On Worldly Powers and Looming Totalitarianism
An essay assaying an idea.
Standard conceptions of totalitarianism define it as control by an absolute State. That’s a very basic definition. And it’s a fine definition. But I want to consider moving beyond State totalitarianism to something broader. I know that’s controversial and probably unacceptable, but just let me run with this for a few minutes. This essay is an test, an attempt, a trying-out of an idea. And that idea is this: in the contemporary world, the threat of a totalitarian system is less from an absolute State like Communism or Fascism (as it was in the Twentieth Century) than from the union of the State and Industry, particularly Big Tech, into one omnicompetent system. In other words, it’s not that the State controls all your data and tells you where you can work and what to think. It’s that that State and tech companies control all your data and nudge you to work in certain places and pressure you to think certain things. It’s less 1984 and more Brave New World. Together, they create what I want to call the Worldly Powers. And what makes these powers particularly totalitarian is that they work to atomize us by wearing down thick mediating associations and institutions, which as Robert Nisbet and others have noted is a defining feature of totalitarian regimes. So what I am suggesting is that with the accelerating growth of Big Tech through things like AI, we are facing a looming threat of a kind of totalitarianism. One professor of politics, Sheldon Wolin, described this as “inverted totalitarianism.” I think there are many potential dangers here. I’d love you to read and help me with this argument.
