. Man up and re-read my post.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: According to that definition (with power word of the day 'attempts') you can easily make a case for totalitarian against authoritarian. In what turns out to be a startlingly meaningless definitional debate.
I think that is just because that sentence stripped of context is misleading. It goes on to say "The officially proclaimed ideology penetrates into every nook and cranny of society; its ambition is total."
Well, what is the official ideology? I think it's trivial to realize that they gave up on "communism" a long time ago and that nothing has really replaced it. "No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat" and all that. I don't consider the pragmatic propaganda that justifies the CCP being in power in and of itself an ideology.
Ironically, I think the only way that one can rationalize that "attempts" applies to modern day China IS to buy into the government's propaganda department and accept at face value their assertions. The reality is that there's very little ideology that affects regular everyday society and that their "ambition," far from total, is actually very constrained.
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quote:I don't consider the pragmatic propaganda that justifies the CCP being in power in and of itself an ideology.
I think that's unnecessarily narrow; in fact, requiring a totalitarian government to care more about ideology than remaining in power actually requires that totalitarian governments be among the most idealistic on Earth, if not completely fictional.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
More pot stirring, what evidence have you actually presented that China is in fact totalitarian and "not" authoritarian? You looked at the same wikipedia Mucus linked, that states clearly that there is a difference, and then seize upon "intent" and more or less make up some generalized intent onto the whole of CCP and the government of China as "intending" to be totalitarian, but there isn't evidence to substantiate this. I presented a link to an Pro Democracy Activism website that also makes the clear distinction, are YOU going to man up and admit that there's a difference?
Sure, it *is* a meaningless debate, just as how Rakeesh's original stupid comment that I have a "high tolerance for totalitarian regimes" was also wrong, meaningless, wildly out of context, and irrelevant.
But you were never going to call out Rakeesh for that were you?
quote: A lot of things that are taught in undergraduate courses are controversial.
Not when it's presented as say, the definition of something, in which case any controversy is fairly fictional.
Hey look, math teaches 1+1=2, let's disagree! teach both sides! Controversy created!
That Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism are different and distinct political systems is a commonly accepted academic fact.
quote: who would with the weakest of nudges go back to the former. Hooray?
Except that it can't so there's nothing to nudge?
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I don't consider the pragmatic propaganda that justifies the CCP being in power in and of itself an ideology.
I think that's unnecessarily narrow; in fact, requiring a totalitarian government to care more about ideology than remaining in power actually requires that totalitarian governments be among the most idealistic on Earth, if not completely fictional.
Its pretty clear that authoritarianism/totalitarianism is a broad spectrum of where on the extreme end is totalitarianism, which seeks to control all facets of private life and subordinate everything to the will and whim and glory of the state; a "human boot on the face of humanity forever" of where even private thought is controlled. Authoritarianism doesn't dare go that far which is why China is authoritarian, it doesn't dare try to, it trades private control for political control.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think that's unnecessarily narrow; in fact, requiring a totalitarian government to care more about ideology than remaining in power ...
I don't think I said that a totalitarian government has to care "more" about ideology than power.
Rather, I think a totalitarian government needs to at least take some concrete steps towards putting an ideology into practice. Propaganda on its own isn't sufficient.
One reflection of this is to see what kind of influence governments place on foreign governments. European governments usually tie aid in Africa to democratic reform for example. After Mao, the Chinese government isn't pushing Communism in Africa. It isn't even pushing the opposite of democratic reform (authoritarian reform?). Rather, it doesn't care what a government does as long as it is stable. I think thats basically a self-reflection.
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posted
You know, by this definition Oceania from 1984 would not count as "totalitarian," since its ideology was only a convenient front to enable the higher party members to hold power.
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Blayne Bradley
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Oceania is clearly totalitarian because it takes concrete steps to control all aspects of private life, thought and will of its citizenry towards the glory of the state and the mythology of Big Brother. It's implied the Inner-Inner party are doing it For The Evulz but its clear that there conceptualization of power is the obliteration of any and all forms of private thought that could be contrary to love to the state. It is not enough to shoot Winston, they have to make Winston LOVE them before shooting him.
The difference I think is most starkly depicted between the differences between 1984; bleak totalitarian dystopia of where all economic and political freedoms are not merely suppressed, but erased from history and language itself and Huxley's Brave New World where every citizen is given jetpacks and all the drugs and sex they want in exchange for self determination.
To simplify, one form of oppression is total up from on high and all encompassing, they do what they want because they can. Authoritarians have to instead bargain for power, promising the people something concrete, the good of the many at the expense of the few. Totalitarians are the expense of the many for the good of the few.
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As for me *shrug* I'm not terribly concerned with the classification of fictional governments.
I do find interesting the differences between totalitarian governments like North Korea and Mao's China which often do/did put ideology before practical results and which didn't recognize limits on state power as opposed to modern day China which is pragmatic and contains a Hong Kong which has remained largely unchanged for a decade and a half.
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posted
So you're saying that an authoritarian government is a totalitarian government that can no longer get away with it? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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Just as far as one could say that republic is a government for a country too big to be a democracy? That there be overlapping spectrum here on some facets here was never denied, but none of this was really the point in the first place.
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TomDavidson: Well, I would say that Hong Kong wasn't an authoritarian government under the British occupation because it somehow transitioned from totalitarian rule.
Likewise, I wouldn't necessarily say that Hong Kong retains the elections that were introduced at the last minute by the British because the CCP couldn't "get away" with removing them and going back to what it previously was.
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