[Paleopsych] Futures: Anatomy of the Anti-Pluralist, Totalitarian Mindset

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Anatomy of the Anti-Pluralist, Totalitarian Mindset

How to Make Enemies and Influence People: Anatomy of the Anti-Pluralist, 
Totalitarian Mindset.

by Alfonso Montuori
Futures, Vol 37, No. 1, 2005
Available online 22 July 2004

Abstract

This essay outlines the characteristics of what I call the 'totalitarian 
mindset'. Under certain circumstances, human beings engage in patterns of 
thinking and behavior that are extremely closed and intolerant of 
difference and pluralism. These patterns of thinking and behaving lead us 
towards totalitarian, anti-pluralistic futures. An awareness of how these 
patterns arise, how individuals and groups can be manipulated through the 
use of fear, and how totalitarianism plays into the desire in human beings 
for 'absolute' answers and solutions, can be helpful in preventing 
attempts at manipulation and from the dangers of actively wanting to 
succumb to totalitarian, simplistic, black-and-white solutions in times of 
stress and anxiety. I present a broad outline of an agenda for education 
for a pluralistic future. The lived experience of pluralism is still 
largely unfamiliar and anxiety inducing, and that the phenomenon is 
generally not understood, with many myths of purity and racial or cultural 
superiority still prevalent. Finally, as part of that agenda for 
education, I stress the importance of creativity as an adaptive capacity, 
an attitude that allows us to see pluralism as an opportunity for growth 
and positive change rather than simply conflict.

Naturally, the common people do not want war, but after all, it is the 
leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple 
matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist 
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no 
voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. 
This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, 
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country 
to danger. It works the same in every country.

Hermann Goering, in Nuremberg Diary by Gustave Gilbert (1947). Rarely is 
the question asked: Is our children learning? George W. Bush

1. Introduction

Why is it easy, as Goering writes, to get people to do the bidding of 
their leaders? How was it possible for a sophisticated, educated 
population like Germany's to follow blindly the dictates of a maniacal 
leader, and to embark on the horrors of the Nazi regime? How did leaders 
like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, and others manage to amass so much 
power and support, and so completely win over huge percentages of their 
populations that to outsiders, and on hindsight, it seems like they were 
all participating in a collective consensus trance? How can young men be 
made to believe that suicide-bombings of civilians are God's work? How can 
a pluralistic future be safeguarded from what appears to be the human 
tendency to get lost in a homogenized whole that must destroy human beings 
who are different, rather than engage them constructively? Why do human 
beings seem so eager to believe, to wrap themselves around the flag and 
tall lock-step in line with a black-and-white, simplistic belief system 
espoused by a strong leader?

Arthur Koestler [37] argued that it was not humanity's self-assertive side 
that is most destructive, but its capacity for self-transcendence, for 
losing itself in a greater whole and following orders emerging from a 
closed belief-system. In this paper I explore this capacity for seeking 
out the consensus trance, how this trance is a profound obstacle to 
pluralistic futures, and how this tendency can be counteracted.

2. The global context

In his 1992 article Jihad versus McWorld. Barber [5] presents two global 
futures that can be summarized as homogenization versus fragmentation. 
Neither future is particularly appetizing. One is a unity made up of 
whitewashed white-bread monoculture, the other a diversity of endless 
breakdowns and internecine wars, skirmishes and general hostilities. 
Either we all lose our identity in unity, or our diversity will lead to 
endless war. But in both cases, the existence of cultural and religious 
pluralism (what might be called descriptive pluralism) is given. In the 
case of McWorld homogenization, the issue is the elimination of pluralism 
through global capitalism. In the case of Global Jihad, pluralism means 
differences that inevitably lead to war. Are these anti-pluralist futures 
the only ones open to us? Or are they rather the manifestation of an 
anti-pluralist, totalitarian mindset that is unable to deal with the 
complexity and uncertainty of a pluralistic world, and seeks to 
drastically reduce difference?

Difference and exchange present the possibility for learning, creativity, 
development, and growth. Indeed, it has been argued convincingly that 
pluralism is essential for a viable human future, for the evolution of 
social as well as 'natural' systems [12,11,14,38,39,40,43,44,51,54,62]. 
Indeed, the term 'evolutionary pluralism' refers to a multi-leveled, 
multi-perspectival approach to the study of evolution that is light years 
away of from Victorian evolutionism, whose triumphal Panglossian 
progressionism is replaced by a more modest--yet more creative--bricolage, 
or evolutionary 'tinkering' [12,14]. But pluralism does not present easy 
answers. It brings us face to face with complexity, with the unknown, the 
uncertain, the 'Other'--and it challenges human beings to think, feel, and 
act differently.

Discussing the role of pluralism and uncertainty in Europe after 1492, 
Kane [36] writes that pluralism means recognizing the possibility that 
there are many correct senses of right and wrong, and also that there may 
in fact be no absolute right and wrong. Pluralism, he goes on, does not 
necessarily mean that there might not be absolute values. But this is of 
little comfort. The uncertainty created by pluralism means that it is not 
at all clear how to assess different claims and resolve the disagreements 
between conflicting points of view, or how one should live one's life 
while figuring it all out.

It has been argued that the anxiety and uncertainty created by pluralism 
can lead to three fundamentally different kinds of responses: a return to 
absolutism, a fall into nihilistic relativism, and an embrace of 
uncertainty and complexity in the opportunity for, and the responsibility 
of, social creativity and the creation of alternative futures [40,9]. I 
shall concern myself here with the anatomy of the dangers of 
absolutism--the totalizing quest for certainty as manifested in what I am 
calling the totalitarian mindset--and the possibility of a creative 
alternative. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore the complex 
interrelationship between nihilism and absolutism, particularly in the 
context of Western consumer cultures.

Individuals all over the world have sought relief from the uncertainty of 
a pluralistic world in the arms of absolute belief systems of a religious 
fundamentalist and/or political/nationalistic nature. In this paper I want 
to focus on the totalitarian mindset as an approach to addressing 
pluralism and uncertainty. This mindset manifests in a specific way of 
thinking and discourse, focusing on the elimination of ambiguity, 
complexity, and difference. It is fundamentally anti-pluralist and 
totalitarian. Pluralism is viewed as a source of complexity, ambiguity, 
and uncertainty. Totalitarianism is, in this sense, a form of 
anti-pluralistic monism, with all power and authority vested in one place, 
and with one, clearly defined goal. I will conclude by suggesting some 
alternatives to this apparently perennially popular condition.

3. The elimination of pluralism and uncertainty

A government or group seeking compliance and the elimination of dissent 
from the population can create conditions that affect the nature of the 
society's discourse, and the psychology of the individual citizens. 
Conditions can be created whereby any form of dissent from the established 
government view is considered unpatriotic, no alternative perspectives are 
accepted, let alone encouraged, and discourse and collective thinking 
processes become simple, black-and-white processes of conformity.

Conditions in the Soviet Union. Mao's China, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, 
Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy were clearly designed to enforce a 
certain mindset through active political and psychological propaganda 
backed by institutional terror. And in fact Hitler and Mussolini were very 
familiar with LeBon's work on the psychology of crowds, and drew from it 
extensively, to the point that it has been argued that practically all 
Nazi propaganda was based on LeBon's principles [53]. But we need not only 
look at governments with reputations for totalitarianism in order to see 
the totalitarian mindset in action. Discussing the post September 11 
climate, the following excerpt from an article in the Manchester Guardian, 
cited in Sardar and Davies [64] provides a useful example of how a 
totalitarian mindset can be created where alternatives are silenced and 
pluralism is rejected out of hand:


  Anyone, it seemed, who had ever been publicly critical of America or 
globalization suddenly found themselves accused of complicity with Osama 
bin Laden--and worse. In the British press alone, they have been described 
as 'defeatist' and 'unpatriotic', nihilist and masochistic', and both 
'Stalinist' and 'fascist'; as 'Baader Meinhof gang' 'the handmaidens of 
Osama' and 'auxiliary to dictators'; as 'limp', 'wobbly', 'heartless and 
stupid'; and 'worm eaten by Soviet propaganda'; as 'full of loose talk', 
'wilful self-delusion' and 'intellectual decadence'; as a collection of 
'useful idiots', 'dead-eyed zombies'; and 'people who hate people' (p. 
36).  In situations that are perceived as emergencies, and particularly 
ones that are perceived as life-threatening, there is a tendency in social 
systems to drastically reduce ambiguity and complexity and fall back on a 
form of very simplistic, black-and-white, totalitarian thinking. This 
process applies to the entire political spectrum [56]. This kind of 
thinking has characteristics very similar to those found in research on 
the authoritarian personality, as outlined by Adorno and colleagues, and 
subsequent research [1-3,8,22-27,29,32,33,57,56,59,60,64,65,66,70,69]. The 
situation discussed in this example was obviously the result of an 
extremely dramatic and horrific set of events. Such totalitarian responses 
are by no means always simply the result of government propaganda, 
manipulation, or other forms of intervention. Along with a top-down 
manipulation of public opinion through propaganda, there can also a 
bottom-up response that embodies totalitarian thinking and discourse, and 
demands a totalitarian response from leadership. A totalitarian response 
may self-organize by tapping into a population's fears and anxieties, 
which spark a perceived need for clear, decisive, unambiguous and simple 
solutions as a form of anxiety alleviation and complexity reduction. The 
great emotional arousal needs release and finds it in any perceived 
opposition. As we shall see the totalitarian response is marked by the 
creation of an out-group, an either-or, black-and-white logic, and a 
hierarchization that is expressed through subservience to leaders and 
punitiveness towards those viewed as 'other'. Such a spontaneous process 
can simultaneously be supported and enhanced by authority figures using 
the same kind of unambiguous response, further modeling totalitarian 
thinking and discourse.

The totalitarian mindset should not be assessed purely by its content and 
purpose, but also by the way it creates a paradigm or organizing framework 
for thought and discourse that is effective regardless of the actual 
nature of the content. While in recent years there has been an increasing 
drive towards media literacy regarding issues such as race and gender, 
there is a real need for a deeper understanding of the workings of the 
totalitarian mindset. Beyond a focus on understanding the veracity and 
meaning of messages and their ideological positioning or content [15], it 
is important to understand the underlying structure of reasoning of 
thinking and discourse, which structures and organizes the framework for 
thinking about, and discussing the issue at hand, and the conditions that 
are likely to precipitate such a mindset--conditions which can, and have 
been, manipulated and engineered by governments and groups seeking to 
control public opinion.

4. The conditions and characteristics of anti-pluralism

4.1. Three levels: physical, affective, cognitive

In his review of brainwashing and mind control techniques, Wilson [69] 
points out that most approaches work at three key levels: the physical, 
the affective and the cognitive. Whereas brainwashing an individual 
involves making their physical safety completely dependent on the 
brainwasher, through the creation of physical dependency for food and 
water, or through direct physical threats or torture, beatings, etc. in 
social settings this is somewhat harder to achieve. It is not always 
possible to directly impact the physical level, but a real or perceived 
physical threat is typically extremely effective. An attack by a foreign 
power like Pearl Harbor or the attack on the Twin Towers, a nuclear 
meltdown, such as the one at Chernobyl which led to the shutting down of 
Italy's nuclear energy program (despite the fact that the threat was not 
immediate it was clearly physical in nature), or, as in Germany after 
Versailles, the threat of extreme economic hardship and resentment after 
Versailles--can align public opinion by being the key to the arousal of 
strong emotion. Affectively there is the combination of fear, anger, and 
outrage induced by the perception of an attack that creates in the 
individual and the society an emergency. Emotional arousal is key, and 
this can be achieved successfully if there is in fact the perception of a 
tangible threat. Fear-arousing appeals may simply be ignored without 
tangible and dramatic evidence, as environmentalists know all too well, 
but the presence of one dramatic example of the threat--physical evidence, 
in other words--makes a considerable difference in terms of whether the 
appeals will be taken seriously or simply ignored. Cognitively, this kind 
of emergency can lead to a complexity-reduction through drastic 
simplification. This works particularly well in complex situations where 
there are a number of interrelated factors at work, and it is not easy to 
untangle all the varied ramifications of the process at work. The 
population is emotionally aroused and dealing with a lot of complexity, 
and is eager to reduce that complexity and have clear, unambiguous 
interpretations of the situation that suggest simple course of action.

4.2. The immediacy of threat and fear and the compression of mental space 
and time

With an external threat, the level of emotionality and anxiety rises. In 
such situations one might say that time and space are drastically 
compressed. In emergency situations, or situations that are framed as 
such, there is a tendency to suggest there is no time to lose: decisions 
and actions have to be taken immediately. A situation of great anxiety can 
be created, where, despite the fact that the actual threat may not be 
imminent, it appears as if there simply is no time for deliberation, only 
action [16]. There is no time to debate whether the enemy is an actual 
enemy, or whether there are alternative modes of resolution because by the 
time the discussion occurs, the enemy may be at the door and it is 
actually the discussion that has ultimately lead to defeat. Note again 
that in this 'emergency logic' of immediate either/or, discussion about 
frames for understanding the situation--in fact, any form of 
discussion--is viewed as playing into the hands of the enemy. A drastic 
complexity-reduction takes place, and for this reason it is important to 
keep the perception of emergency and emotional arousal high.

4.3. Response to pluralism and ambiguity: susceptibility, to situational 
pressures

Kane and others have suggested that pluralism is the source of complexity, 
uncertainty, and ambiguity. Block and Block, [10] discussing the reaction 
of authoritarian individuals to ambiguous, unstructured, and new 
situations describe the following sequence of events: Ambiguous situation 
[right arrow] uneasiness or anxiety reflected as intolerance of ambiguity 
[right arrow] need to structure [right arrow] structuring [right arrow] an 
established frame of reference. As Block and Block state, "the rapidity 
with which an ambiguous situation is structured represents an operational 
manifestation of intolerance of ambiguity" (p. 304). Persons who are 
intolerant of ambiguity impose pre-existing frames of reference on 
situations, and are not open to new information.

Barron [6] points out that although it is the combination of organization 
and complexity that generates freedom, a system's organization may 
'operate in such a fashion as to maintain maladaptive simplicity' (p. 
150). He reminds us that in totalitarian social systems, as in neurotic 
individuals, suppression is used to achieve unity. Suppression is 
appealing because in the short run it seems to work:


  Increasing complexity puts a strain upon an organism's ability to 
integrate phenomena; one solution to the difficulty is to inhibit the 
development of the greater level of complexity, and thus avoid the 
temporary disintegration that would otherwise have resulted. [6] A 
consistent attempt to reduce complexity through maladaptive simplicity is 
characteristic of the closed-mindedness of the authoritarian personality. 
It manifests in the suppression of discourse that reflects a plurality of 
views, strangled by the fear created by the perception of anxiety in 
emergency. Sampson's [61] discussion of authoritarianism and intolerance 
for ambiguity helps to explain why authoritarian individuals are 
anti-pluralist. Discussing authoritarian individuals, he writes,


  First, when confronted by an ambiguous situation, one allowing for a 
variety of meanings or shades of gray, they feel discomfort.  Second, they 
deal with this discomfort by seeking a quick and easy solution that 
minimizes the subtleties that exist. In short, they make their world into 
simple black or simple white. From time to time, all of us show aspects of 
this intolerance. The mark of the high authoritarian, however, is the 
tendency to deal uncharitably with ambiguity most of the time. (p. 85) 
Intolerance for ambiguity manifests in the rejection of the unstructured, 
and the complex, and in a desire to be in an environment where rules and 
expectations have been clearly set and there are not a plurality of 
perspectives and possibilities. Uncertain, ambiguous situations cause 
stress and anxiety because the authoritarian personality wants a clear set 
of rules and regulations to be imposed by whoever is in charge. In fact, 
being in charge means 'laying down the law'. The stress is on order, 
almost at all costs, and any deviation on the existing order is seen as a 
potential plunge into chaos. It is certainly at the cost of novelty and 
originality. The focus on order and predictability literally prevents 
anything new, anything surprising, anything different, and anything that 
disturbs the existing order from appearing. The authoritarian order is 
therefore a deeply homogeneous order, such as manifested classically in 
China during the Maoist era, where homogeneity and conformity (most 
dramatically, albeit superficially, in dress, in ideology, in the reciting 
of the Little Red book, even in mealtimes and the disappearance of time 
zones in a country that should have three) were elevated to unassailable 
virtues. In the authoritarian attitude, there is also a punitive attitude 
towards those who appear to be going against the rules in some way that 
may be related to hierarchy, authoritarian submissiveness, and projection. 
Sampson then goes on to say of authoritarians that diversity is like 
ambiguity for them: It provides too many options and alternatives. They 
show a preference for getting rid of diversity and muting differences. 
This is the very quality that fits persons who want to keep their own 
family, neighborhood, community, and nation pure by not allowing various 
outside groups to gain entry. Second, we all form quick impressions of 
others, usually based on simple stereotypes we hold about them. Some 
people, however, allow later knowledge to recast their first impressions. 
Those who are highly intolerant of ambiguity, by contrast, do not take 
kindly to new information that does not fit the impression they have 
already formed. Thus, they may persist in maintaining their first 
impressions of others and disregard conflicting new information. (p. 89)

Sanford [61] has described authoritarianism as a concept to explain "the 
varying degrees of susceptibility in individuals to situational pressures" 
p. 157. Clearly authoritarians find in pluralism a deeply disturbing 
situational pressures and their response to it is to eliminate it. Key to 
my argument here is that, under certain kinds of situational pressures, 
even individuals who may not normally exhibit authoritarian tendencies do 
so to be able to cope with a world they perceive to be chaotic and 
dangerous. The situational pressures can lead to a knee-jerk totalitarian 
response, in terms of the search for an enemy, black-and-white thinking, 
and the desire for strong leadership. This response from the population in 
turn creates a great susceptibility to propaganda

4.4. The authoritarian attitude and the totalitarian mindset

Instead of thinking of the research on authoritarianism exclusively in 
terms of the deep-seated tendencies of a certain kind of personality with 
fixed beliefs and attitudes, we might think of a contextually-based 
authoritarian or anti-pluralist attitude, and I will refer to it here as 
the totalitarian mindset. The original study of the authoritarian 
personality was critiqued in much the way that the trait-based personality 
research of the early part of the last century was. Whilst it was 
generally agreed that the study described accurately the phenomenology of 
authoritarianism, it was far less clear whether there was in fact an 
authoritarian personality "type'. Regardless of whether such a type 
exists, a different way of approaching that research is to see it as 
outlining features of a general and generic human attitude that is related 
to certain contexts, and is a response to certain situational pressures 
[27,7,30]. Sanford [61], one of the original researchers on the 
authoritarian personality, pointed out that a person may not, in general, 
display certain attitudes characteristic of authoritarianism unless a 
situation of great complexity and/or (perceived) danger elicits 
substantial anxiety, at which point the generally non-authoritarian 
individual may resort to the kind of black-and-white thinking, 
scapegoating, and submission to authority that is characteristic of the 
authoritarian attitude. In other words, whether or not an authoritarian 
personality type exists, an authoritarian attitude is a characteristic 
that most humans can, to some degree or other, share when exposed to 
certain circumstances. Next, I outline the correlation between external 
circumstances and attitudinal characteristics that combine to create the 
context for the totalitarian, anti-pluralist mindset.

5. The totalitarian, anti-pluralist-mindset

We too have the right to preach a mystery, and to teach them that it is 
not the free judgment of their hearts, not love that matters, but a 
mystery they must follow blindly even against their conscience. So we have 
done. We have corrected Thy work and founded it upon miracle, mystery, and 
authority.

The Grand Inquisitor, In Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky

5.1. Out-group, scapegoating, and superstition

The perception of an out-group as a threat and an enemy is the glue that 
holds this mindset together. Positing an out-group as enemy, as Goering 
suggests, is a key strategy for uniting a people and getting them to set 
aside internal differences. This strategy also applies to groups, and 
indeed one can even see it at work in families, where relatives who may be 
at loggerheads since infancy will suddenly close ranks when one of them is 
threatened by an outsider. Chomsky [15] among many others, also points to 
the way this tactic has been part and parcel of politics throughout 
history, and has indeed been omnipresent in the American political 
landscape.

An out-group does not have to be outside society. It can be created within 
an existing society, as was the case with Jews in Germany in the 1930s. 
Chinese Communists held up the external threat of the USA and the internal 
threat of counter-revolutionary landowners, merchants, bankers and others. 
Sargant [65] has argued for the importance of the internal threat. In 
cases where open conflict is lacking or has been expected for a long time 
but has not yet materialized, having the internal out-group provides an 
immediate source of danger. When asked whether he thought Jews should be 
annihilated, Hitler replied no, because then "we should have to invent 
him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract 
one." A member of a Japanese mission to Berlin in 1932 is said to have 
remarked that the National Socialist movement was "magnificent. I wish we 
could have something like it in Japan, only we can't, because we haven't 
got any Jews." (Cited in Hoffer, [32; 91])

Sanford's [61] enumeration of the characteristics of the authoritarian 
personality includes 'superstition'. Superstition indicates a tendency to 
shift responsibility from within the individual onto outside forces beyond 
his control; these forces appear to the individual as mystical or 
fantastic determinants of his fate. (p. 145)

The qualities of the out-group typically do have something of the 
supernatural about them--Jews who control the German economy and indeed 
the world economy, for instance because everything must be blamed on them. 
'Racial', cultural, and other differences are emphasized to exaggerate the 
'otherness" of the out-group. They are not like us, and in fact are quite 
the opposite of who we are. In their otherness they become the recipients 
of projection, and of peculiar mystery. Images of dirt, pollution, vermin, 
of a virus, are often used to emphasize not only the difference but the 
association of the other with all that is sick, unpleasant, and rejected 
by 'us'.

The out-group makes scapegoating possible, since everything that goes 
wrong can be blamed on them, and therefore distracts attention from one's 
own complicity in the state of affairs. Scapegoating allows for a massive 
reduction of complexity, and eliminates the need to look at the whole, at 
interdependencies, at the way complex issues have many determining factors 
(which is precisely what makes them so difficult to address), at one's own 
participation and complicity in the present state of affairs, and focuses 
all attention unambiguously on the out-group. The creation of an out-group 
to scapegoat is essentially a giant cop-out that allows governments to 
redirect attention from internal conditions to external foes, and allows 
citizens to avoid having to deal with the complexity of life, with all too 
complex economic, social, and political woes.

5.2. Either/or logic, black-and-white thinking


  The people in their overwhelming majority are so feminine in their nature 
and attitude that sober reasoning determined their thoughts and actions 
far less than emotion and feeling. And this sentiment is not complicated, 
but very simple and all of a piece. It does not have multiple shadings; it 
has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, 
never half this way and half that way, never partially, or that kind of 
thing. (Hitler [31:183])  Once the out-group enemy has been located, an 
inexorable logic of either/or follows. Either you are for us, or you are 
against us. If you are against us, you are betraying your country. This 
creates a powerful cocktail of a simple choice, anchored by a deep 
emotional resonance and framed with an either/or logic that leaves no 
alternatives. It is interesting to see that the 'us' in this case is 
typically the leadership of the 'in-group" with which the population is 
asked to/wants to identify. In other words, it is the leadership policies 
one is either for or against, and the leaders are the ones that get to 
define the parameters of what constitutes being 'for' or 'against'. More 
compellingly, it is now also up to the leaders of the in-group to define 
what is real and true what is not, what is, from their perspective, 
factual information and 'enemy propaganda'. This kind of either/or, 
black-and-white logic is a classic characteristic found in the 
authoritarian personality, and is technically known as 'stereotypy'.

Stereotypy is the tendency to think in rigid, oversimplified categories, 
in unambiguous terms of black and white, particularly in the realm of 
psychological or social matters. We hypothesized that some people, even 
those who are otherwise 'intelligent', may resort to primitive 
explanations of human events at least partly because they cannot allow 
many of the ideas and observations needed for an adequate account to enter 
into their calculations; because these ideas are affect-laden and 
potentially anxiety-producing, they cannot be included in the conscious 
scheme of things [61; 145].

As Sanford points out, even intelligent people can resort to black and 
white thinking when they are overwhelmed and look for ways to drastically 
reduce complexity. At a certain threshold of complexity and anxiety, many 
people succumb to the simplicity of the totalitarian mindset. Either A or 
B. It is possible to relinquish responsibility, follow the leader, and 
direct the anxiety turned to anger onto an external group. Eliminate all 
variables, except one that can be easily measured. "You're either for me 
or against me," (which translates into, "my way or the highway,").

This kind of thinking is successful at pseudo-simplification: it creates 
the illusion of clarity, decisiveness, and power. Either/or, 
black-and-white, dichotomous thinking appears to cut through ambiguity. 
Such polarizing thinking does not allow for creativity and complexity, and 
the exploration of alternative approaches. But one has to remember that it 
is precisely the anxiety caused by a plurality of approaches, and the time 
taken to explore them, that the anti-pluralist, totalitarian attitude 
seeks to eliminate. "The situation is clear: X is to blame (Jews, Osama 
bin Laden, American capitalism, etc.)." Black-and-white thinking is a key 
way of maintaining cognitive authoritarianism in the discourse of a system 
large or small.

5.3. Authoritarian submission/hierarchy

At times of great anxiety, the fear of imminent threat also elicits a 
demand for a savior who will point out exactly what needs to be done, why, 
by whom, and to whom (a committee does not quite do the trick and is far 
less reassuring). A dramatic feature of the authoritarian attitude is the 
submission to authority and the domination of those perceived to be lower 
on the hierarchy. The authoritarian attitude is very concerned with 
hierarchical power structures, and in fact sees the world in terms of a 
rigid hierarchy from strong down to weak. It involves submissiveness to 
those above, a longing for strong leadership, and a willingness to 
sacrifice much for the group, the organization, or the nation. 
Authoritarian individuals are paternalistic, patronizing, and punitive to 
those below them in the hierarchy. The combination of conventionalism, 
with a focus on hierarchy, sets up a rigid, unchanging framework that 
cannot be challenged. The notion of heterarchy, or shifting centers of 
power based on context and competence, is deeply disturbing in an 
authoritarian system. Not knowing what the fixed 'chain of command' is 
causes great anxiety. A more open, democratic structure seems chaotic and 
impossible, because it appears there are no rules, no clarity, no order, 
and there is 'no respect'.

The case of Adolf Hitler is extremely instructive. Nazi Germany provides 
us with a textbook example of authoritarian manipulation. Hitler came to 
power in difficult times, and presented himself as the visionary savior. 
For leaders who are already in power and whose popularity is severely 
challenged, a war can be extremely useful. In other words, leaders who 
lack charisma can be granted charismatic qualities through circumstances. 
One only needs to look at the sudden popularity of leaders who in 
peacetime may have been wildly unpopular, as a war begins. Margaret 
Thatcher's dismal ratings before and after the Falkands war are a case in 
point. A peculiar shift occurs as the nation rallies around the leader who 
may previously have been despised or simply ridiculed. Through a process 
that seems almost magical the leader is soon viewed as decisive, powerful, 
and even wise.

The literature of social psychology provides us ample research into the 
dynamics of conformity and conversion. Particularly when there is great 
anxiety, the forces of conformity come into play and an increasing 
alignment occurs to what is perceived to be the voice of authority. 
Psycho-dynamically, a process of collective projection occurs, endowing 
the leader with all the clarity and power individuals seem to lack--and 
playing into the leader-as-father role. In Germany this was achieved 
through incredibly effective but low-tech spectacle and propaganda, which 
was itself influenced by early research on mass psychology. The Nuremberg 
rallies were remarkable, hypnotic efforts in mass hypnosis and hysteria 
that created a ritual to forge the common identity of the new Germans, 
which was represented in the mythical figure of Hitler. Similar dynamics 
occur in cults with guru-figures as their leaders, and indeed the dynamics 
are remarkable similar.

Mao also played an unambiguous savior role, and after 1949 rode on the 
wave of his revolutionary success. Perhaps no greater cult of personality 
was ever seen, and it is important to note that the attachment to Mao, and 
indeed the dependence on his leadership, became so great that, as with 
many cases of guru cult-leaders, many found it hard to believe he had made 
mistakes--even in such egregious and monstrous cases as the Great Leap 
Forward, when tens of millions died of famine because of what can only be 
called gross, ego-driven mismanagement. In years of bumper crops, 
people-power was diverted to the one single Mao-defined goal of those 
years, steel production, and consequently not enough food was available. 
The provincial propaganda held that there had been crop-failures in every 
other province.

5.4. Unification/anti-introception

Through the definition of an out-group, an in-group is created. The 'us,' 
the 'we', is defined in opposition to 'them'. The complexity of identity, 
particularly in societies with many different ethnic and religious groups, 
is reduced to a generic 'us' by virtue of the threat. Suddenly 'we are all 
in this together', for "survival'. Intra-societal differences are reduced 
to the status of squabbles and quickly set aside when a common threat is 
perceived (Sherif, 1988).

A simple identity overcomes differences: it is simple because the key 
uniting factor is the external enemy, and the perception is that identity 
forged by external threat demands a clear hierarchy and well-defined 
leadership. At the same time, the focus is almost entirely external. There 
is little or no real attention placed on what goes on inside the system, 
and this reflects an authoritarian attitude called anti-introception. 
Anti-introception means being unwilling to look inside, not approaching an 
issue in a 'psychological' way, in the sense that there is no attempt to 
understand the nature of subjectivity--feelings, thoughts, motivation, or 
generally look within. As Sanford [61] wrote:


  Self-awareness might threaten his whole scheme of adjustment. He would be 
afraid of genuine feeling because his emotions might get out of control, 
afraid of thinking about human phenomena because he might think 'wrong' 
thoughts (p. 144).  Authoritarians want things 'plain and simple', do not 
have time for feelings or for 'idle speculation'. The authoritarian's 
world is completely 'objective', in the sense that the way they see the 
world is not their own unique view of the world but THE right way--nothing 
else is conceivable. Their own 'subjectivity', and its particular bias, 
plays no role in this at all, and therefore in reality deeply colors 
everything they see and do. The authoritarian attitude is therefore very 
open to self-deception. At a social level, the development of this 
characteristic is important. In the same way that the authoritarian 
individual does not explore his or her motives and feelings, the creation 
of a totalitarian mindset and system requires as little 'collective 
introspection' as possible. No questioning of motives, no attention to the 
hysterical nature of some of the feelings expressed (hatred, love of 
country/in-group, and so on), only a focus on the positive, idealized 
symbols of the in-group. Attention is diverted from internal divisions, 
and critics of government spending can suddenly become wildly supportive 
when huge unbudgeted sums are spent on war and defense efforts. The 
'patriot bypass' makes all forms of critical thinking dormant. Atrocities 
in the name of 'the good' become the devastating example of what Jung [35] 
called 'enantiodromia', the extreme polarization whereby actions in the 
name of 'the good' turn into the 'evil' they are attempting to destroy.

A related characteristic is 'pseudo-conservatism', or the desire to 
safeguard (conserve) the in-group's status quo at all costs. The term 
'pseudo-' points to the tendency to be so extreme and unreflective about 
preserving the in-group that one is willing to actually destroy what one 
is trying to save in the process. This manifests, for instance, in 
democratic countries resorting to the same tactics as anti-democratic 
nations in order to fight them. It is also manifested in the classic 
attack on dissenters--"they wouldn't let you do that in the Soviet 
Union/Afghanistan/etc." which ironically attempts to deprive dissenters of 
the very freedom that makes the country worth fighting for and 
differentiates it from undemocratic countries.

6. The totalitarian paradigm of certainty and simplicity

The underlying structure of thinking or paradigm of the totalitarian 
mindset can be summarized in the following way. It reflects, as I have 
suggested, a particular way of thinking and discourse.

Out-group/scapegoating: This is a drastic form of reductionism, reducing 
the complexity of the situation to one, easily identifiable variable.

Either/or: A logic of disjunction creates binary opposition that cannot be 
reconciled or 'thought together'.

Hierarchy/centralization: The hierarchy of domination and centralization 
of authority is focused on power, and indeed the multi-dimensionality of 
the world is reduced to the uni-dimensional, central construct of power.

Unification/identification: In the focus on the out-group what becomes 
profoundly obscured is the role of the observer in the observation. 
Self-reflection and self-inquiry can easily lead to uncertainty, 
ambiguity, and doubt, and this is precisely what the totalitarian mindset 
rejects, because its focus is on certainty and simplicity. Underlying 
these central elements of the totalitarian mindset is a stress on 
simplicity at the expense of complexity and a quest for certainty. In 
fact, authoritarianism is correlated with a preference for simplicity over 
complexity [67].

6.1. The return of the regressed

The era of McCarthyism is remembered as a period of collective consensus 
trance by many. The United States was swept away by the self-aggrandizing 
rhetoric of a paranoid senator, and turned the 'Red Scare' into a rabid 
witch-hunt. In 1950, the previously undistinguished McCarthy rose to 
prominence when he claimed that there were 205 Communists subversives in 
the State Department. He was unable to present any proof for his 
statement, but, in an interesting and familiar move, stepped up his 
rhetoric and started an anti-Communist crusade. It amounted to little more 
than the persecution and vilification of many Americans. It is important 
to note that other Government offices at the time actually successfully 
prosecuted cases against Communists, but McCarthy never made a plausible 
case against anyone.

McCarthy's fall occurred during 36 days of televised hearings in 1954. His 
rabid and increasingly offensive interrogation methods were displayed 
nationally. McCarthy embarked on a diatribe against a junior defense 
lawyer on whom he had found some 'dirt'--participation in a left-leaning 
student association at age 15--which was embarrassing in its pettiness. A 
senior liberal lawyer, appalled by his methods, presented a spirited and 
devastating counter-attack, and the faces of those present showed the 
general degree of embarrassment at the depths to which McCarthy had 
fallen. The meeting was wisely adjourned at that point, but a camera was 
left rolling as a fuming and furious McCarthy responded hysterically while 
the room quietly emptied, and the entire nation saw the discredited 
Senator's last, pathetic stand [55].

As if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers, Americans awoke from the 
nightmare of McCarthyism on that day. Suddenly the deeply misguided nature 
of the mixture of fear, patriotism, and witch-hunts McCarthy served up 
became crystal clear. Will we all be able to learn from the lessons of 
those years, and that day, 50 years ago, and insist on a creative response 
to the consensus trance of the totalitarian mindset? In 2003 a polemical 
book of McCarthy revisionism, accusing all US liberals of treason, is a 
New York Times bestseller [17].

7. The paradigm of complexity: creative attitude, creative discourse

7.1. Complexity, pluralism and the future

In this essay I have presented the notion of a totalitarian, 
anti-pluralist attitude. I have illustrated some of the core 
characteristics of the totalitarian attitude, and argued that it is simply 
not clear that human beings are prepared to live in an increasingly 
complex and pluralistic world. The urgency of an education that prepares 
human beings for pluralism and complexity becomes clear.

The surprising eagerness with which totalitarianism has historically been 
embraced in the democratic countries of the West [11,63] suggests that it 
is a complex phenomenon requiring much more research. I have shown it is 
possible to outline in broad strokes the factors behind totalitarian 
responses. The complexity of pluralism can all too easily lead to a desire 
for simplification and anxiety reduction. This manifests as reductive, 
black and white solutions that present themselves as unambiguous, 
forceful, and lucid, guided by overarching values that allow one to 'take 
a stand' in the face of 'enemies' internal and external. The simplistic, 
black and white future lies at the heart of both McWorld and the Global 
Jihad. Both of Barber's options cannot accept the existence of a 
pluralistic world in which people with different beliefs, behaviors, 
traditions, worldviews co-exist. Both are totalitarian inasmuch as they 
are driven by the single-minded pursuit of one or two selected 
goals--whether economic or military conquest, and in the case of the 
corporate fascism of the McWorld scenario, both apply. Everything that 
moves towards the goal(s) is supported, what does not support them is 
rejected and indeed eliminated. A complex world is reduced to stark 
simplicity with an either/or logic. Either you are for us, or you are 
against us.

In the McWorld scenario, the totalitarian element would manifest most 
clearly in the necessity for perpetual war and perpetual threat, in order 
to raise the anxiety and fear of the population. The stress on the 
presence of an external enemy would paint any attempt at presenting 
alternatives at best as playing into the hands of the enemy, or simply as 
treason. The encroachment on basic civil liberties would be forced, and 
eventually accepted, in the name of 'national security', and indeed 
patriotism. Support of the activities against the enemy would be 
considered not simply a badge of honor, but a basic prerequisite of 
citizenship. During periods of economic health, this would lead to a 
condition where silence around some political issues--typically foreign 
policy issues--would be considered an acceptable sacrifice, with the 
proviso that economic prosperity should continue. Given the dismal 
understanding of foreign policy and international affairs in many 
countries, and particularly in the US, where the interest in foreign 
affairs, is minimal anyway, this would not be a huge sacrifice. With the 
onset of economic hardship, the situation would likely become more 
unstable and more dramatic enforcement and allegiance would have to be won 
as the population might begin to question the legitimacy of the 
government's activities and their resource allocation.

An alternative to these bleak scenarios requires an education in 
pluralism, complexity, and creativity.

1. Education for Pluralism--a recognition of difference and the 
possibility for creativity and unity in diversity rather than unity at the 
expense of diversity or vice versa [12,62].

2. Education for Complexity--the capacity to go beyond reductive thought 
and black and white logic towards what Morin has called "complex thought 
[52];"

3. Education in Media Literacy and the psychology of mass manipulation and 
self-deception, to create a vigilance regarding the possibility of 
totalitarian mindset [63];

4. Education that should include the relationship between reason and 
emotion, anxiety, and the human capacity for self-deception [29]. This 
suggests the need for an education that is not just cognitive but 
addresses the whole person [50].

5. Education that includes a new emphasis on creating the conditions for 
co-existence, for mutual understanding, and for viewing pluralism as an 
opportunity for creativity [42,21,43].

6. Education for creativity--for the capacity to go beyond what is and 
integrate new perspectives, new solutions, the capacity to create new 
futures. Developing the capacity to approach pluralism as an opportunity 
for creativity [7].

7.2. Pluralism

My stress on education for pluralism--understood not as schooling, but as 
a process of lifelong learning--emerges out of the previously cited 
evidence that pluralism is still an extremely problematic phenomenon, 
particularly cultural and political pluralism [13]. Both cognitively and 
affectively, pluralism and difference are more often than not considered 
disturbing, and the disequilibrium caused by this disturbance is seen as 
something to be reduced or eliminated. Worldwide, schooling is still 
largely ethnocentric. Research into genetics, language, evolution, 
cultural history, migration, and other areas has shown the incredible 
intertwining and interweaving of human beings over thousands of years 
[12]. And yet myths of cultural, 'racial', religious, and genetic purity 
are perpetuated by socialization and education, and contribute to 
extremely dangerous ideologies of superiority, inferiority, and profound 
intolerance [14]. Our planetary understanding of pluralism and diversity 
are still deeply flawed, and must be explored, engaged, and dialogued 
about if we are to create pluralistic futures.

7.3. Complex thought

Morin [52] has argued that the problem facing present Western educational 
system is not a lack of available information, but a fundamentally 
problematic way of organizing knowledge. Morin argues that in the West, 
the organization of knowledge is based on certain underlying principles he 
calls "simple thought'. Simple thought is reductive, disjunctive and 
uni-dimensional. Such thought is incapable of articulating and 
understanding the complexity of pluralism. Morin's magnum opus, the five 
volume Method [45-51], has consisted of the development of 'complex 
thought'. Complex thought offers the possibility for an alternative to the 
totalitarian attitude: its organizing principles are dialogical, complex 
(in the sense of focusing on both part and whole, rather than one or the 
other, as in reductionism or holism), and multidimensional.

Morin's articulation of a paradigm of complexity avoids reductionism, 
whether reduction to the part, as in atomism, or to the whole, as in 
holism, and stresses unity in diversity and the interrelationship between 
part and whole. It avoids disjunction in favor of distinction and 
dialogical relations: rather than the separation of disjunction it 
distinguishes, without destroying the connection that makes a dialogical 
relationship (both/and) possible. The stress is also on multi- as opposed 
to uni-dimensionality, recognizing, for instance, the plurality of human 
manifestations, for instance, as homo faber, homo ludens, homo economicus, 
etc. or the capacity for both independence of judgment and conformity. 
Finally, the re-integration of the observer into the observed forces us to 
take a long hard look at the role we play in creating our own universe of 
meaning, and the possibility of rotor and self-deception. Complexity, 
disorder and uncertainty are not viewed as elements to be eliminated at 
all costs, but rather as inherent in our knowledge of the world, and the 
very source of change and transformation that can potentially keep an 
individual or a social system open and alive. Crucially for an 
understanding of pluralism, Morin stresses the notion of unitas multiplex, 
of unity in diversity. Unitas multiplex does not privilege unity over 
diversity or diversity over unity, but recognizes that the two can be 
dialogically linked in a way that is mutually beneficial.

7.4. Creativity

Creativity is often thought of as a phenomenon confined to the arts, or at 
best the arts and sciences. Studying the research on authoritarianism and 
creativity, it is clear that the characteristics of the authoritarian 
attitude are in fact the mirror image of those of the creative person. If 
intolerance of ambiguity is central to the anti-pluralist attitude, we 
find that tolerance of ambiguity is central to the creative attitude 
[40,6,18].

Tolerance for ambiguity is a central characteristic of the creative 
attitude. Creative persons are intrigued, stimulated, and motivated to 
explore the unfamiliar and unstructured, by situations and things for 
which there is no one, clear solution or approach. It is the opposite of a 
fear of the unstructured and unfamiliar. It means enjoying and being 
attracted enjoy situations for which there are no clear rules, no 
established roadmaps. Ambiguity destabilizes the mental equilibrium. It 
forces inquiry, exploration, and the creation of new ways of dealing with 
a situation. An unwillingness to allow or accept ambiguity means the 
person confronted with ambiguity will immediately attempt to impose a 
pre-existing framework or set of rules on the situation, and not remain 
open to the situation long enough to create a situation-specific way of 
dealing with it. Tolerance for ambiguity involves wanting to create one's 
own rules and roadmaps, and not immediately applying pre-existing ones. It 
means remaining open to possibilities, potentials, novelty, change, and 
difference.

Openness to experience, independence of judgment, a willingness to 
challenge assumptions, the exploration of possibilities, the refusal of 
premature closure, and paradoxical (as opposed to dichotomous, 
black-and-white) thinking, these are some of the characteristics of the 
creative person which, as Barton [6,7] went to great lengths to point out, 
should be seen as qualities that can be cultivated rather than fixed, 
innate traits that one either has or has not.

Already in 1941 Erich Fromm [25] discussed the inherent ambiguity in 
freedom, in the sense that freedom means precisely that there is no 
unambiguous way one should think/feel/act, and the human impulse to escape 
from this freedom. Barron [6] has written eloquently about the 
relationship between creativity and freedom precisely because a broader 
view of creativity, as a creative attitude, rather than as a gift confined 
to the arts and sciences, pertains to the creation of meaning and the 
possibility to create to be free. For Barron, being able to create meant 
being able to choose between habit, and the existing order, and 
difference, innovation and change. Freedom means the ability to create a 
plurality of choices for oneself and for others. Whatever one chooses to 
do, creativity gives us the choice because it is the capacity to 
articulate and express our freedom, to explore alternatives. The tolerance 
for ambiguity creative individuals show lies precisely in the ability to 
suspend the need for pre-established ways of doing things and attempt to 
make sense of the situation themselves.

If the totalitarian mindset seeks simplicity through the elimination of 
complexity and uncertainty, an alternative does present itself, one that 
thrives on complexity and creativity. Research on creative individuals, 
and by extension what I am calling the creative attitude [27], shows that 
the characteristics of the creative individual are the mirror image of 
those of the authoritarian person/totalitarian attitude. They include:

Tolerance for Ambiguity [7,18,34]

Independence of Judgment [6]

Openness to Experience [27]

Preference for Complexity [6,7]

Paradoxical or "Janusian" (both/and) thinking [58]

Challenging of Assumptions [6]

The valorization and cultivation of these characteristics, and of a 
creative attitude, can serve as a safeguard against the totalitarian 
mindset, and assist us in developing an attitude that recognizes pluralism 
as an essential characteristic of non-totalitarian futures. Again, rather 
than seeing these as the fixed personality traits of creative geniuses, we 
can see them as components of a creative attitude, and a heuristic device 
to remind us to avoid self-deception and consensus trance by making a 
choice to, for instance, challenge assumption, remain open, tolerate 
ambiguity, not recoil from complexity, explore possibilities beyond 
black-and-white options, and so on.

7.5. Media literacy

The term media literacy has been used increasingly to refer to a process 
of education about the way the media can inform attitudes towards issues 
of race and gender. A pluralistic society must include a greater 
understanding of the nature of political and media manipulation of 
opinion, and of the human capacity for self-deception, and the willingness 
to "escape from freedom'. I have tried to outline some of the basic 
factors in the creation of anti-pluralist conditions and the totalitarian 
mindset.

Pluralism requires the ability to respond creatively to the challenge of 
complexity, not only through reduction (which may at times be necessary) 
but also through ongoing creation of new frameworks for making sense of 
the world and incorporating the new, rather then falling back on 
pre-existing ways of knowing [42]. Understanding the way that the media 
shape our present and our understanding of possible futures, and also 
understanding how the proliferation of media resources can be navigated to 
obtain a number of different perspectives on an issue, are becoming key 
competencies in a 'media-ted' world.

7.6. Creative dialogue

Pluralism also requires a form of dialogue and exchange that does more 
that immediately totalize and dichotomize, but rather is open to the 
dialogue of ambiguity and openness to other perspectives without seeking 
immediate closure and the suppression of the voices of pluralism. The 
anti-pluralist approach to discourse is to eliminate the other's position, 
and if necessary, the very possibility of alternatives. The 
black-and-white, 'simple' logic of anti-pluralism is at the heart of what 
Tannen [68] calls the culture of argument.

In his research on the debate about the Vietnam war, Garrett [28] pointed 
out the following 'conceptual obstacles' that arose as two sides 
confronted each other on the issue. They are (a) the either/or syndrome, 
the simple logic of black and white; (b) disguising the first principles, 
or not making one's own assumptions and underlying beliefs transparent; 
(c) not seeing the other's principles, or not attempting to understand 
those of the other side; (d) partial approaches, with the focus on only a 
small aspect of the debate which comes to represent the whole (pars pro 
toto), or apples and oranges, where the sides are debating about what are 
in fact different issues. Garrett's important research clearly 
demonstrates the characteristics of what I have been calling an 
anti-pluralist discourse.

We must remember that in the emergency situation created by the 
totalitarian mindset, conflict is always made to look as if it always 
appears in the image of extremity, whereas, in fact, it is actually the 
lack of recognition of the need for conflict and provision for appropriate 
forms for it that leads to danger. This ultimate destructive form is 
frightening, but it also is not conflict. It is almost the reverse; it is 
the end result of the attempt to avoid and suppress conflict [4; 130].

In this way, civic discourse loses all creativity, all exploration and 
consideration of possibilities all respect for pluralism and the 
expression of different voices that can contribute to the development of 
alternative futures. It is this aspect of the totalitarian mindset that 
needs to be challenged, the identification with one position, one 
perspective, one view of the world at the exclusion of others that is 
actually concerned largely with shutting down other voices. This deeply 
anti-democratic, anti-freedom, 'pseudo-conservative' perspective must be 
challenged if we are to retain pluralism in our discourse, and cherish the 
value of the very democracy and pluralism we are trying to preserve. 
Democracy is based on the respect for difference. Pluralism is a 
cornerstone of democracy. And yet there is little or no effort made to 
explore and educate for better, more creative ways for these inevitable, 
surely desired, differences to coexist and communicate in mutually 
beneficial ways. In a pluralistic society, increasing emphasis must be 
paid on the development of basic skills in conflict resolution, dialogue, 
and communication [68,19-21,41].

7.7. Conclusion

In this essay I have outlined the characteristics of what I have called 
the totalitarian mindset. Under certain circumstances, human beings engage 
in patterns of thinking and behavior that are extremely closed and 
intolerant of difference and pluralism. These patterns lead us towards the 
creation of totalitarian futures. An awareness of how these patterns 
arise, how they can be generated and manipulated through the use of fear, 
and how totalitarianism plays into the desire in human beings for 
'absolute' answers and solutions, can be used to increase awareness and 
prevention of attempts at manipulation, and from the dangers of actively 
wanting to succumb to totalitarian solutions in times of stress and 
anxiety.

I have also suggested a broader educational agenda for a pluralistic 
future, based on the assumption that the lived experience of pluralism is 
still largely unfamiliar and anxiety inducing. Pluralism is generally not 
understood, with many myths of purity and racial or cultural superiority 
still prevalent. Finally, as part of that agenda for education, I have 
stressed the importance of creativity as an adaptive capacity, as an 
attitude that allows individuals and groups to see pluralism as an 
opportunity for growth and positive change rather than simply for 
conflict.

Pluralism also requires a form of dialogue and exchange that does more 
that immediately totalize and dichotomize, but rather is open to the 
dialogue of ambiguity and openness to other perspectives without seeking 
immediate closure and the suppression of the voices of pluralism. The 
anti-pluralist approach to discourse is to eliminate the other's position, 
and if necessary, the very possibility of alternatives. The 
black-and-white, 'simple' logic of anti-pluralism is at the heart of what 
Tannen [68] calls the culture of argument.

In his research on the debate about the Vietnam war, Garrett [28] pointed 
out the following 'conceptual obstacles' that arose as two sides 
confronted each other on the issue. They are (a) the either/or syndrome, 
the simple logic of black and white; (b) disguising the first principles, 
or not making one's own assumptions and underlying beliefs transparent; 
(c) not seeing the other's principles, or not attempting to understand 
those of the other side; (d) partial approaches, with the focus on only a 
small aspect of the debate which comes to represent the whole (pars pro 
toto), or apples and oranges, where the sides are debating about what are 
in fact different issues. Garrett's important research clearly 
demonstrates the characteristics of what I have been calling an 
anti-pluralist discourse.

We must remember that in the emergency situation created by the 
totalitarian mindset, conflict is always made to look as if it always 
appears in the image of extremity, whereas, in fact, it is actually the 
lack of recognition of the need for conflict and provision for appropriate 
forms for it that leads to danger. This ultimate destructive form is 
frightening, but it also is not conflict. It is almost the reverse; it is 
the end result of the attempt to avoid and suppress conflict [4; 130].

In this way, civic discourse loses all creativity, all exploration and 
consideration of possibilities all respect for pluralism and the 
expression of different voices that can contribute to the development of 
alternative futures. It is this aspect of the totalitarian mindset that 
needs to be challenged, the identification with one position, one 
perspective, one view of the world at the exclusion of others that is 
actually concerned largely with shutting down other voices. This deeply 
anti-democratic, anti-freedom, 'pseudo-conservative' perspective must be 
challenged if we are to retain pluralism in our discourse, and cherish the 
value of the very democracy and pluralism we are trying to preserve. 
Democracy is based on the respect for difference. Pluralism is a 
cornerstone of democracy. And yet there is little or no effort made to 
explore and educate for better, more creative ways for these inevitable, 
surely desired, differences to coexist and communicate in mutually 
beneficial ways. In a pluralistic society, increasing emphasis must be 
paid on the development of basic skills in conflict resolution, dialogue, 
and communication [68,19-21,41].

7.7. Conclusion

In this essay I have outlined the characteristics of what I have called 
the totalitarian mindset. Under certain circumstances, human beings engage 
in patterns of thinking and behavior that are extremely closed and 
intolerant of difference and pluralism. These patterns lead us towards the 
creation of totalitarian futures. An awareness of how these patterns 
arise, how they can be generated and manipulated through the use of fear, 
and how totalitarianism plays into the desire in human beings for 
'absolute' answers and solutions, can be used to increase awareness and 
prevention of attempts at manipulation, and from the dangers of actively 
wanting to succumb to totalitarian solutions in times of stress and 
anxiety.

I have also suggested a broader educational agenda for a pluralistic 
future, based on the assumption that the lived experience of pluralism is 
still largely unfamiliar and anxiety inducing. Pluralism is generally not 
understood, with many myths of purity and racial or cultural superiority 
still prevalent. Finally, as part of that agenda /'or education, I have 
stressed the importance of creativity as an adaptive capacity, as an 
attitude that allows individuals and groups to see pluralism as an 
opportunity for growth and positive change rather than simply for 
conflict.

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Alfonso Montuori *

California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, USA

* Tel.: + 1-415-398-6964; fax: + 1 415-398-6964. E-mail address: 
amontuori at ciis.edu