Totalitarianism

Response to lecture series: Visions of Utopia

Totalitarianism limits human nature to it’s social function. An individual is simply a tool for the social order. Despots tend to be idealists, without any concept of individual worth. This is in opposition to the most natural ethical law—that all mature human beings are equal, and deserves to be treated equally. Totalitarianism is for those who participate in society, for full citizens. But any individual citizen can be destroyed for the good of the whole. The idea that every human organism is a society in and of itself, deserving of respect and freedom to do good is unknown. This is to not see humanity as God created them, and is denying the gifts God has granted each individual.

Church Leadership

“The church leaders seek avidly to dominate the masses… They are seen to appear as brilliant and pure but their souls are worse than mud and dirt, worse even than any kind of deadly poison, these evil and perverse men!” -Symeon the New Theologian

Democracy and Dictatorship

“A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.” –John Paul II

Crazy Ethics

Jesus’ ethics are, without a doubt, based on selfishness. He encourages certain actions by promoting reward, blessing. wealth, and high office.

As Nietzsche paraphrases Jesus, “He who humbles himself wants exaltation.”

But Jesus makes it clear that he is not working toward success now, but in the future. And those he selects for all this sordid gain are those who are the poor, humble, sacrificial and merciful. So these that Jesus receives to be great in God’s kingdom are trained to be the kind of leaders and wealthy people the poor had always wished for. The kind that would rule with an eye to the needy—the kind of ruler the world has never had. So Jesus trains unselfishness through selfish motives.

Crazy like a fox, our anti-Machiavellian.

Government v. Church

The government is the representative of God’s judgment, as shown by the command “An eye for an eye.” The church is the representative of God’s grace, as shown by the command, “Repent and be forgiven.”

The church should not give way to the government, for the two entities are, in a sense, in competition for humans souls. Should the government surrender some of it’s punitive nature in order to offer mercy, well and good (but we do not expect it). However, the church must never surrender its grace and mercy to become punitive, for then the witness of Christ is lost to the world.

Was God's Original Plan Anarchy?

It was always God’s intention to have human leadership over humans—e.g. government. But not the heavy-handed style. Rather gentle and guiding, for we would all be considered the same.

“The individual interest and the common goal are not the same” –Aquinas