ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the numerous ways in which totalitarianism destroys civilization. It is not a matter of a single blow, such as barbarian hordes invading a country, leveling cities, and ravaging the land. Prior to 1914, nobody foresaw the coming of totalitarianism, just as nobody could envisage what a difference this would make to Western civilization. The worst that anybody could imagine was that liberal democracy might succumb to Caesarism or Jacobin dictatorship, neither of which was seen as any great danger to civilization itself. There are three further distinctions that must also be made: firstly, that between proto-totalitarianism and a prior phase of pretotalitarian-ism; secondly, that between totalitarianism proper and a subsequent phase that usually follows it, which we will call subtotalitarianism; and thirdly, that between it and the complete end of totalitarianism altogether, which is posttotalitarianism. Fully grasping the contingent historical nature of totalitarianism enables one to see its relation to Western civilization in a different light.
