Denmark warns of new cartoon crisis with Muslims

[Elok]

Very nice, Oerdin. Insofar as it applies to Mohammed, it also applies to every other despotism in history. That definition is worthless. The only thing in there that doesn't also apply to your garden-variety warlord is "attempts to control all aspects of life," which is pretty vague. If you're going to use "totalitarian" that way, then Mohammed was indeed a totalitarian, just like you're a pederast provided we expand the term to mean "warm-blooded animal." Now, what term should we use for the absolute nightmare regimes of Hitler, Stalin, and their ilk?

BTW, I'd like to see a source for your statement that he killed or expelled all non-muslims. AFAIK he only butchered pagans.

EDIT: Oh, and the bit about controlling all aspects of life is typically understood to mean something more than setting religious injunctions. Typical totalitarian features involve secret police, a bajillion "[party] [occupation] workers' association" type groups, and other fun stuff.

[Winston]

Aye, the Islamists causing so much trouble these days are not totalitarian. But, oh boy, how they would like to be one day. And soon, baby.

[Dinner]

That is the totalitarianism. If there are a lot of totalitarianist dictators in history then that's not my problem. Basically, only two catagories would qualifty. Namely, religous dictatorship which attempts to control virtually all aspects of life or modern dictatorships. Both qualify.

There have been loads of dictators who haven't controlled virtually all aspects of life. Most have not had that much power even if they wanted it.

[SlowwHand]

Totalitarian suggests they are over everyone's life in total.

[Elok]

Mmm-hmm. Anybody here know a scholar we can consult to put paid to this? I have never heard anyone else suggest such a loose definition for the term, and Hannah Arendt, in addition to not being an acquaintance of mine, is sort of long-dead.

[Flip McWho]

If you wanna trust it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian

Totalitarianism is a term employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.

The most influential scholars of totalitarianism, such as Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Juan Linz have each described totalitarianism in a slightly different way. Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the state and a political or religious ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, such as involvement with labour unions, non-sanctioned churches or opposition political parties. Totalitarian regimes maintain themselves in political power by means of single-party state, secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cult, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics (political purges and persecution of specific groups of people).

Critics of the concept contend that the term lacks explanatory power. They argue that governments which may be classified as totalitarian often lack characteristics said to be associated with the term. They may not be as monolithic as they appear from the outside, if they incorporate several groups, such as the army, political leaders, industrialists, which compete for power and influence [1]. In this sense, these regimes may exhibit pluralism through the involvement of several groups in the political process.[2]