69 million page views

The Approaching Riddle - Does Totalitarianism Rule the Middle East?

Reader comment on item: The American Withdrawal from Syria
in response to reader comment: Most dangerous totalitarian ideology

Submitted by MTovey (United States), Jan 2, 2019 at 16:31

Empires and regimes have plagued the world with dreams and ambitions of hordes of self-willed and self-determined autocrats; and all of them have some things in common: they have failed. Another thing in common was that they developed ideologies that they were able to promote for a time, but were unable to keep those ideologies from fading into the past since they served selfish prideful interests that had no ability to live past the dreams of generations of other prideful interests. Almost all were doomed from before the start since catering to such lustful enterprises weakens the ideologies imminently. It is the curse of mankind.
Totalitarianism is historically fatal to civilizations that seek to dominate the mortal vulnerabilities of divided tribal apprehensions of living: how does a societal formation seeking survival accomplish that goal if someone does not arise to provide appropriate leadership to attain that survival. An ideology that serves the society and not the self makes the distinction of how totalitarianism is either good or bad. Not all government is bad; however the world has demonstrated it cannot govern itself since the curse of mankind cannot be overcome without agreement on ideology.
Totalitarianism is the methodology of governance; conservatism or liberalism is the ideology used to govern, even with religious implications.
Governance in society goes back millennia. There are records of the earliest of earth's tribal beginnings show resorting to head of families (patriarchal, matriarchal) as the leaders eventually morph into more 'sophisticated' autocratic head; ie., king, emperor, czar, etc.
As societies were reinventing themselves, oligarchies, 'democratic' and 'republican' formations of governmental control ran the gamut of changes in how to 'serve' the people in their pedestrian pursuit of their lives brought about the modern schemes of the political environment. That mankind has yet to prefect the processes is self-evident and there is still no methodology in sight that all can agree upon.
There is potentially one exception; yet no one can agree that this is even a potential. The surprising thing about this exception is still a matter of debate: what about the State of Israel? In many respects, it is a phoenix when it comes to governments, since it has been virtually governed in all forms of government, some so bad that it has been exiled from even its homeland without a formal government; yet now it exist again in its homeland. In spite of this, the world seems intent on appropriating that land and exterminating all of its rights to be there. It begs the question: what ideology has been perpetrated on Israel and what form of governance will allow Israel to remain?
For all the Middle East studies that have been performed over the centuries, this is the riddle that so far, no mortal answer can be determined.

Dislike
Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

Submit a comment on this item

Reader comments (6) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
The Arab Spring? What Arab spring! Syria and the future! [432 words]dhimmi no moreJan 5, 2019 12:18246983
syria [16 words]martin potashnerDec 31, 2018 18:36246913
2Most dangerous totalitarian ideology [711 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
KeithDec 31, 2018 12:21246894
It's starting to look like it is [209 words]KeithJan 2, 2019 14:15246894
The Approaching Riddle - Does Totalitarianism Rule the Middle East? [464 words]MToveyJan 2, 2019 16:31246894
Multiphasing The Paradigm - Keeping an Eye on Damascus From a Russian View [243 words]MToveyFeb 25, 2019 13:25246894

Follow Daniel Pipes

Facebook   Twitter   RSS   Join Mailing List

All materials by Daniel Pipes on this site: © 1968-2024 Daniel Pipes. daniel.pipes@gmail.com and @DanielPipes

Support Daniel Pipes' work with a tax-deductible donation to the Middle East Forum.Daniel J. Pipes

(The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Tax-ID 23-774-9796, approved Apr. 27, 1998.

For more information, view our IRS letter of determination.)