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Jose
Brunner
From
to
Rousseau
French Revolution
Past
Totalitarian
in J. L. Talmon's
The
Democracy:
Historiography1
and Present
ne
of
combination
an
ultra-democratic
constitution
and
terror
in
some
way
about
the
present.
It appears,
however,
that
not
the
historical
only
provided
experience
or subtext to his historical vision, but that its
background
on his thinking brought him to read
impact
overpowering
drawn from later
of analogies
backwards
by means
history
onto earlier ones.
the
For Talmon,
events and projected
- that
of
the
the
the
of
is,
past
writings
philosophes
meaning
as well as the events of the French Revolution
and Rousseau,
- is
shed on
light that Talmon
supplied by the present. The
the French Revolution was refracted by the lens provided by
and its aftermath, with the result that
the Russian Revolution
a Stalin, and finally even Rousseau
turned
became
Robespierre
- into an
- albeit
of
the
Gulag. Already
ideologist
indirectly
of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy
on
the first page
describes himself as writing in a
(hereafter Origins) Talmon
liberal
and
in which an empirical
world
of
crisis,
period
a totalitarian Messianic
with
collides
democracy.
democracy
one
the preceding
From the vantage point of this collision,
hundred and fifty years were for him but a long period of
Talmon's
From Rousseau
to Totalitarian
Democracy
is."3 Talmon's
historiography
revolutionary social democrat
of the Russian
this metaphorical
self-understanding
adopts
the bitter lessons of
learned
but - having
revolutionaries,
to self
it
is made
its
until
extends
Stalinism
logic
de (con) struct.
to lead up to a plea for a
comments are not meant
These
of
transhistorical
and
neutral
history; for there is no
writing
and
theoretical
without
premises. As John
political
history
Dunn puts it: "The value-free study of revolutions is a logical
impossibility for those who live in the real world."4 Moreover,
to the capacity of the French
Francois Furet has pointed
is only
still to stir heated
Revolution
controversy, which
to
The
of
its
Russian
Glorious
that
counterpart.
comparable
Revolution and the American Revolution nowadays hardly ever
arouse
readers.
have
or their
political passions among professional historians
In terms of their function in public rhetoric, they
become
part
of
consensus
commemorative
celebrated
to the
in shared political
rituals. This has not happened
- it is still common
its
French Revolution
practice among
historians to take an explicitly political stand and to compare
it to
the
Russian
Revolution.5
Furet
also
acknowledges
that
the
the "Lenino-populist
by the French
propounded
vulgate"
a comment
that is
Revolution's
left-wing historians, he makes
an
as
anti
indictment
of
its
Talmon's
opposite,
equally apt
revolutionary
catechism:
61
Jose
Brunner
a
not
and
mechanical
impassioned
hypotheses,
... the
onto
the
of
the past
present
projection
the
French
of
Revolution
has
gained
interpretation
neither in richness nor in depth for being accompanied,
as in a minor key, by a second,
on
implicit discourse
that second and latent discourse
the Russian Revolution;
like a cancer
inside
the historical
has proliferated
62
its complexity
and
its
of emplotment, philosophical
imagery, theory of truth, mode
of his text.8 In a critical
and
message
ideological
anthropology
- and some
to
references
of
complementary
Origins
reading
he
two volumes
that
the
the other
trilogy
comprising
a period of three decades - I shall differentiate
published over
three layers which together make up its textual edifice. These
can be seen to represent the three authorial personae
that
as I shall show, though
Talmon
adopts in writing history;9 for
itself as the work of a
book ostensibly presents
Talmon's
that by
historian, none of its textual layers contains much
stuff
the
of
be
considered
would
standards
history. For
today's
on
and
historical
details
of
is
said
little
instance,
processes
their specific and unique causes and purposes. Beyond general
in
summaries of texts and events, one finds
surveys and
text above all metaphysical postulates, diagnoses of a lay
Talmon's
a moralist. Since
of
each
psychoanalyst, and preachings of
the
of
the
transcends
authorial
Talmon's
personae
history
truth on the
in order to reveal a perpetual
French Revolution
human condition, we are taught about the reality of faith and
the fears, hopes and
the effects of climates of ideas; about
inner
of
human
in
world
hidden
the
desires
beings and their
the
on
about
power of good and
impact
politics; and, finally,
From
Rousseau
to Totalitarian
Democracy
and Reality
of
social
realms,
and
messianic,
totalitarian
one,
to the political
which tries to reduce all planes of existence
of the one absolute
truth.10
and claims to be in possession
to Talmon,
both these currents of thought are
According
a cluster of
of them represent
since both
democratic,
as
such
ideals,
individualism, freedom, polidcal
Enlightenment
and
is
liberal democracy
equality. However,
participation
cautious, reformist, proceeds by trial and error, and recognizes
levels of human
various
endeavor
from politics.
apart
believes
in
Totalitarian
the
democracy
perfectibility of human
a
in
of
and
the
possibility
preordained
beings
political order
a perfected
of
the
needs
it
reflecting
humanity. Hence
demands
the abolition of religious authority and extends the
into the previously
scope of politics by stepping
religious
realms of thought and feeling. Aiming at a final scheme, at
to arrive, it shows a
which humans are bound
disrespect for
the wisdom of the ages which it justifies by its commitment to
the unlimited power of abstract reason. Mobilizing
the people
and evoking public enthusiasm for an ideal future, a vanguard
of prophets, saviors and Messiahs
takes upon itself the task of
- if
masses
a
for
the
necessary by
radically new age
educating
terror. Thus
the faith of modern
totalitarian democracy
takes
on its manifest political
on
form as "a dictatorship
resting
popular
enthusiasm.""
63
Jose Brunner
account
Talmon's
of
the
of
However,
development
totalitarian democracy does not focus on phenomena
usually
associated with the writing of political or intellectual history let alone social history - such as individual actions and lives,
social processes and classes, public institutions, ideologies and
texts. Certainly, references to all of these can be found in his
64
full political
objectification
he
in the
century. As
explains
reached
What
of
its
religion
of people,
the ideas, values, preferences
of an age, are the outward manifestations
in
the widest
sense.12
of
to Totalitarian
From Rousseau
Democracy
as
in
ideas
the air."]h
as a license for
this methodology
organicist
that is, for writing a history of the French
reductionism,
Revolution which turns all its diverse programs, participants
and events into components of one synthetic entity: the faith
totalitarianism. Since he reduces everything to
of democratic
an
of
parts
aggregate whose importance is greater than any of
Talmon
its
elements,
uses
Talmon
can
and
ignore
or
gloss
over
discrepancies
contradictions
between
theories, thinkers and activists
to
the
various
revolutionary factions, and make a
belonging
of
Communists,
Babouvists,
Jacobins,
medley
Blanquists,
sameness
to
and
Socialists
Anarchists.17
By
preferring
to uniqueness,
narrative
difference and repetition
Talmon's
aspects of similarity among these groups and
over-emphasizes
thus
creates
Another
cohesion
and
integration
where
there
was
none.
effect
of
Talmon's
idealist
questionable
can
be
in
discerned
the
of
historiography
trajectory
Origins,
which depicts three stages of the inevitable metamorphosis
of
beautiful dreams of perfect freedom and harmony into ugly
totalitarian monsters. The first part of the book is devoted to
the eighteenth-century
of a rational
philosophical
postulate
is singled out as
society, among which Jean Jacques Rousseau
the main villain. The second and third parts of the book deal
with Robespierre
and Saint-Just, Babeufs
and Buonarrotti's
is
program and the Babouvist plot of 1796. While Rousseau
65
Jose Brunner
an
self-awareness"
total
66
was
attempt
to
to
made
realize
least,
even
Moreover,
own
in Talmon's
terms,
he
of Freedom
Dialectics
Yehoshua
and
can
Babeuf
force which
comments
Arieli
of
mode
Indeed,
Talmon's
Freedom
and
analysis
dialectical
marked
on
narrative
sweeping
historical
that "Talmon's
a
has
vision
character."20
forces
transcendental
Hegel
tries
to
come
to
terms
with
the
route
from
the
inevitable
but
leading
to the Jacobin regime.21 Closely
Rousseau
and
Enlightenment
of
lucid and elaborate
exposition
following Charles Taylor's
claim as follows: having
the chapter, I would sum up Hegel's
of
aware both of their nature as creatures capable
become
dialectical
of
this rational
will,
power
the world
to re-create
undertake
Enlightenment
all past authority
to its precepts and to question
according
this aspiration is to be also
and existing institutions. However,
rational
will
and
of
thinkers
the
to Totalitarian
From Rousseau
Democracy
has
takes
part
also
reaches
the
in which
same
conclusion.
Otherwise,
is
irrationality
and
unfreedom.22
was
This
the
dilemma of the
could be defined
and coercion
in
central
of Jacobinism:
the
problem
men.
It
and
will
the
of
single purpose
as the problem of freedom, conformity
a
two
regime which claims to achieve
an
and
exclusive
form
of
aims, Liberty
incompatible
social existence.
It is at bottom Rousseau's
of
problem
67
Jose Brunner
the general will, with an equally strong emphasis placed
on acdve
and universal pardcipadon
in willing
the
as on the exclusive nature of the general
will
general
will.23
68
consciousness
matures,
Bildungsroman, where
philosophical
learns from its errors and gains self-knowledge and freedom.
in his Introduction to the Philosophy ofHistory, Hegel
Moreover,
a
portrays
cunning dialectic which ultimately gives birth to
a rational scheme of things,
freedom for all and produces
even
ambitions
by the narrow-minded
though it is engendered
actions of power-seeking egotistical individuals.24 Talmon's
dialectic knows no such happy end; it allows only
melancholy
for more of the same. In this sense, then, Origins departs from
scheme of historical progress. By depicting a process
Hegel's
social
in which hopes for a universal and perfectly harmonious
and
order
always
regimes
reconciliation
turn
on
based
or
into
power-seeking
coercion
and
terror,
and
narrow-minded
it remains
without
consolation.
to Talmon,
there are "two instincts most deeply
According
in human nature, the yearning for salvation and
embedded
the love of freedom"; but, as he tells us, it is impossible to
once. Attempts to do so, "are bound
satisfy both of them at
to result, if not in unmitigated
tyranny and serfdom, at least
are the
in the monumental
hypocrisy and self-deception which
concomitants
of
totalitarian
democracy."25
Because
they
were
the
toward rationalist perfection,
tempted by their drive
in
became
radical
the
of
trapped
Enlightenment
proponents
to a
of freedom." Aspiring
calls "the paradox
what Talmon
society, they invited the regime to
perfect and harmonious
itself as representing and enforcing the natural order
proclaim
and to compel its subjects to obey in the name of freedom
their true future selves which will be
that is, to obey
to Totalitarian
From Rousseau
Democracy
the subjugation
their present,
of
through
emancipated
In
this
Talmon
selves.26
fashion,
argues,
empirical
to make
arises from the doomed
totalitarianism
attempt
and to combine
individual freedom
incompatibles compatible
with an exclusive and harmonious
pattern of society. In the
to The Myth of theNation he even postulates
"the
epilogue
and inescapable
law which
existence of some unfathomable
causes
Salvationist
revolutionary
to evolve
schemes
into
regimes
to
of terror, and the promise of a perfect direct democracy
assume
in practice
the form of totalitarian dictatorship."27
concludes
fifteen hundred pages of
Rather ironically, Talmon
to possess
those
claim
who
considered
argument
against
truth and to have knowledge of historical laws and
absolute
the natural order by setting forth a historical law of his own,
less deterministic,
and
which
is no
arbitrary, abstract
than the one he attacks. In After Utopia Judith
speculative
turns the
such an approach
Shklar points out that while
intellectualism
of
against themselves,
Enlightenment
principles
it maintains a belief in a rigid sequence of causes and events
and in the power of grand rationalist ideas to drive history toward
they were
only, if once
thought to bring progress
now
perfecdon,
with
associated
totalitarian
calamity.28
and Paranoia
Politics
Let
are
they
us
now
consider
how
Talmon's
second
authorial
to Rousseau,
with
opens
drasdc
of
change
tone.
In
move
Rousseau
is
"a
motherless
vagabond
starved
of
warmth
and
tormented
paranoiac."29
At
the
same
dme
Talmon
accuses
the
69
Jose Brunner
70
of psychological
"of the strange combination
ill-adjustment
and totalitarian ideology."32 Times of crisis, stress and struggle,
to climb to the top
he argues, allow severely neurotic people
in political
their personality disorders
and let them express
theories and actions. Thus, those who are incapable of finding
can escape
into the lonely
balanced
relationships with others
of
dictatorship.
heights
Much has been written on the problematic nature of psycho
or psychoses
of historical
histories
focusing on neuroses
no need
to repeat these criticisms
is
and
there
personalities,
is
here at great length.33 Suffice it to say that the evidence
as
ad
and
that
to
these
crazy
figures
justify labeling
inadequate
to avoid
detailed
historians
enable
hominem arguments
events
and
issues
and
into
social
political
inquiries
of
the
for
circumstances.
instance,
neglect
They
legitimize,
or
a particular
as
of
individual
such
type
why
questions
a large following at a certain period. More
ideology attracts
as Ellen Wood
has pointed out, the consideration
specifically,
as
of a
the symptomatic outpourings
of Rousseau's
writings
"to
the
confront
from
need
Talmon
frees
paranoiac
as a serious social criticism."34
Rousseau's
political thought
the quasi-psychoanalytic
that
Talmon
layer of
acknowledges
or
He
a
serves
his text
juxtaposes
political purpose.
polemical
Saint
informed portraits of Rousseau,
his psychoanalytically
as the
with what he describes
Babeuf
and
Just, Robespierre
to human affairs, which he attributes
*'pencil-sketch" approach
to a doctrinaire mentality "completely unaware of the problem
in leadership and oblivious of the
element
of the personal
in the working of
human
of the actual
personality
place
lines of pencil
the
fine
to
Talmon,
According
politics."
the
are
of
irrational,
sketches
capturing
incapable
to Totalitarian
From Rousseau
Democracy
carries
strong
statement
about
the
role
of
unconscious,
the consequences
of
impulses in history and about
our
to
forces
them.
By
bringing
psychological
ignoring
attention and making us aware of the limits of human nature,
the ambitious
task of writing
he undertakes
therapeutic
to achieve a kind of preventive psychological
history, designed
treatment, immunizing us against the totalitarian temptation to
which all of us are constantly exposed. Talmon's
self-image as
a
on
statement
in
the
is made
explicit
lay psychoanalyst
which
in
the
of
the
task
historian,
appears
therapeutic
at
to
it
it
of
is
worthwhile
quote
Origins',
chapter
concluding
length:
hidden
to
The power of the historian or political philosopher
influence events is no doubt strictly limited, but he can
towards
influence the attitude of mind which is adopted
Like a psychoanalyst who cures by
those developments.
the social
making the patient aware of his sub-conscious,
to
be
able
attack
the
human
urge which
analyst may
calls
totalitarian
democracy
into
existence,
namely
the
and
longing for a final resolution of all contradictions
conflicts into a state of social harmony. It is a harsh, but
none
task to drive home
the less necessary
the truth
life can never reach a
that human society and human
state
Comedy,
of
repose.36
Romance
and Tragedy
71
Jose Brunner
exorcised
is totalitarian."3' Thus he writes history not
as
and psychoanalysis, but also as a moral
only
metaphysics
tale where attempts to create a society free of evil are not only
bound to fail, but are punished by the dialectic of history that
turns the people
evil into its terrible
who
try to abolish
curse of humanity.
transforms
and
into
the
Utopias
harbingers
tend to do, Talmon
As moral preachers
tries to bring his
a
home
historical
message
by painting
picture in strong and
some
to my mind
crude colors and shapes. Nevertheless,
been
72
From Rousseau
to Totalitarian
Democracy
Adorno,
Aron,
Orwell, Theodor
Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond
Hannah Arendt and Karl Popper - who in the middle of the
to their life experiences
twentieth century reacted
during
World War II and earlier decades by searching for the origins
of totalitarianism. They had lost their confidence and laughter,
since in the shadow of Auschwitz and the Gulag
they had
come
to
see
evil
as
real
and
substantive.
a detailed
I have provided
of this
exposition
me
state
moral
let
vision.44
Here
for
that
just
generation's
became
with
them the notion of "totalitarianism"
synonymous
the idea of a radically evil society, where
suffering is
Elsewhere
had
equipped
modern
men
and
women
with
73
Jose Brunner
sense of power and a mistaken "belief in the unbounded
own lot," and, he says, "[w]ith
possibilities of improving their
the success grew ambition."45 Growing
impatience with slow
new
74
notes
of
picture. The
significant affinities with Talmon's
a
to
do
contain
Talmon's
Karl
reference
book, however,
The Open Society and Its Enemies, published
in London
Popper's
in 1945.46 Popper,
social
too, juxtaposes piecemeal
engineering
with Utopian but doomed
attempts to realize an ideal society.
to "close"
the motivation
For Popper,
society is anxiety rather
than hubris. In his view the appeal of totalitarianism derives
and
the flux, insecurity, pluralism
from the strain which
abstract social relations of the "open"
society impose on
a
a seemingly
Totalitarianism
expresses
longing for
people.
solutions characteristic of
safe and cozy collective with magical
Rather
than a push forward towards
childhood.
humanity's
an
in totalitarianism
he
finds
total change
and
novelty,
to arrest
attempt
beautiful
But
social
since
such
all
order
change
so as
dreams
of
to
and
to
regain
perfection
re-create
a
tribal
cannot
an
innocent
paradise
come
true,
and
lost.47
their
such
number,"
but
"the
to work
From Rousseau
to Totalitarian
Democracy
monism
of
closed
societies.51
and
that
his
"general
influence
was
towards
totalitarian
thought, which
had led first to
in Russia
and
75
Jose
Brunner
Germany;
Russell
even declared
Hider
to be
4'an outcome
of
Rousseau."54
76
totalitarianism
of
the
aims at
atomistic
individualist,
class or party to the
is universalist,
Hubris
and Humility
the final
From Rousseau
to Totalitarian
Democracy
categorized
that
perversity,"
revolutions
the
exact
"produce,
as
of
"rhetoric
part of the reactionary
to demonstrate
that
is, a rhetoric aiming
contrary of
via
chain
of
the objective
unintended
being
consequences,
proclaimed
and
pursued."58
for Talmon
the metaphor
of the false Messiah
However,
than that of Greek
hubris. Whatever
carries more weight
rhetoric he may use, he invokes it as a preacher defending
monotheist
values
traditional Western,
the secular
against
turn
in
which
activists
and
revolutionary religion
philosophers
themselves into gods. For this reason he depicts the French
not as an uprising
and a
Revolution
against oppression
a
as
not
for
status,
order,
power and
corrupt political
struggle
as sin. In this layer, his text is a writ of
but
influence,
political
indictment, a description of the slow process in which a crime
in the attempt to create a
is conceived, planned and executed
to
to the
and
harmonious
remake
society
humanity according
virtues. The Revolution
ideal of republican
is a crime for
a
the core of his historiography
Talmon
because
conceals
a traditional
commitment
its
of
where
own,
quasi-religious
Judeo-Christian outlook provides the basis on which the other
77
Jose Brunner
change
Irish-born
is presumptuous
and
impossible
is associated
with
the
conservative.
before Talmon,
in a discussion
of
the
on the French
influence of Rousseau
Burke
revolutionaries,
the latter of totally abandoning
had accused
"true humility,
Two
centuries
78
the
system" which, in his words,"is
low, but deep and firm foundation of all real virtue." They
aimed, he said "to merge all natural and all social sentiment
in inordinate vanity."W) Since Rousseau was the "professor and
to
of vanity," they had chosen
founder of the philosophy
*
Socrates of
follow his teachings and celebrated
this insane
the first statue of the
the National
by erecting
Assembly"
in
his
the French
honor.61
revolutionary Republic
Picturing
thinkers as an 4'infamous gang" of atheist conspirators, who
deliberately plotted against throne and altar and destroyed the
traditional bonds holding
society together, Burke held their
for all revolutionary excesses.62
4'ethics of vanity" responsible
In his words, "[t]he
cabal
had some years ago formed
literary
a
like
of the
for
the destruction
something
regular plan
Christian
religion."M
society
to
conform
to
their
theories.64
"There
is,*'
he
of things
4'by the essential fundamental Constitution
objected,
a radical
in
all
Instead
human
of
contrivances."65
infirmity
them
have
of
which
should
the
lessons
taught
history
heeding
and
radical
human
philosophers
politicians
imperfection,
to society. Thus
science
they ignored not only the
applied
limits of change but also the apparently "irrational"
aspects of
custom and
such as prejudice,
human
tradition,
behavior,
which had allowed the states of the Christian world to flourish
after
without any blueprints of an ideal society. Like Talmon
and
the commitment
of French
condemned
him, Burke
to Totalitarian
From Rousseau
Democracy
impossible
it, war
to make
peace
of
"is
France,
revolutionary
against
war
between
the
to
change
them
all."67
all
to
"how
demonstrate
and
dramatic
truths about
awareness
the nature
yielded
of politics
insights, perceptions,
same
which would otherwise have remained obscure."68 The
to
in his foreword
could
be
said about Talmon,
who
Romanticism and Revolt criticizes the turn to sociology and
statistics in the writing of history and states that "it is time for
a corrective in the direction of human drama."69 Moreover,
it divides the
Talmon's
historical drama is as blunt as Burke's;
world
into irreconcilable
friend to foe,
antinomies,
opposes
to evil. By presenting
hero to villain, and good
its subject
matter in such stark colors Talmon's
perspective remains blind
to gradations or nuances. His history knows no middle ground
and none of philosophy's
famous grey on grey, which Hegel
in the introduction to the Philosophy ofRight Fearful
mentions
of the religion of revolution, expressing a view of the world at
79
Jose
Brunner
a
dramatic plot ends up
evil, Talmon's
against
dangerous
a
no
vision
that
historical
is
less all-encompassing,
creating
and
dichotomous
than
the
simplifying,
uncompromising
war
political
80
faith he attacks.
to Totalitarian
From Rousseau
Democracy
Notes
than a decade
1 More
ago Leah Rosen made me aware of
of Talmon's
the problems
historiography and of ways of
it.
with
Lisa
Amiel and Yoav Peled, she
Together
criticizing
also commented on an earlier, shorter version of this paper,
of
which I presented at the Thirteenth Annual Conference
the Historical Society of Israel, Jerusalem, July 1989. Omer
on the
Bartov and Janette Yael Zupnik have commented
draft of the present, extended version. I am grateful to all
of
them.
For
some
see
Furet,
recent
summaries
of
the
Interpreting
the
French
points
of
view
T.
Revolution',
involved,
C.
W.
See,
for
Revolution
et Marx,"
Years
instance,
J.
(London,
in R.
A.
McDonald,
Rousseau
and
1965),
Leigh,
ed.,
Rousseau
after
Two
the French
"Rousseau
Hundred
and the
1982), 76; C. Blum, Rousseau
(Cambridge,
"The
Republic of Virtue (Ithaca, 1986), 32-33; E. M. Wood,
State and Popular Sovereignty in French Political Thought:
A Genealogy
of Rousseau's
General Will," History of Political
81
Jose
82
Brunner
at an
address
international
opening
of
Talmon.
The
theoretical
memory
colloquium
can be
relies
framework on which my discussion
loosely
to Hayden White's Metahistory:
found in the introduction
in Nineteenth-Century Europe
The Historical
Imagination
1-42.
(Baltimore, 1973),
as author
to Talmon
this paper,
references
9 Throughout
relate to him solely as the figure to whom his text points. I
as an individual. See
make no claims about Jacob Talmon
in his Language, Counter
M. Foucault, "What is an Author?"
(Ithaca, 1977), 113-38.
Memory, Practice, ed. D. F. Bouchard
Totalitarian
The
10 Talmon,
Democracy
of
Origins
presented
as
the
in
1986), 1-2.
(Harmondsworth,
11 Ibid., 6.
within
all emphases
this paper,
11. (Throughout
12 Ibid.,
are mine.)
quotations
13 Ibid., 13.
The Romantic Phase
Political Messianism,
14 Talmon,
(London,
1960), 17.
15 Talmon, Myth of theNation, 536.
16 Origins, 70.
17 Ibid., 12. See White, Metahistory, 15-16.
18 Origins, 80.
19 Ibid., 200; see also 231.
17.
20 Arieli, "Jacob Talmon,"
21 G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology ofMind
1966).
(London,
22 C. Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge,
1975), 185-88, 403-18.
23 Origins, 84; see also 2-3, 98-99, 102, 104.
From Rousseau
to Totalitarian
Democracy
83
Jose
Brunner
48
49
Ibid., 285.
Ibid., 158.
50 See also
Defended
Shklar,
384-400.
standard
51 For another
of democracy
with
juxtaposition
totalitarianism - in terms of one-party vs. multi-party systems
-
84
which
represents
them
as
mutually
exclusive,
see
R.
Aron,
that
from centralized
His
contention
planning.
has often been much more
cultural and spiritual
an
some
under
autocratic
than under
rule
freedom
seem
to allow for the possibility of
democracies"
does
market
"there
in
totalitarian democracy,
though no such concept appears
his writings. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 70.
52 A. D. Lindsay, The Modern Democratic State (London,
1943),
14.
53 A. Kolnai,
theWest
(New York,
1938),
162
63.
20-24.
Arieli, "Jacob Talmon,"
usual parting
that Talmon's
57 Origins, 27. Arieli comments
the classroom were "preach well"
words before entering
the
for Talmon
and that "teaching and lecturing possessed
3.
dignity of the pulpit." Arieli, "Jacob Talmon,"
The Rhetoiic of Reaction: Perversity, Futility,
58 A. O. Hirschman,
1991), 11, 35.
feopardy (Cambridge, Mass.,
to
59 Origins, 283. Some might consider Alexis de Toqueville
the
borrows
Talmon
a
role.
the
hero
for
be
candidate
in America and credits
epigraph for Origins from Democracy
From Rousseau
de Toqueville
of
totalitarian
to Totalitarian
On
the
whole,
Democracy
of the current"
however,
Talmon
own
to Burke than to de Toqueville.
For Talmon's
with de
and disagreements
of his agreements
see Origins, 257.
See
also Arieli,
"Jacob
Toqueville,
is closer
account
Talmon,"
7-9.
61
62 Ibid., 254, 249.
63 Burke, Reflections on theRevolution in France (Harmondsworth,
1968), 211.
The French Revolution and Enlightenment in England,
64 S. Deane,
1189-1832
(Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 9.
in P. Hindson
and T. Gray, Burkes Dramatic
65 Burke, quoted
Politics
178.
(Aldershot,
1988),
Theory of
in The
Letter on a Regicide
"Second
66 Burke,
Peace,"
Edmund
241-42.
Burke,
of
Philosophy
67 Ibid., 240.
68 Hindson
and Gray, Burkes Dramatic Theory, 180; for Burke's
see P. Fussell,
The Rhetorical World of
literary sources,
Augustan Humanism: Ethics and Imagery from Sxvift to Burke
(Oxford,
69
Talmon,
1965).
Romanticism
and
Revolt,
8.
85