The 20th Century – The Anxiety Age
We have already seen that in the latter years of the 19th century stretching to early 20th century, British colonies stretched a quarter of the world. These were administered through a powerful monarchy and a supportive autocratic administrative system comparable to Plato's 'rulers and auxiliaries'. We've also seen that the Romans too had such a success in the middle ages through an almost similar system. Autocratic systems are undeniably at the center of all the empires that had a lasting legacy. Democracy will definitely get its own place in history. Why do I say 'in History'? Does it mean that Democracy is likely to be relegated to history books some day? Unfortunately, we have already cited that all human things inevitably degenerate; Rome fell, the sun did set on the 'Empire on which the sun never sets'; American supremacy shall definitely come to an end someday.
That's the general flow of life; that which has a beginning must have an end. Transitions are inevitable, human things degenerate and have to usher in new beginnings. The sad fact is that sometimes systems degenerate into very atrocious regimes. In the large part, most oppressive systems start out with noble intentions, but things just degenerate sometimes unintentionally into horrible situations like the slaughter of 11 million people, 6 Million of them being Jews by the Nazis leading to the second world war which in turn caused in excess of 50 million deaths.
A personality evaluation report on Kim Jong IL, compiled by psychiatrists profiled him as having the "big six" group of personality disorders - sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid and schizotypal - which were shared by dictators Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein. These were people who viewed themselves as demi-gods; with propensities for the extreme. Kim had female staff inspect each grain of rice to check if it adhered to standards of length, weight and colour. He reportedly drank £450,000 of cognac each year in a country where average income was about £580.
The history of the 20th century is rife with dictators like Kim Jong-Il. It is termed as the Age of Anxiety, the age of the lost generation; it is shrouded by the specter of the likes of Hitler's Third Reich. Modern Fascism and Totalitarianism made their appearance on the historical stage, and later on terrorism reared its ugly head.
Good steps were made during this era especially for democracy; by 1939, for instance, liberal democracies in Britain, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland were realities. But elsewhere all over the world, various kinds of dictators reared their ugly heads. Dictatorship seemed to be the wave of the time. Solely because of such crimson blemishes as World War 11, that were left behind by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century I feel obliged to have a peek at some of these very atrocious regimes.
Joseph Stalin: In the Soviet Union, after the conclusion of Civil War, Stalin took over the country and began executing any people who were not in alignment with the goals of the state.
Benito Mussolini: Having seized power in Italy in 1922, Mussolini become the leader of the nation and immediately began to rule in a totalitarian manner.
Adolf Hitler: Notorious for his reign in German, Hitler employed totalitarianism as a means to attempt to achieve an obedient nation that was his personal vision for the country.
North Korea: North Korea has been ruled by the same family since 1948. The family has been running the country based on the concept of self-reliance. However, severe economic declines have contributed to the country's struggle to maintain totalitarianism.
Mao Zedong: From 1949, when he established the People's Republic of China, until his death in 1976, Chairman Mao led China in a way in line with the concepts of totalitarianism.
Pol Pot: (1925-1998) and his communist Khmer Rouge movement led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, about 1.5 million Cambodians out of a total population of 7 to 8 million died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork. One detention center, S-21, was so notorious that only seven of the roughly 20,000 people imprisoned there are known to have survived.
Saddam Hussein: was a bloody and brutal dictator; At least one million people died due to the machinations of Saddam. After his regime was toppled by the U.S. invasion of 2003, he wound up on a gallow.
These Leaders ruled as absolute leaders. They crushed opposition, committed human and civil rights violations, and largely were unscathed. Their reign was a nightmare world in which human individuality was subsumed under the might of totalitarian collectivism. The totalitarian states of the 20th century rejected liberal values and exercised total control over the lives of its subjects. In this way, totalitarianism became a new political religion.
In its very definition, Totalitarianism is really idolatry: it refers to a political system in which all authority is in the hands of the state. It is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life.
There is a deep human hunger for a monistic world, for authority, control, and definitive meaning which can cut through the ambiguities and uncertainties of our existence. From this hunger emerges the totalitarian impulse. This hunger is essentially religious in character and is dangerously misplaced when it seeks satisfaction in the politics of the present time.
Father John Courtney Murray
Totalitarianism is marked by a thoroughgoing monism of political, social, juridical, religious practices: there is only one Sovereign, one society, one law, one faith. The cardinal denial is really the denial of the Christian dualism of powers; laws spiritual and temporal, divine and human. Upon this denial follows the absorption of the community in the state, the absorption of the state in the party, and the assertion that the party-state is the supreme spiritual and moral, as well as political and even religious authority. The Bible cites such instances in which earthly authority sought to consolidate religion within itself:
The Image of Gold and the Blazing Furnace
Daniel 3: 13-25: Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?" Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, "King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 
If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. The king's command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?" They replied, "Certainly, Your Majesty." He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods."
Christians must view political monism or totalitarianism as nothing short of idolatry and a direct violation of the first commandment. The party-state declares itself to be absolute, and therefore not accountable to any transcendent judgment. Regimes that subscribe to this dogma assert that they themselves embody the final meaning of history and are therefore not answerable to any higher authority or morality. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego we must be prepared to resist this with our very lives if the need be. We the church of Christ dare never be apologists for such blasphemy in the name of some higher social good such as peace. Every Christian is called to the fullness of humanity revealed in Our Lord Jesus Christ, there can be no higher good than the person and authority of Christ Jesus and Christians need to insist that no human authority can or should supersede the authority of Christ.
"The interminable testament still remains: Jesus Christ is Lord; that is the first and final assertion we Christians make about all of reality, including politics."
Platonic Degeneration:
Because the rulers of the Autocracy - the just city- will rely on their fallible sense perception in choosing the next generation of rulers, they will inevitably make mistakes over time. Soon the wrong sort of people will occupy positions of power. These people will want to change things so that rulers can have private property and focus on wealth, while the good among the rulers will want to preserve the old order and focus on virtue. After some battling between these factions, the resulting constitution will be a compromise: a Timocracy. To satisfy the bad faction, the rulers will distribute all the land and houses in the city as private property among themselves, and enslave the producers as serfs. They will focus all their energy on making war and guarding against the enslaved producers. They will be afraid to appoint wise people as rulers, choosing instead to be ruled by spirited but simple people who will be more inclined toward war than peace. The corresponding man is a man ruled by spirit: Socrates describes him as the son of an aristocratic man who encourages the rational part of his son's soul. But the son is influenced by a bad mother and servants, who pull him toward the love of money. He ends up in the middle, becoming a proud and honor-loving man.
The corresponding man is a thrifty money-maker. He is a timocrat's son, and at first emulates him. But then some disgraceful and unfair mishap befalls his father. The son, traumatized and impoverished, turns greedily toward making money and slowly amasses property again. His reason and spirit become slaves to appetite, as his only drive becomes the desire to make more money. Reason can only reason about how to make more money, while spirit only values wealth and has as its sole ambition more wealth. This man has evil inclinations but these are held in check because he is careful about his wealth; he does not want to engage in activity that would threaten him with the loss of what he has managed to build up from scratch.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. 
Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:10
Next, the oligarchy declines into a democracy. The insatiable desire to attain more money leads to a practice of lending money at high interests. Many in the city are driven to utter poverty while a few thrive. The impoverished sit idly in the city hating those with wealth and plotting revolution. The rich, in turn, pretend not to notice the dissatisfied masses. 
Finally, agitated by the stinging drones, the poor revolt, killing some rich, and expelling the rest. They set up a new constitution in which everyone remaining has an equal share in ruling the city. They give out positions of power pretty much by lot, with no notice of who is most fit for what role. In this city the guiding priority is freedom. Everyone is free to say what they like and to arrange their life as they please. There is complete license. We, therefore, find the greatest variety of character traits in this city. What we do not find is any order or harmony. No one occupies the appropriate roles.
In order to describe the corresponding man, Socrates must explain the difference between necessary and unnecessary desires. Necessary desires are those we cannot train ourselves to overcome, the ones that indicate true human needs (e.g. the desire for enough sustenance to survive). Unnecessary desires are those which we can train ourselves to overcome (e.g. desire for luxurious items and a decadent lifestyle). The oligarchic man is ruled by his necessary desires, but his son, the democratic man, is soon overcome by unnecessary desires. Whereas the father was a miser who only wanted to hoard his money, the son comes to appreciate all the lavish pleasures that money can buy. He thinks all pleasures (those of moderation and of indulgence) are equal, and he yields to whichever one strikes his fancy at the moment. There is no order or necessity to his life.
In the last stage of degeneration, democracy, the most free city, descends into tyranny, the most enslaved. The insatiable desire for freedom causes the city to neglect the necessities of proper ruling. The drones stir up trouble again. In the democracy, this class is even fiercer than in the oligarchy because they usually end up becoming the dominant political figures. There are two other classes in the democracy other than the drones: there are those who are most naturally organized and so become wealthy, and then there are those who work with their hands and take little part in politics. The drones deceive both these other classes, inciting them against each other. They try to convince the poor that the rich are oligarchs, and they try to convince the rich that the poor are going to revolt. 
In their fear, the rich try to limit the freedoms of the poor and in so doing come to resemble oligarchs. In response, the poor revolt. The leader of this revolt—the drone who stirs up the people—becomes the tyrant when the poor people triumph. He kills all the good people for fear that they will supplant him, then enslaves everyone else so that he can steal from them to support his lavish and extravagant life-style. He also needs to constantly make war, to distract people from what he is doing. He must pander to the worst segments of society—the other drones—to make them his bodyguards. Most 20th century tyrants ascended to power in very similar situations.
Socrates makes an insightful psychologically description of the tyrannical man. The tyrannical man is a man ruled by his lawless desires. Lawless desires draw men toward all sorts of ghastly, shameless, criminal things. Socrates's examples of lawless desires are the desires to sleep with one's mother and to commit a foul murder. A tyrant is frenzied and mad, and banishes all sense of shame and moderation. He lives for feasts, revelries, luxuries, and girlfriends. He spends so much money that he soon runs through all he has and needs to begin borrowing. Then, when no one will lend him any more, he resorts to deceit and force. He runs the whole gamut of typically unjust acts in his insatiable need to quench his erotic lusts. He tries to get money in all sorts of awful ways, he starts robbing his people and country and religious institutions, and finally even commits murder to get what he wants. He becomes a living a nightmare. Erotic love drives this nightmare, keeping him lost in complete anarchy and lawlessness. Soon he cannot trust anyone, and has no friends. He becomes continually suspicious and discontent, and he lives in fear.
In his lifetime, Plato had only ever seen tyrants driven by lust and greed. We might wonder if his diagnosis of the tyrannical psyche would have been the same if he had lived to see the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. His portrait of the tyrant is a brilliant and astute analysis of the Greek despot, but it seems less successful at capturing the psyche of a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Pol Pot. Were these men really driven by their appetites, or were they driven instead by reason gone horribly wrong? All the 20th century despots did indeed achieve high honor and splendorous wealth but it is difficult to completely dismiss the suspicion that the real motivating force behind at least some of these regimes was a perverse idea, a good intention gone awfully wrong, and not an insatiable appetite.
Let's now shift our focus to the church of Christ; how it should be, what has worked and what needs to be avoided.
Read More:
· Was the Catholic Church ever Democratic?
· What Should the Church then be?
· References
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