Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Messianic Democracy: Criticism of Rousseau's Ideas
Messianic Democracy: Criticism of Rousseau's Ideas
to which all reasonable humans are driven. It is contended that not only is it
beyond the individual to arrive at this truth independently, it is his duty and
responsibility to aid his compatriots in realizing it. Moreover, any public or
private activities that do not forward this goal have no useful purpose, sap
time and energy from those that do, and must be eliminated. Thus economic
and social endeavors, which tend to strengthen the collective, are seen as
valuable, whereas education and religion, which tend to strengthen the
individual, are seen as counterproductive. "You cannot be a citizen and a
Christian at the same time," says Talmon, referring to Rousseau's arguments,
"for the loyalties clash."
In his paper Advances in Chinese Social Sciences (2001), Mao Shoulong, a
professor of Public Policy at Renmin University of China, takes a different
position. He posits that totalitarian democracy, or what he terms "equalityoriented democracy," is founded on the idea that it is possible, and
necessary, that the complete rights and freedoms of people ought not be
held hostage to traditions and social arrangements. Mao recognizes that the
term "totalitarian" has a connotation attached to it, used as it was
by Giovanni Gentile to apply to the Italian fascist government led by Benito
Mussolini. He sees the proponents of liberal democracy (or "Western"
democracy) as holding a negative attitude to the word and believing that
force is not an appropriate way to achieve a goal no matter the value of that
goal. He prefers the term "freedom-oriented democracy" to describe such a
political entity.
Fundamental requirements
A totalitarian democracy, says Talmon, accepts "exclusive
territorial sovereignty" as its right. It retains full power ofexpropriation and
full power of imposition, i.e., the right of control over everything and
everyone. Maintenance of such power, in the absence of full support of the
citizenry, requires the forceful suppression of any dissenting element except
what the government purposely permits or organizes. Liberal democrats,
who see political strength as growing from the bottom up (cf: "grass roots"),
reject in principle the idea of coercion in shaping political will, but the
totalitarian democratic state holds it as an ongoing imperative.
A totalitarian democratic state is said to maximize its control over the lives of
its citizens, using the dual rationale of general will (i.e., "public good")