# Pro-totalitarian works of fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 27, 2009, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887 "2009-08-27T08:00:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/61 "2009-08-29T20:23:39Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Isn’t almost _any_ story with a “hero King/Prince” that the population is looking to for peace, salvation etc. pretty much promoting totalitarianism in the form of royal, entitled rule? I was thinking something similar; a lot of utopian SF is totalitarian in the way that most people who have slid into totalitarianism in the real world are. “The world would be so much better if we could stop bad people from doing this,” and regulating such basic behavior would require some kind of oppressive regime that the author didn’t mention. And of course, “We just have to break a few eggs to improve things for everyone!” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/62 "2009-08-29T21:00:16Z")
How about B.F. Skinner’s _Walden Two_, his “utopian” novel where everyone is made into a happy productive member of society through psychological operant conditioning? This is about as totalitarian as you can imagine, not just actions but thoughts and attitudes are totally under the control of the authorities in Skinner’s system, and there is not a trace of irony in it. Skinner spent the whole of his long, successful academic career working out the details of operant conditioning, and wrote further, non-fiction books (well, at least one: _Beyond Freedom and Dignity_) advocating that society should be run this way, and was treated as a serious social thinker. Aldous Huxley’s Brave _New World_ is usually taken to be a dystopian critique of a totalitarian system, and certainly it is that in some respects. However, Huxley seems to be very much in two minds about it, alternative ways of life like the “savage reservation” are depicted quite unfavorably, the “rebels” against the system, at the center of the action, are not particularly attractive or admirable characters, and the advocates of the totalitarian system, such as Mustapha Mond, are given many of the best lines and most convincing arguments. I certainly came away from the book half convinced that it might be better to live in the Brave New World than in the society we have. Of course, the granddaddy of all totalitarian utopias is Plato’s _Republic_ (and it is technically fiction, being in the form of a fictional dialogue between Socrates and his friends). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/63 "2009-08-29T22:03:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > RAH’s Glory Road sez strongly that a Empress/Dictator is the only way to go. Only because Star’s rule over the Universes, while absolute and unaccountable, was clearly not totalitarian. She was merely an arbiter for disputes; her “government” lacked the vigor to insert itself into controlling the economies and the daily lives of all its subject worlds, nations and peoples. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/64 "2009-08-29T22:07:04Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Isn’t almost _any_ story with a “hero King/Prince” that the population is looking to for peace, salvation etc. pretty much promoting totalitarianism in the form of royal, entitled rule? That’s debatable. Consider Jerry Pournelle’s [_Prince of Sparta_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Sparta) series. The government of Sparta is complex, aristocratic, and based on privilege and limited citizenship/franchise. OTOH, it is feared the noncitizen “Helots” who rebel against it would usher in a Maoist/Stalinist totalitarian state. The Spartan regime, like that of Tsarist Russia, is at any rate not a totalitarian one. (It would be somewhat more persuasive, however, if Prince Lysander were presented as the lesser of two evils, rather than a hero plain and simple; and the final denouement, in which the High and the Middle of society join forces to exterminate the Low in street-fighting in the capital, is utterly disgusting, the more so because it seems a pet fantasy of Pournelle’s.) ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/65 "2009-08-29T23:18:05Z")
Heinlein’s work for this thread is neither _Starship Troopers_, nor _Glory Road_. It is the short story “Solution Unsatisfactory”. The narrator states, “I just wanted you to know that there are two sides to every story . . . even dictatorship.” Heinlein doesn’t glorify the people who stage a global coup. He presents it as the lesser of two evils. You can argue about whether or not they were really justified, but I don’t think you can argue that you wouldn’t be tempted, if you were in their shoes. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/66 "2009-08-30T00:28:02Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Heinlein’s work for this thread is neither _Starship Troopers_, nor _Glory Road_. It is the short story “Solution Unsatisfactory”. The narrator states, “I just wanted you to know that there are two sides to every story . . . even dictatorship.” Heinlein doesn’t glorify the people who stage a global coup. He presents it as the lesser of two evils. You can argue about whether or not they were really justified, but I don’t think you can argue that you wouldn’t be tempted, if you were in their shoes. Once again, however: Dictatorship and totalitarianism are two different things. I can never recall Heinlein presenting the latter in a sympathetic light. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/67 "2009-08-30T21:16:39Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > It’s easy to see that a boot stamping on a human face, forever, is bad. But other works don’t spoon-feed the message. Take “Dune”, for instance. Paul is portrayed fairly sympathetically. But that’s a trick. He is a monster, just as much as the Baron, and the author intends for us to see him as a monster. The Baron is a cackling stereotype of a monster. Paul is a sympathetic monster. I’d add mention of Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, from THE MAN WHO USED THE UNIVERSE: he’s a stereotype of a monster, but we’re spoon-fed the message that everything he actually does benefits humanity. It’s like an exaggeration of Ayn Rand (which you’d maybe think wouldn’t be possible): given someone who’s completely selfish, he’d be out to make a fortune by any means necessary, and so – er, opted to sell quality products for a decent price; he’d have been just as happy to steal or kill his way to the top, but there was good money in honest commerce. Of course, it’d sure help if he could somehow acquire a hero’s reputation, and so he – earned one, helping the authorities bust crooks before going into business. Still, once he was a successful industrialist, he would’ve amorally polluted the environment if it would’ve made him richer – but he saw bigger benefits in clean-up activities, and so opted for those. And so it goes, until he’s the beloved ruler of all mankind: the only way he could greedily accumulate that much power was to do stuff that garnered public acclaim, and so that selfish bastard kept – acting like a nice guy who backs humanitarian causes. The last page of the book centers on the one person who (a) figures out the big guy’s motives, and (b) reluctantly but explicitly concludes that he should just offer his assistance; so long as we’re living a world that esteems people for churning out peace treaties or bankrolling scientific breakthroughs or whatever else helps their fellow man, a guy who excels at thinking only of himself will govern the same way he got the job: only ever making himself useful by working for the greater good. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/68 "2009-08-30T21:45:04Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Heck, just throw in the occasional poisonous caterpillar, and you’d be all set. Burns: Little do you know you’re drawing ever closer to the poison caterpillar! [cackles evilly, then stops abruptly] There is a poison one, isn’t there Smithers? Smithers: Err…no, sir. I discussed this with our lawyers and they consider it murder. Burns: Damn their oily hides! ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/69 "2009-08-31T04:13:28Z")
There have been quite a few books and movies that have glorified and/or romanticized Marxist Revolution. I’d consider that pro-totalitarian. _Reds_ comes to mind. John Reed’s book “10 Days that Shook the World” even had a forward by Lenin, in which he praised the book. Sergei Eisenstein made several movies that would fall into this category. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/70 "2009-08-31T04:46:57Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Once again, however: Dictatorship and totalitarianism are two different things.. Not really. From wiki: For some scholars, dictatorship is a form of government that has the power to _govern without consent of those being governed, while totalitarianism describes a state that regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior of the people. In other words, dictatorship concerns the source of the governing power (where the power comes from) and totalitarianism concerns the scope of the governing power (what is the government). In this sense, dictatorship (government without people’s consent) is a contrast to democracy (government whose power comes from people) and totalitarianism (government controls every aspect of people’s life) opposes pluralism (government allows multiple lifestyles and opinions). Though the definitions of the terms differ, they are related in reality as most of the dictatorship states tend to show totalitarian characteristics. When governments’ power does not come from the people, their power is not limited and tend to expand their scope of power to control every aspect of people’s life._ It’s like the idiots that claim Communism is really a great form of government, as there has never really been a Communist nation. :rolleyes: Dictatorships are nearly invariably Totalitarian, even if they don’t start out that way. If you can show me a few that lasted for more than a decade without turning Totalitarian, then I’d accept there is a clear difference. ---
**Author:** ![De\_La\_Rue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@De\_La\_Rue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/De_La_Rue)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/71 "2009-09-01T03:34:21Z")
How totalitarian is the society of H.G. Wells’ Things to Come? It seems to me to resemble a positive version of a typical sterile technophilic dystopia. Although the progress-hating Luddite dissident, who we’re clearly meant to not sympathize with, isn’t immediately suppressed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/72 "2009-09-01T03:55:46Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Dictatorships are nearly invariably Totalitarian, even if they don’t start out that way. If you can show me a few that lasted for more than a decade without turning Totalitarian, then I’d accept there is a clear difference. Easy: Chile. Salvador Allende’s Marxist government was democratic, though (some feared) tending towards totalitarianism. Augusto Pinochet’s government was dictatorial and authoritarian, but not totalitarian; e.g., its economic policy was mostly free-market. Likewise, Francisco Franco is often called a “fascist,” but he was not, really, although he had significant fascist (or Falangist) supporters. His government was plenty **heavy,** but did not try to suppress all elements of civil society independent of the state, or build a revolutionary New Order of society, or draft everybody into building great national achievements, military or peaceful. He was not a fascist because he was “a cop, not an artist.” He wanted only to revive and preserve Spain’s **old** order, when the Church and nobles were on top and the peasants knew their place. It has been said that one novel aspect of 20th-Century totalitarian dictatorship was that its subjects were “sentenced to a lifetime of enthusiasm.” There have been despotisms throughout human history, but they mostly were satisfied if their subjects trembled and obeyed and paid their taxes. Totalitarianism, whether fascist or Communist, demands a lot more. A good source on fascism is _Fascism: A History,_ by Roger Eatwell. Very interesting review [here.](http://www.johnreilly.info/fah.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/73 "2009-09-01T04:11:13Z")
CJ Cherryh’s _Cyteen_ series, with whole worlds populated by human clones, would seem to fit the bill. Actually, she has several book series set in the same universe, choosing sets of characters to follow in the different societies to illustrate how they interact. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/74 "2009-09-01T07:16:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Easy: Chile. Salvador Allende’s Marxist government was democratic, though (some feared) tending towards totalitarianism. Augusto Pinochet’s government was dictatorial and authoritarian, but not totalitarian; e.g., its economic policy was mostly free-market. > > Likewise, Francisco Franco is often called a “fascist,” but he was not, really, although he had significant fascist (or Falangist) supporters. His government was plenty **heavy,** but did not try to suppress all elements of civil society independent of the state, or build a revolutionary New Order of society, or draft everybody into building great national achievements, military or peaceful. Augusto Pinochet’s government has been called totalitarian by many. Salvador Allende was only in power 3 years, not 10+, and he wasn’t a dictator, _per se._ Although I agree Franco wasn;t really a Fascist, he was a dictator, and his government had many totalitarian aspects. wiki :T\*he consistent points in Franco’s long rule included above all authoritarianism, nationalism, the defense of Catholicism and the family, anti-Freemasonry, and anti-Communism. \* ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/75 "2009-09-01T13:45:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Salvador Allende was only in power 3 years, not 10+, and he wasn’t a dictator, _per se._ > \* I know, I only mentioned him to show the contrast: It is possible for a state to be totalitarian without being dictatorial, **and vice-versa.** ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/76 "2009-09-01T14:10:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Dictatorships are nearly invariably Totalitarian, even if they don’t start out that way. If you can show me a few that lasted for more than a decade without turning Totalitarian, then I’d accept there is a clear difference. Well, how about the Roman Empire which lasted in one form or another for over a thousand years? It was clearly dictatorial: power, almost absolute power, resided in the hands of a few and the vast majority of the people had no role to play in their governance. The government, however, was not totalitarian; it did not intervene in every aspect of its citizens life: it did not tell them what material their children’s PJs had to be made of, how may miles per hour their horse cart had to get, what kind of candles they could use in their house, what kind of health provisions they had to make for themselves, etc. People were left alone to do pretty much as they wished. On the other hand, a freely elected democratic government could be totalitarian if it started regulating more and more of its citizens’ lives. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887/77 "2009-09-02T04:11:40Z")
Parts of the bible espouse theocracy, total commitment by the governed and the use of terror for political ends. _Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth._ Oh, and here’s a working description, from Wikipedia’s article on Arndt’s _[The Origins of Totalitarianism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism)_: > [@](#): > > …Arendt discusses the transformation of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the non-totalitarian world, and the use of terror, essential to this form of government. Arendt argues that totalitarian movements are fundamentally different from autocratic regimes, insofar as autocratic regimes seek only to gain absolute political power and to outlaw opposition, whereas totalitarian regimes seek to dominate totally every aspect of everyone’s life, as a prelude to world domination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-totalitarian-works-of-fiction/507887.md?page=3)