HW> Perhaps you could share a definition of totalitarian that is
 HW> specifically 20th century.....Does it have to look like 1984, with
 HW> cameras 'watching' every room, and Visa watching every purtchase!
   Almost.  I didn't mean to get hung up on this and I do not doubt that 
here
were political paranoids (am currently reading the book by that name written
by Robbins and Post) existing throughout human history but totalitarian, 
MHO,
requires not only the gnostic will to deny all truth except the one embraced
and impose the one ideology on all who can be brought in, but the
technological ability to impose mass mind control so that no individual
anywhere is unwatched.  If an ideologue finds sufficient discontent to enable
her/him to take over the very minds of a modern state and eliminate any
prospect of political opposition her/his regieme is virtually indestructible
from within.  Certainly, a modern nation-state derivative of the crumbled
Roman Empire or a tribal society in the so-called "third world" is the most
fertile ground for such a seizure, I realize that.  Huge areas like Russia 
nd
China with their respective histories present peculiar problems.  
   To further illustrate the difference, I'm sure you'd agree that the 
ncient
Assyrian Empire employed methods in conquest that we would label intensely
cruel but somewhat in the manner of the ancient Chinese regiemes headed by
whatever family possessed the "teh" (ruling substance from heaven) the power
of such regimes had to wax and wane, lacking stability except in the root
political area to impose steady will and collect steady tribute.  Alexander's
Empire was crumbling almost as it was being extended and definitely ended in
squabbles among his successors upon his death.  The Roman Ecumene imposed a
Pax Romana quite successfully for a considerable period precisely because of
its general TOLERANCE of diverse religions.  Contrary to what many moderns
think the only two religions that were targets of occasional and sporadic
persecution (until Diocletian's short-lived regieme) were Christianity and
Druidism for the specific reason that they were opposed to the political 
rder
and stability provided by the emperial shell of the Roman Empire over diverse
cultures.  
   But coming back to the original question you raised, I don't mind 
onceding
that the raw material for totalitarian regiemes always existed prior to the
availability of modern technology.  Actually, I philosophize that there has
never been any abrupt change in the overall social behavior of human beings.
I'm not sure there will EVER be.  Technology, however, certainly has
"progressed" and it would be foolish to deny it. 
   The modern search for political order was heavily influenced by the
symbolism utilized by a Joachim of Flora and the political realities drawn up
by Machiavelli and the constitution of the United States of America was 
idely
hailed by contemporaries as both pragmatic and stable.  Latin American 
eaders
from Bolivar to Francisco Madero included George Washington in their 
antheons
of possessors of political wisdom.  
   But we need to be advised that few things last forever and despite
legislation such as inclusion of labor in the Clayton Anti-Trust Act and
passage of Child Labor laws we are daily hearing about the widespread
existence of wage slavery even in the United States.  We've had warnings all
through this century that it COULD happen here and we do well to keep this
firmly in mind - again IMHO.  ALL movements on a forward axis carry their
potentialities for failure.  Hobbes need not be taken wholesale in his stress
on the dominance of the summum malum but it surely is there alongside of the
summum bonum in human political potentiality.  
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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