Ahmadinejad: Not Crazy?

[Traitorfish]

You really have no idea what totalitarianism means, do you?

I know perfectly well what it means, thank you. It is not an obscure concept.

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state, usually under the control of a single political person, faction, or class, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.

That doesn't really describe Iran, and to stretch the definition that much is to reduce it to an emotive condemnation rather than an informed analysis.

 

[timtofly]

And I think you are overlooking the history of the region. Iran used to be a modern secular representative democratic state until the US overthrew their legitimate sovereign country for nationalizing the oil. The current regime was a reaction to installing a real totalitarian government in its place.

You mean ever since the GWB adminstration is no longer calling them the "axis of evil"? Yes, I have noticed that...

Or is it because Iran has no need to be anti-american?

 

[Arwon]

Not really, no. "Totalitarianism" is a concept of questionable usefulness as it is, being rooted in ideologically-motivated attempts to conflate Stalinist and Nazism, but if it has any meaning, it must refer to an authority which seeks to extend total control over the society it governs. As the Iranian regime, with its enthusiastic schemes of privatisation and its tolerance for a partially Westernised middle class, does not seem to pursue such control, it is inaccurate to characterise it as "totalitarian".

(Incidentally, it would be similarly inaccurate to say the same of any of the Fascist or Nazi regimes as implemented. Neither were quite as total as they or their opponents tended to present themselves.)

Fair to say North Korea is the only actual totalitarian regime on the planet then?

 

[Traitorfish]

Fair to say North Korea is the only actual totalitarian regime on the planet then?

I'd say so, yeah.

 

[Arwon]

And I suppose Khmer Rouge Cambodia tried damn hard.

 

[Traitorfish]

And I suppose Khmer Rouge Cambodia tried damn hard.

Honestly, I'd say that, between them, only the Khmer Rouge and North Korea ever really made a concerted effort to create that sort of regime. The Soviets, PRC and their various pals were all quite willing to allow pre-Communist and non-Communist traditions, beliefs and practices to continue as they had done to the extent that they didn't interfere with the running of the state, which suggests a limited interest in the sort of Orwellian control implied by the concept of totalitarianism. The Soviets even allowed Christmas, just stripping out the Christianity (not hard, as we well know) and moving it to New Year- they just insisted that Ded Moroz, the Russian equivalent of Father Christmas, wear a blue coat so as not to be mistaken for his bourgeois cousin.

Ironic, then, that it was a concept devised more or less specifically with the intention of linking Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia...

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

That doesn't really describe Iran, and to stretch the definition that much is to reduce it to an emotive condemnation rather than an informed analysis.

Sounds like Iran to me. They have all the trappings of a totalitarian state, except with the appearance of democracy, which has fooled you as much as the Iranian people, minus the ones who demonstrated 2 years ago. There is a centralized authority that imposes a strict code of conduct. There is a secret police and a paramilitary force that imposes order from within, under threat of violence.

 

[Traitorfish]

Sounds like Iran to me. They have all the trappings of a totalitarian state, except with the appearance of democracy, which has fooled you as much as the Iranian people, minus the ones who demonstrated 2 years ago. There is a centralized authority that imposes a strict code of conduct. There is a secret police and a paramilitary force that imposes order from within, under threat of violence.

See, now you're just using "totalitarian" to mean "exceptionally authoritarian; also, bad guys". If we're going to go on like that, you may as well declare Ahmadinejad a "super-villain" and be done with it.