George Orwell on the theocracy of Totalitarianism

[RichardParticipant]

George Orwell, the author of the famous novel 1984 said in a small essay that totalitarian regimes are essentially theocracies.  Often atheism is blamed for the reason communism and other totalitarian regimes practiced such harm on the people they ruled.  What George Orwell goes on to explain is that at the root of any totalitarian system, both religious and secular, was a set of ideas immune to critical disagreement.  And what made them theocracies was the fact that anyone who was critical of the core ideas or the person ruling was violently oppressed.  You find these features in every totalitarian system of government.  This was true of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and others.

This is quite different than the modern skepticism of most atheists.  The skepticism of modern atheism/agnosticism is that everything is open to critical analysis.  Nothing is sacred.  And we certainly don’t kill people who disagree with us.  We are accountable to the demonstration of success or failure of an idea in the real world.

What I find in dialog with some believers is the idea that their beliefs should be respected because they are sacred.  And what they mean when they say respected is that I shouldn’t point out the flaws or disagree.

There are certain ideas that are benign to most people as individuals, but there is a concept at the root of any totalitarian system.  That concept is the use of force to create an idealized utopia.  If any idea or concept becomes so sacred that it is immune to critical analysis then we have created the foundation for totalitarian society.

If we can discuss ideas and not join ourselves to closely to an idea that we feel insulted because someone disagrees, I think we can live with much more freedom.

[Anonymous]

I think that’s why I put down so much of my baggage, I don’t have the energy to defend stuff I don’t really believe. I imagine a belief spectrum, in the middle is nothing. You can’t be in the middle, you can’t believe nothing. Actually I making this up as I type. Imagine a dome where top dead centre represents no beliefs and all around the edge of the dome are subjects, ideologies. The intensity of belief increases as you move to the edge, and so does the angle of your position. As it increases so does the difficulty of standing on that position. Somewhere arround half way the dome becomes so steep that all you can do is cling to your position with all of your body spread out.

I’ve crawled up the dome, and now stand comfortably just near top centre in the area that is vaguely theistic–the view from here is better too.

How’s that for dreamin without drugs?

[HughParticipant]

“If we can discuss ideas and not join ourselves to closely to an idea that we feel insulted because someone disagrees, I think we can live with much more freedom.”

This is a good proposal / ideal. Something to really aim for. Freedom yes.

[David HaywardKeymaster]

Here here!

[Author]

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