Inverted
Totalitarianism
Inverted
totalitarianism is a term coined by political philosopher Sheldon Wolin to
describe what he believes to be the emerging form of government of the United
States. Wolin believes that the United States is increasingly turning into an
illiberal democracy, and he uses the term "inverted totalitarianism"
to illustrate the similarities and differences between the United States
governmental system and totalitarian regimes. The United States has been
increasingly taking on totalitarian tendencies. The democracy of the United States
is sanitized of political participation and refers to it as managed
democracy. Under managed democracy the electorate is prevented from having a
significant impact on policies adopted by the state through the continuous
employment of public relations techniques. The essential role that propaganda
plays in the system is the ability to control and pacify the people. The media, for example, is a tool
that the government use to spoon feed people into thinking or acting a specific
way.
I think knowing this information is both alarming and
empowering, it depends how you take it. It can be empowering if it makes you
look at our government, at our media while applying critical thinking. Instead of
allowing the media to tell us how to think we can receive the information as one
point of view and start looking for
other point of view before we form our opinion in the matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment