In his important new book Live Not by Lies, Rod Dreher explores the reasons so few Americans are willing to resist the pervasive and growing “soft totalitarianism” for which the left is responsible. Citing political philosopher and Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt, Dreher establishes that all forms of totalitarianism share in common the goal of imposing an ideology, which entails supplanting or eradicating the influence of competing beliefs:
‘A totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. Truth is whatever the rulers say it is.’
Dreher provides evidence that this totalitarian effort to impose an ideology that redefines reality is well underway here in America:
In our time, we do not have an all-powerful state forcing this [ideology] on us. This dictatorship is far more subtle. Under soft totalitarianism, the media, academia, corporate America, and other institutions are practicing Newspeak and compelling the rest of us to engage in doublethink every day. Men have periods. The woman standing in front of you is to be called “he.” Diversity and inclusion mean excluding those who object to ideological uniformity. Equity means treating persons unequally, regardless of their skills and achievements, to achieve an ideologically correct result.
According to Dreher, soft totalitarianism differs from the form of totalitarianism that impelled and informed…
