In life there are many people who could be called controlling. They like to try to control other people’s behaviour. This is not some bewilderingly alien psychological territory. I presume many people very much dislike this if we feel it being imposed on us. It feels like a violation. Now in terms of psychological terrain, what kinds of people are especially likely to be attracted to domains like politics where they get to exercise control over others? Yes, that’s right - controlling people! I’m afraid there’s no prizes if you guessed correct. Totalitarianism is simply that psychological drive of controlling people pushed to the level of the state - though it can be an obvious reality in all kinds of ordinary environments, like the family, work, social clubs, etc.
Machiavelli wrote “the people are everywhere anxious not to be dominated or oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles are out to dominate and oppress the people.” This he considered simply the way of things. Within democracy the greatest heresy is to see democracy as something which arose as part of the natural flow of things, and that it then naturally flows onwards, secure in itself once established. This is to magically wipe away human psychology! Democracy arrives, now we are cleansed, and enter a new innocent era of human reality!
Democracy theoretically at least equates to the people breaking free of the domination and oppression which the nobles/ruling elites are attempting to exert, according to Machiavelli, as a matter of course. If democracy emerges and survives, it does so in intense conflict with this completely contrary force. These people and their drives towards control don’t simply meekly surrender once democracy, the reality or veneer of it, comes along. This dynamic Machiavelli mentions should be considered a given, that is unless we’re dealing with a completely different species where suddenly everyone in possession of power is supposed to have become reasonable and benevolent.
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