The thermodynamic interpretation of history sees the goal of any evolution of the human social collective to be totalitarianism: the total control of the individual person by the society; therefore the two extremes of totalitarianism -- fascism and communism -- and the one middle of "free society" -- free-market democracy -- all have this same goal, and apparently the middle emerges, through the developmental approach, as the most successful totalitarianism capable of generating the most power with which to demolish the competitors at the two extremes.¹

The opposition between planned overhaul and gradual development is only one marker distinguishing the successful from the failed. The second one is the use of internal purge. The German historian Ernst "Nolte had written a comparative study of fascism in the 1960s in which he described fascism as a metaphysical system whose broad aim was to usurp the radicalization of the left [communism], also based on metaphysical assumptions of social reality, and usher in a new homogenized community of the people." (Klaus Fischer, ibid., p. 575) That is, fascism and communism were competing with one another to establish a newly integrated powerful supraorganism which would necessarily be a homogenized community of universal mankind, either a Volk or a Class. And they used substantially the same approach (planned, sudden, and forced overhaul) and differed only on the surface of metaphysical construct, i.e. with respect to the fairy tales most suitable to the respective cultures for deceiving the people (either the Aryan myth founded by de Gobineau and Chamberlain or the historical materialism of Marx and Engels). This is why they were both called "totalitarianism" in that respect. But the need for sudden and total mobilization of a fairly diversified population into such homogenized supraorganism required the use of extermination of a portion of its own population, whether for the sake of maintaining the fairy tale (Nazis) or as real practicality required (Soviet, as the upper class did stand in the way to communistic integration). Hence some historian like Nolte can claim that "Hitler's extermination of the Jews was not a unique act but was to be expected from a political religion that presupposed extermination as a necessary element of its worldview. After all, the Communists had long accepted the view that their enemies, the bourgeois, had to be liquidated... Nolte's point was that the Nazis were no different except that they aimed to exterminate races rather classes." (Ibid.) So the causes for the necessary use by totalitarianism of extermination are, on the material side, pressure for integration, and, on the psychological side, the "secular gnostic" view of history as a drama of the bitter conflict between Good and Evil, with the membership of both categories being fixed already, i.e. "predestination". Though the Soviet and Chinese communists have together succeeded in exterminating far more people than the Nazis (around 100 millions vs. the 11 millions or so in Nazi concentration camps) the former had much more time and had more populations at their disposal.²

The American way toward totalitarianism, in accordance with its developmental approach, uses the opposite technique of bringing the diverse peoples together and homogenizing their mind with political correctness in order to create the homogeneity needed for supraorganismic integration. It generates victimology for the marginalized so as to integrate them rather than racial or class fairy tales so as to exterminate them. As said, the extrication of minorities from racism, just as the liberation of women, has nothing to do with sympathy with and appreciation of the true Self of non-whites and immigrants, but serves the purpose of expanding capitalism into consumerism, i.e. supraorganismic metabolism. (It is therefore an integral part of the story of "when the Sun infuses massive electromagnetic energy into Earth...") Same for social homogenization. Thus everything that happens in the modern world has the function, though each in its own way, of instituting totalitarianism and smearing out human individuality, the American tradition not excluded -- but in fact doing the best. Our approach to state-formation, modeling it analogically on the formation of multicellular organisms in evolution (the "thermodynamic interpretation"), is meant to make manifest the historical necessity, inevitability of this.

The opposition between the totalitarianisms on the right and the left (national socialism and communism) is the extreme expression of the general opposition in political style between the right and the left, which today has become the dominant political theme in just about every modern nation-state, but is not the same "right" and "left" established following the French Revolution (J. M. Roberts, The Pelican History of the World, rev. ed., p. 681). "Historically, the right was conservative and the left was radical. In the French National Assembly of 1789, those who sat on the right were eager to conserve the status quo and were opposed to change, while those who sat on the left were eager for radical change." (Shadia Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, p. xiii.) But the meaning of right and left has changed; today they are the two mirror image forms of the general radicalism or "progressivism". Thus totalitarianism means extreme progressivism, just as its two extreme forms mean extreme "right" and "left." So "right" and "left" should not be characterized respectively as "conservative" and "progressive" (or "liberal") which are what the traditional "right" and "left" (after the French Revolution) refer to. Today the right reaches fruition in fascism and the left in communism or, more moderately, in democratic socialism. They are both "progressive" in the sense of advocating more state-control, more change, a movement toward an ideal state not yet existent -- and always ending up in "totalitarianism" (of the coercive type). The difference between them, as between national socialism and Soviet communism, is that whereas the right uses the "one on top", the "victimizer", as the pivot around which the "remodeling" should begin, the left uses the "one on the bottom", the "victimized". Thus the former glorifies domination, physical superiority, and predatory invasion of other lands, generally favoring the interests of the "elite" of society (like big corporations or aristocratic, royal families) and culminating in the Nazi fairy tale of Aryan superiority; the latter on the other hand mystifies victimization and inner moral superiority gained through suffering, and shows a principal concern for social justice, equality, redistribution, etc. This left -- the usual meaning of "progressivism", unfortunately -- today prevails in most Western industrialized countries in the moderate form of democratic socialism, which is "left progressivism" within the machinery of the "middle way" -- save the U.S. But both are today just different personality styles of progressivism ("dick" and "pussy", to speak vulgarly), insofar as they both want "change", a more ideal future. The "left" is totalitarianism (of the coercive type) in its yin or feminine form, with its desire for domination rooted in the subordinate's resentment against those who formerly dominated (counter-domination domination), while the "right" is this same totalitarianism in its yang or masculine form, rooted in the dominant group's enjoyment of their domination of the weak (the expansion of domination). "Conservatism" however is today neither left nor right, but simply refers to the forces of social inertia. In Japan the right (of the modern sense: "dick") predominates, and the extreme right (as represented by the History Textbook Reform Society) looms dangerously. The American middle way has for the most part remained "middle", but with a tinge of the left after WWII given the continual predominance of Democrats in government. The "right" has then been represented by the Republicans, the "conservatives", and the conflict between the two has been not one between right and left, but between conservatives (those that do not want society to evolve) and progressives (those that do). Before recent times, the "right" still means what it means historically: conservatism, or the attempt to conserve what exists already and to resist further evolution of the system. But, now, just as the Democratic Party becomes more and more in the vein of democratic socialism, the Republicans suddenly shift to the right with Neoconservatism, i.e. to progressivism in the form of predatory fascism (maybe "democratic fascism" [the "right" floating on top of mass-tyranny]?).³ What's happening all around seems to be that as the pure fascism and communism have collapsed, and mass-tyranny emerges triumphant, this latter itself starts acquiring "left" and "right" orientations.

                      contemporary American politics 
                         on top of mass-tyranny                   

progressive         "Right" ---------------- "Left"
     |             (Neocon;         |       (democratic                      
     |              fascism)        |         socialism)            
     |                              |                  
     |                              |                      
conservative                "Paleoconservatism"       

Footnotes:

1. "[N]ational socialism represents the right-wing variant of modern totalitarianism, the ideological counterpart of Communism, or left-wing totalitarianism." Thus Klaus Fischer characterizes totalitarianism. (Nazi Germany, p. 4.) Our contribution is to add the middle variant.

2. "As Friedrich and Brzezinski have pointed out, the basic traits of totalitarianism, whether of the left or the right, are essentially the same, to wit: [1] an all-embracing ideology; [2] a single mass party generally led by one man; [3] a terroristic police; [4] a communications monopoly; and [5] a centrally directed economy." (Fischer, ibid., p. 17) Note that American democracy has the opposites of [2], [4], and [5] but conforms to [1] ("freedom", "equality", and "free economy" the best) and [3]. Again, the cause is that America arrives through a different approach at a different tyranny, the "pluralistic" or "mass" tyranny, where the demoi exercise tyrannical control over each other, hence it is pluralistic dictatorship, pluralistic communicational channels, and pluralistic economy, but suppression of any deviations from the official ideology ("political correctness" and "free market").

3. Fascism is not the same as conservatism. The three classic traits (the definition) of fascism: the merger of corporate with state power, authoritarianism, and the right of the "superior" ("strong", powerful) to rule the "inferior" (the weak), can all be summed up as a sickness of mind, akin to DSM-IV defined anti-social personality disorder or sadistic personality, the mindless aggression which seeks the power to hurt and dominate as the greatest good in the universe and takes pleasure in beating up and exploiting the weak. Conservatism on the other hand means different things in different countries, because different countries have different "existing" configurations to conserve. In America, conservatism is basically libertarianism (the Old Whigism in Hayek's words, because the original configuration of the American republic is one of free institutions, allowing people to spontaneously develop with little government interference; see "Why I Am Not A Conservative" in The Constitution of Liberty) with the additional cultural and ethnic requirements: conserving the population's European descent and their Christian heritage. So, Shadia Drury cannot be right when she says that "the success of the liberal revolution in France, as well as the rest of Europe, means that the right [in the traditional sense: conservatism] has lost, and, in the bitterness of its defeat, has become radical. It no longer has an aversion to change, but is eager for radical change that would reverse the liberal revolution. Neoconservatism is the classic and most powerful expression of the American right. Far from being moderate or conservative, it bristles with a sense of urgency and crisis that is the hallmark of radicalism." (Ibid.) Neoconservatism is in fact just fascism that believes in the natural hierarchy of the superior ("powerful") dominating the inferior ("weak"), thus fights against the liberals' egalitarian program, and wants to implement the hierarchy on the global scale. Because traditionally there has always been hierarchy in society, and the existing configuration includes nuclear family, and because conservatism wants to "conserve what exists already", conservatism tends to become equated with hierarchy and family values, so that when Neocons want hierarchy and see "traditional values" as useful in socializing people's obedience to the "elite", they look "conservative". But this is just convergence, or similarity on the surface. The conservatives tend to be cautious, descent people and are not characterized by sadistic personality and aggressive impulses.