Messianic democracy

Is a neologism originally used by Jacob Talmon is his book The Origins of

Totalitarian Democracy (1951) to describe the "democracy by force"
doctrines of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and its philosophical descendants, as an
effective tyranny that demotes democratic principle to rhetorical use only.
Variants include totalitarian democracy and Jacobin democracy. Indeed, from
the vantage point of the mid twentieth century the history of the last
hundred and fifty years looks like a systematic preparation for the headlong
collision between empirical and liberal democracy on the one hand, and
totalitarian Messianic democracy on the other, in which the world crisis of today consists. - J. L. Talmon.

Criticism of Rousseau's ideas

Talmon's 1952 book The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy discusses the
transformation of a state in which traditionalvalues and articles
of faith shape the role of government into one in which social utility takes
absolute precedence. His work is a criticism of the ideas of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, a Swiss philosopher whose ideas influenced the French Revolution.
InThe Social Contract, Rousseau contends that the interests of the individual
and the state are one and the same, and it is the state's responsibility to
implement the "general will".
The political neologism "messianic democracy" also derives from Talmon's
introduction to this work:
Indeed, from the vantage point of the mid twentieth century the
history of the last hundred and fifty years looks like a systematic
preparation for the headlong collision between empirical and liberal
democracy on the one hand, and totalitarian Messianic democracy on
the other, in which the world crisis of to-day consists. [1]
In a similar vein, Herbert Marcuse, in his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man,
describes a society in which, in his words, "liberty can be made into a
powerful instrument of domination. Free election of masters does not
abolish the masters or the slaves..."[6]

Differences in democratic philosophy

The philosophy of totalitarian democracy, according to Talmon, is based on a
top-down view of society, which sees an absolute and perfect political truth

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")

and majority rule. An argument can be made that in some circumstances it is

actually the political,economic, and military lite who interpret the general
will to suit their own interests. Again, however, it is the imperative of
achieving the overarching goal of a politicalnirvana that shapes the vision of
the process, and the citizen is expected to contribute to the best of his
abilities; the general is not asked to guide the plow, nor is the farmer asked
to lead the troops.
It can approach the condition of totalitarianism; totalitarian states can also
approach the condition of democracy, or at least majoritarianism. Citizens of
a totalitarian democratic state, even when aware of their true powerlessness,
may support their government. The Nazi government that led Germany into
World War II appears to have had the support of the majority of Germans,
and this view holds that it was not until much later, after Germany's losses
began to mount, that support for Hitlerbegan to fade. Joseph Stalin was
practically worshipped by hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens, many of
whom have not changed their opinion even today, and his status ensured his
economic and political reforms would be carried out.

Cold War and socio-economic illustrations

The period of the Cold War following WWII saw
great ideological polarization between the so-called "Free World" and
the Communist states. In the East, religious and intellectual repression was
met with increasing resistance, and the Hungarian revolt of
1956 and Alexander Dubek's Prague Spring in 1968 are two well-known acts
of defiance where thousands were murdered in cold blood by their
governments. The Tienanmen Square Massacre was a similar example of
repressive violence leading to hundreds of deaths. In the United States,
alleged Communists and Communist sympathizers were investigated by
Senator Joseph McCarthy in what later generations would recall as a "witch
hunt"; many accused Communists were forced out of their jobs or their
reputations were scandalized. Shortly after the time of Talmon's book,
theVietnam War brought active hostility between elements in the U.S.
government and political factions within the American people. One faction
insisted that the U.S. government did not represent them in levying war in
Southeast Asia, protesting the war, as well as undemocratic or oligarchical
power-structures within U.S. society[citation needed]; this faction occasionally saw
repression from the government, such as through "dirty tricks" aimed at
"subversives" by the FBI in COINTELPRO. This conflict within U.S. society rose

to violence during the protests and riots at the Democratic National

Convention of 1968 in Chicago, Illinois, and in the Kent State Massacre,
where 4 anti-war protesters were shot dead by U.S. National Guard forces.
One concept fundamental to both "liberal" and "totalitarian" democracy is
that of liberty. According to Talmon, totalitarian democracy sees freedom as
something achieved only in the long term, and only through collective effort;
the political goal of ultimate order and ultimate harmony brings ultimate
freedom. In addressing every aspect of the lives of its citizens, the
totalitarian democratic state has the power to ensure that all material needs
are met from cradle to grave, and all that is required of the citizen is to carry
out his role, whatever it may be, to the best of his ability. Liberal democracy,
on the other hand, posits freedom as something that can and should be
achieved by the individual in the short term, even at the expense of things
such as material well-being, and sees as an element of this freedom a
"freedom from government" wherein the individual is able to exercise
"freedom" in his own terms to the extent that they do not contravene the
law. Proponents of both kinds of democracy argue that their particular
approach is the best one for the citizens of their respective countries.
It is Mao Shoulong's contention that "equality-oriented democracy recognises
the value of freedom but holds that [it] can't be attained by individual
efforts," but rather, by collective efforts. He argues that while equalityoriented democracy stresses the value of equality over individual freedoms,
the reverse is true for freedom-oriented democracy, and in each case, the
state will move either to ensure equality by limiting individual freedom, or to
ensure individual freedom by giving up equality. Some critics of this view
may argue that equality and individual freedoms are inseparable, and that
one cannot exist (or be sustained) without the other. Other critics argue that
equality can only be ensured by continuous coercion, while ensuring
individual freedom only requires force against coercive individuals and
external states.
Shoulong also holds that a law is not valid if it does not have the approval of
the public. Laws passed by the state do not require approval by the citizen
on a case-by-case basis, and it can be easily argued that some laws currently
in place in some countries purporting to be liberal democracies do not have
the approval of the majority of citizens. For one, Rousseau argued in "The
Social Contract", that in the stereotypical liberal democracy, individuals are
politically "free" once every Parliamentary term, or every two to four years,

when they vote for their representatives, in their General Election or on

Election Day. Yet, Rousseau fails to consider that the state is not a total
institution within the liberal democracies, and that the freedom of the citizen
in between the elections is the freedom of the citizen to live their life in
pursuit of their own happiness, subject to the law made by their elected
representatives, who are, in turn, subject to popular pressure, public
protest, petition, recall, referendum,initiative, and ultimately, electoral defeat
if they fail to heed the views of those they represent. This is in contrast to a
totalitarian democracy, with the state as a total institution, where the
individual is truly not free without constant participation in their "democratic"
government; and thus, the individual in the totalitarian democracy must be
"forced to be free" if the totalitarian democracy is not to become a
totalitarian oligarchy.