On The Accusation Of Totalitarianism  (x-posted to The Valve)
(Update: all links should be working now.)  It has become
commonplace, these days, to associate numerous kinds of thought
with totalitarianism. This, in itself, is remarkable,
considering the legacy of totalitarianism. To call a thinker
totalitarian is to suggest a close sympathy between their work
and the history of genocide and bloody repression that includes
the Holocaust and the Stalinist gulags.  Truly totalitarian
writing is an accessory to violence, to murder, and to every
other kind of misery that a governed people can undergo. If a
substantial allegation of this kind were made about my writing,
I would have no choice except to submit to the most painful and
unrelenting kind of self-scrutiny, in the face of the
possibility that I had turned out to be the monstrous inverse of
my hopes and values. Do not imagine that this kind of anguish
has anything to do with ordinary self-awareness: we are talking
about a slim chance of escaping lifelong