Democracy and totalitarism

Résumé du document

Nowadays the term ‘democracy ‘has become a widespread reality which is practically accepted everywhere. Even China's leaders argue that their country is on the path to democracy but “it needs time” (Wen Jiabao, China's Prime Minister).
Nevertheless many dictatorships still prevail and democratic regimes are still seeking complicated institutional engineering to avoid bad experiences of the past (like Hitler's takeover in 1933). Indeed, many intellectuals as Hannah Arendt believe that democracy and totalitarism are linked in many ways and that the former can contain the essence of the latter. Maybe our system is just an illusion, or maybe it is really democratic, but is a far more breakable concept than we think. This dossier deals with one of the greatest dangers of democracy, which was largely studied even before the real triumph of democracy but which is still disregarded today, and gives attention to the main instrument used to endanger democratic regimes. The so-called danger will be entitled “fear” and its implementation, “the press”.

Extraits

[...] ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past 66. was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party 67. could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any 68. item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the 69. needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was 70. a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was 71. [...]

[...] articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought 34. necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For 35. example, it appeared from 'The Times' of the seventeenth of March that Big 36. Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South 37. Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly 38. be launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command 39. [...]

[...] As for the third message, it referred to a very 49. simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes ( ) 50. As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his 51. speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of 'The Times' and pushed 52. them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as 53. possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes 54. [...]

[...] generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although 25. Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a 26. thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the 28. general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were--in spite of all this his influence never seemed to grow less. ( ) 30. Winston dialled 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the 31. [...]

[...] alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even--so it was 16. occasionally rumoured--in some hiding-place in Oceania itself. ( ) 17. Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable 18. exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power 20. of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger 22. automatically. [...]