Abstract

An often cited but unquestioned claim of contemporary political theory is that the “totalitarian state” is a unique and sui generis social formation in the 20th century. Both the Left and Right have embraced this concept as the common core of political theory and policy after WWII. The locus classicus of these ideas is probably Karl Popper's claim that “civilization has not fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or ‘closed society,’ with its submission to magical forces, to the ‘open society’ which sets free the critical powers of man…. [Thus] the shock of this transition is one of the factors that has made possible the rise of those reactionary movements which have tried, and still try, to overthrow civilization and to return to tribalism.