Ideological homogenization21.06.25

The 2008 book by renowned political philosopher Sheldon Wolin, *Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism*, provides an opportunity to examine current authoritarian and totalizing developments, which Wolin interprets as indications of a move toward a historically novel form of totalitarianism. Wolin traces in detail corresponding domestic and foreign policy developments that he associates with such a novel form of totalitarianism. Authoritarianism and totalizing tendencies are already prefigured in capitalist democracies and develop, especially in crises, from their own dynamics. Current forms of capitalism's development have largely rendered social democratic reformism, which industrial capitalism has always needed for its stabilization and protection from itself, ineffective and impossible. As a result, the self-destructive aspects of capitalism and its internal contradictions can now unfold unhindered in both domestic and foreign policy dynamics.

According to Wolin, ideological homogenization and the pressure for conformity of the mass media, especially the associated, increasingly tight-knit methods of controlling dissent, play a central role in current totalitarian developments. These barely visible methods are primarily aimed at blocking the emergence of fundamental dissent at its roots and effectively ostracizing the public articulation of dissent. The distinctive feature of this new form of totalitarianism is "how the system can enforce censorship and suppress opposition without appearing to do so."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Wolin?ysclid=mc6kczphj4129095776

Anonymous

Ideological homogenization21.06.25

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