Law and Ethics in the Total State

I didn’t personally learn about this in school. And I find that suspicious because contemporary historical parallels are… substantial, and this knowledge could help deter the formation of those systems which commonly lead to large-scale atrocity and incalculable hardship. And it can actually be summarised in brief.

‘The total state must not know any difference between law and ethics’ —Adolf Hitler.

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Nazism

The quote above comes courtesy of Hannah Arendt’s 1950 book, ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’¹. To include a few more phrases from the same page -

‘In practice, this permanent state of lawlessness found expression in the fact that "a number of valid reg­ulations [were] no longer made public." Theoretically, it corresponded to Hitler's dictum that "the total state must not know any difference between law and ethics"; because if it assumed that the valid law is identical with the ethics common to all and springing from their consciences, then there is indeed no further necessity for public decrees‘

And that’s essentially it. If law and ethics are in sync, then there’s no need for a legal framework, and thus, arbitrary rule becomes possible. But, wait, there’s more -

‘The Soviet Union, … even went to the trouble of issuing an entirely new and very elaborate constitution in 1936, an event which was hailed in Russia and abroad as the conclusion of the revolutionary period. Yet the publication of the constitution turned out to be the beginning of the gigantic superpurge which in nearly two years liquidated the existing ad­ministration and erased all traces of normal life and economic recovery…‘

… and as soon as the Soviet Union enacted its 1936 Constitution, the purge began. Let’s deal with those two in succession, but also consider fascim and its ancestor, futurism. Because there’s a pattern here, and it’s one with a very strong.contemporary parallel; one which quite simply must be stopped - or the future looks truly dark for humanity. And yes - this is all about ethics.

A Global Ethic

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Chances are if you asked someone why Hitler came to power, most would reply something to the extent² of the depression³, or the Versailles treaty⁴. Some but no doubt fewer would describe the fear of what took place in the Soviet⁵ Union⁶, the 1919 Spartacist Uprising⁷, or the 1918 Bavarian Soviet Republic⁸.

Fewer yet would tell you about judicial bias, the utter levels of desperation and sheer⁹ degeneracy¹⁰, with children prostituting themselves¹¹ to make ends meet.

And fewer still would tell you about the communists on the streets, perhaps even about the Roter Frontkämpferbund¹² - led by Ernst Thälmann, one of the most notorious communists at the time¹³ - and the bloody clashes¹⁴ between the police and members of the RFB, which resulted in 33 deaths on May 1, 1929 in Berlin, when the KPD held its traditional May Day rallies despite a ban.

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In other words - there’s no single reason why Hitler was elected. There were a whole range of them, as it was a hugely chaotic period. But having ascended to power in 1933, the National Socialists in 1935 and 1936 enacted a range of new laws. Though several are covered through this document¹⁵ - conveniently written in German using a Gothic font, there’s not much point to covering more but the first.

I sent it through a translation service, and… though - as we shall see - it’s more refined than others, but the intent stays much the same.

‘The duty of loyalty is the highest national moral obligation…  In criminal law, the dominant ideas of national community, loyalty, duty, honor, and just atonement, as well as alignment with the national sense of law and morality, must find the highest obligatory expression.‘

Loyalty is a moral obligation, and criminal law must be aligned. Not quite there…

‘National Socialist criminal law must be built upon the national duty of loyalty. Loyalty is the highest national and thus moral duty in National Socialist and German thinking. In German thinking, there is harmony between moral judgment, a sense of duty, and a sense of justice‘

… still just a touch off outright stating the two are identical.

‘The criminal law, because it exists for the sake of the people, must be clearly and popularly worded in its formulation and must reflect the alignment with the national sense of law and morality.‘

… this is almost United Nations levels of circumventing the clincher…

‘In National Socialist criminal law, there can be no formal right or wrong, but only the concept of material justice.‘

… ie, material justice operates outside the scope of a legal framework (constituting right and wrong), and instead becomes a matter of your moral obligation relating to loyalty. But either way -

‘I. For criminal laws:
A. Every serious violation of national duties must be atoned for through criminal punishment.
B. The temporal validity of criminal laws is determined by material justice.
C. The so-called spatial validity of criminal laws is also determined by material justice.‘

… consequently, a violation of your national duties - moral obligation of loyalty - automatically leads to criminal punishment.

‘A violation of duty, which would generally be considered a crime, is not a crime in an individual case if this violation could be deemed necessary or even mandated by a higher duty of loyalty.‘

… consequently, we have ‘layered morality’. A framework of hierarchical ethics.

‘The statute of limitations cannot be separated from the principle of material justice‘

… and crimes committed do not even have a temporal aspect. You could hypothetically be prosecuted for something you did as a child. And to this extent, the death penalty could be invoked.

Consequently what the Nazis in 1935 pushed through was a system of hierarchical ethics, grounded in moral obligation, and used for sakes of ‘material justice’, where the worst crime you could commit was not being loyal to the state… whatever that even entails. Because loyalty could similarly be refined down the road.

Arbitrary rule.

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Marxism

In 1969, Eugene Kamenka released ‘Marxism and Ethics’¹⁶, and it’s an interesting book for a range of reasons, sourced off the Marxists’ own website. Let’s jump straight to the pivotal chapters, starting with ‘Ethics in Soviet Philosophy‘ which goes to detail that dialectical materialism - which Karl Marx probably is most well-known for - doesn’t actually stem from Marx himself, but rather Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Deborin and Stalin. Imagine that!

It questions Lenin’s claims of ‘morality’ given him both counterfeiting and committing bank robberies, before stating that though the Party felt they had to set a moral example, Soviet philosophers struggled to even define what that would entail.

The document carries on -

‘The third element - the philosophy or myth justifying the Party's seizure of power and the Party dictatorship - was provided by the specifically Leninist component in Bolshevism, the elevation of the Communist Party and its cadre of professional revolutionaries as the mouthpiece of history and the representatives of 'consciousness'. It was this element which provided, on the ethical side, the notoriously end-directed ethic of Leninism - the good is that which promotes the power of the Party and hence the coming or consolidation of the Revolution; it is that which is 'on the side of history‘

The third element can be understood as ‘ethics’, acting to - poorly - justify… whatever measures were taken, and Lenin’s ethic was… end-directed. Directive Ethics.

‘… the Revolution was to be a bloody act of purification, a total destruction of the Old World and the inauguration of a radically new society and a radically new set of human relationships‘

… the revolution itself was about a total destruction of history, essentially. The obliteration of old societal structures, values, and relationships, and through violence if necessary. But for all their promises, and all hopes of a truly communist society leading to a society of artistic expression of human nature… well, those promptly disappeared, as the ‘New Society’ practically immediately started the purge from within, with even Alexander Bogdanov falling from grace. And as for the ethics -

‘The true intellectual guardians of Marxist orthodoxy… took little interest in ethics and ethical theory. What litde they did say on the subject was an eclectic mixture of Marx, Engels, Spinoza and Kautsky. Lenin… a pure Machiavellian… subordinated questions of individual and social morality to the tactical problem of the acquisition and maintenance of power‘

Morality, in other words, was a tool to Lenin…

‘"Our morality", he declared in 1920, "is wholly subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.'" These words were echoed by Trotsky, Zalkind and the few other Party men who devoted any attention to ethics at that time‘

… and the few other Soviet revolutionaries who even cared about ethics at all.

‘The positive content of socialist morality was thus turned into a form of labour discipline - emphasis on the 'duty' to work, the 'moral' value of toil, obedience to the collective, … - it became a morality of dedicated obedience and social conformity, a vehicle for Party power and Party control‘

Morality became a tool, a vehicle of state control.

‘The dispute on the relationship of 'ought' and 'is', for instance, which Soviet philosophers handle particularly badly, and the whole problem of establishing moral obligation are not connected with the question at issue between 'materialism' (realism, or naturalism?) and idealism‘

And that’s quite the sentence, as this diverges significantly from classical Marxism, which considers moral obligation and ethical considerations linked to materialism and the socio-economic conditions. In other words - the moral obligation ultimately developed to be as far detached from the claims made in the communist marketing material. Ie, lies.

‘In 1936, with the proclamation of the Stalin Constitution and the announcement that Soviet society had entered upon socialism, the doctrine of the primacy of the economic gave way to a new emphasis on stability and the moral and legal foundations of a socialist society‘

We will return to this document shortly, but - as Arendt above outlined - the ‘gigantic superpurges’ started with this enacted.

‘In the last fifteen years - especially since the Twenty-Second Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961 adopted 'the moral code of the builder of Communism'' - the Marxist exposure of all normative morality as mere ideology or class interest disappeared from Soviet writing‘

Ie all their original promises in terms of morality and ethics being about spirited freedom were stripped. Exposed for being nothing but cynical lies, to be ultimately replaced by -

‘… devotion to the Communist cause, … conscientious labour for the good of society, … a high sense of public duty and intolerance of actions harmful to the public interest, collectivism and comradely mutual assistance, … moral purity, modesty…‘

… the same types of moral obligations it once condemned in the bourgeoisie.

… and here’s the clincher -

‘Conscience and duty are the individual's subjective internalisation of the social interest, his recognition of his interdependence with his fellow-men. Under socialism, they provide man with moral norms that society sets before him, distinguished from legal norms only by the absence of physical sanctions.‘

… morality is the duty to work in the social interest, and morality and law is only separated by force. In other words - a merger of morality and law… where said morality relates to your duties, ie your responsibilities to the state.

Consequently the legal framework merely acts as justification for the use of force, and the framework of morality becomes the controlling aspect.

A merger of law and morality. But as the difference between morality and ethics relates to internally held values and the acting out of those in society, this could also be described as a merger of law and ethics.

Consequently, while ideology differed, the Soviet Union was ruled in exactly the same way as Nazi Germany. Through a societal merger of ethics and legal framework.

From the conclusion we see -

‘The failure to pay serious attention to questions of logic and to linguistic precision is the main reason why it is impossible to speak of a serious Marxist contribution to ethical philosophy‘

And that really isn’t all that strange, because all their claims of ‘ethics’, ‘morality’ and derivatives thereof - like ‘fairness’ or ‘equality’ for instance - ultimately is nothing short of a cynical carrot on a stick, intending to lead those dissatisfied with society towards authoritarianism, via false promises.

Consequently, for the revolution to succeed the first job becomes to manufacture discontent¹⁷. And that typically comes through the process of demoralisation., described by Bezmenov as the first of four stages of Ideological Subversion¹⁸.

And you do that by undermining the societal institutions, eliminating faith in religion, trust in government, through tearing down historical monuments and the rewriting of history, destruction of the family unit, … all complemented via non-stop lies through a complicit mainstream media… in other words, exactly the things you likely experience at present, should you live in a Western nation.

As for the 1936 Stalin Constitution¹⁹… oh, look - Rights and Duties.

… and in the 1961 Moral Code of the Builder of Communism²⁰ we see… devotion to the communist cause…labor for the good of the society… high sense of the public duty… collectivism… all of which detail your responsibilities towards the state.

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Fascism

Next, let’s have a look at ‘The Doctrine of Fascism’ (1932) by Benito Mussolini²¹… and there are just so many quotes, so let’s just focus on a few -

‘Fascism sees in the world… individuals and generations bound together by a moral law, … builds up a higher life, founded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by self sacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, …‘

Morality, duty, self-sacrifice, …

‘This positive conception of life is obviously an ethical one… No action is exempt from moral judgment; no activity can be despoiled of the value which a moral purpose confers on all things. Therefore life, as conceived of by the Fascist, is serious, austere, and religious; all its manifestations are poised in a world sustained by moral forces and subject to spiritual responsibilities.‘

… ethics, morality, duties, responsibilities…

‘Fascism is therefore opposed to all individualistic abstractions based on eighteenth century materialism… The rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual…‘

… where all rights are invested in the state, and not the individual…

‘Rather it is the State which creates the nation, conferring volition and therefore real life on a people made aware of their moral unity… Indeed, it is the State which, as the expression of a universal ethical will, creates the right to national independence.‘

… and through a common set of values - universal ethics - the state creates the nation.

‘The Fascist State is an inwardly accepted standard and rule of conduct, a discipline of the whole person; it permeates the will no less than the intellect. It stands for a principle which becomes the central motive of man as a member of civilized society, …‘

… and that nation is through each and every person embodied through that common set of ethical standards.

And although we could dive into detail as to what separates scientific socialism and fascism, I fail to see the point. Ultimately -

‘The Fascist accepts and loves life... Life as he understands it means duty, elevation, …‘

Actually, let’s include a couple of major differences of contemporary importance -

‘Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can be the determining factor in human society; it denies the right of numbers to govern by means of periodical consultations… The maxim that society exists only for the well-being and freedom of the individuals composing it does not seem to be in conformity with nature’s plans, which care only for the species and seem ready to sacrifice the individual‘

… but ultimately - noe of that matters. Because should fascists gain power, they could hypothetically decide to go full commie on only the following day. After all, it’s not as though you could realistically vote them out.

No point in spending too much time on the final 3 pages, but -

‘Hence the pragmatic strain in Fascism, it’s will to power, its will to live, …‘

… which ties in with Nietzsche…

‘The Fascist State is wide awake and has a will of its own. For this reason it can be described as “ethica.”‘

… ie the Fascist State embodies a system of ethics or moral principles which guide actions and governance. And in this context, ‘wide awake’ implies that it’s not a passive but an active force of morality which directs society on basis of ethics.

Consequently, as all rights are granted to the state… ethics in effect become law. There are other quotes to this extent in the text, but let’s move on.

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Futurism

Finally, let’s have a quick look at the ‘Founding and Manifesto of Futurism’²² from 1909. which can further be located in the ‘Futurist Manifesto’²³. This served as a front-runner for fascism, with some notable similarities. We first have an emphasis on the role of violence -

‘Except in struggle, there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man‘

Before hammering home the point -

‘9. We will glorify war - the world’s only hygiene - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.

10. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice‘

… through which we also discover that they seek to destroy… history… along with the existing patterns of morality… which the communists also oppose.

‘Come on! set fire to the library shelves! Turn aside the canals to flood the museums! ... Oh, the joy of seeing the glorious old canvases bobbing adrift on those waters, discoloured and shredded! ... Take up your pickaxes, your axes and hammers and wreck, wreck the venerable cities, pitilessly!‘

It’s a revolution, and everything must go. Especially history.

… and just to ram it home²⁴ -

‘Filippo Tommaso Marinetti… became an active Fascist, an enthusiastic backer of Mussolini, and argued in Futurismo e Fascismo (1924) that Fascism was the natural extension of Futurism‘

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There’s a theme visible through Marxism, Fascism and Nazism. It’s the merger of law and ethics. It’s the rejection of the legal framework, to be replaced by one based on ‘ethics’ or ‘morality’, as this leads to one, absolutely ripe for abuse. It leads to arbitrary rule, in other words. Absolute rule by the few.

A system governed by ‘ethics’ can on a whim be weaponised against anyone (or even everyone), with little if any oversight or appeals process. It allows for dynamic redefinement in the interest of power.

And though you of course can point to specific cases or circumstances relating to abuse of the existing legal framework, the fusion of ethics and law will only hyper-accelerate that issue, because while a legal framework stipulates what you’re legally entitled to do, and an appeals court operating to these same principles encoded in law, one based on the vagueness of ethics is far more open to interpretation. Then add biased judges, at et voila.

And this allows those in power to selectively interpret the law as they see fit, which is extremely useful when dealing with inconvenient, dissident citizens.

Consequently, the above can be best be described as Governance through Ethics. And should you decide to take that global, it’d best be described as

Global Governance through Global Ethics.

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Consequently, a totalitarian society is one governed through ethics, and hints suggesting we’re being moved in that direction would include -

undermining the societal institutions, eliminating faith in religion, trust in government, through tearing down historical monuments and the rewriting of history, destruction of the family unit, …

• The existing order appears to be breaking down.

• Endless migration, going unchallenged by politicians.

• Politicians granting said illigal immigrants the right to vote.

• Judges ruling arbitrarily - ie, ‘human rights’ principles - in ways, with one-dimensional benefits only.

• The mainstream media being quite simply incapable of telling the truth.

• The ridicule of religion and the undermining of our institutions.

• Subversive attacks on those things we treasure the most - like our celebrations during Christmas or Easter.

• Excessive criticism of our history, while refusing to discuss others.

• Dissidents speakers being specifically targeted.

• Vague ‘ethics declarations’ being imposed upon every strata of society, and increasingly being enforced… as the case was during the alleged pandemic.

• Culture acts to demoralise tradition, and being used as a secondary vehicle for subversive narrative propaganda.

• Universities education which is incapable of standing up to scrutiny.

• Science increasingly being considered equivalent to absolute truth, and not open to scrutiny or criticism.

• Statues of historical figures being torn down through mob justice.

• Police being ordered to uphold the law very selectively.

• Increased weaponisation of courts.

• Politicians increasingly speaking of ‘moral responsibilities’, or perhaps even ‘global ethics’.

Consequently, what we’d be looking for in a contemporary, global context is a topic which - through allegedly based on science - quite simply must go unchallenged, especially by the mainstream media, and with any opposing point of view not only going ignored but actively censored, but where this narrative is further pushed through education, and from which a global ethic is synthesised and pushed into law - completely unchallenged.

And I’m sure you see where I’m²⁵ going²⁶ with²⁷ this²⁸.

Climategate

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But this of course will not be framed though ‘ethics’, because that would be honest, and that’s now how they operate. No, it will be framed as ‘rights versus responsibilities’, or even ‘duties’. Here’s an example, courtesy of Gordon Brown in 2020.

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights

Or, alternatively, we could use one provided by Tony Blair… actually, no - let’s do it through Anthony Giddens²⁹ instead. Same thing, though.

The Third Way.

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Next, we’ll discover which political candidates promote a system of ethics, and which promote a legal framework. Until then, I do note that the Carnegie Council at this very moment³⁰ celebrate their ‘Global Ethics Day’. And in that regard, do realise that the speaker below is stating that your personal morality counts for nothing; no, it must be dismissed, replaced by a top-down defined purposive ethic… which will eventually beome a responsibility for the environment.

The infinite kind per Emmanuel Levinas³¹, adopted in an environmental setting by Hans Jonas³², and pushed through Global Ethics by… Hans Kung.

1. https://cheirif.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/hannah-arendt-the-origins-of-totalitarianism-meridian-1962.pdf

2. https://www.historydiscussion.net/history/history-of-germany/the-germany-revolution-and-the-weimar-republic-1918-1933/1792

3. https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-Adolf-Hitler-rise-to-power

4. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-did-adolf-hitler-happen

5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Red-Terror

6. https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor

7. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/spartacist-uprising-berlin

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Soviet_Republic

9. https://academic.oup.com/book/9139/chapter-abstract/155737209?redirectedFrom=fulltext

10. https://books.google.nl/books/about/Voluptuous_Panic.html?id=li2uQgAACAAJ

11. https://www.ranker.com/list/weimar-republic/lea-rose-emery?utm=

12. https://kgparl.de/publikationen/der-rote-frontkaempferbund-1924-1929/

13. https://www.dhm.de/lemo/biografie/ernst-thaelmann

14. https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/innenpolitik/roter-frontkaempferbund

15. https://sci-hub.ru/10.1515/9783110892055-034

16. https://www.marxists.org/archive/kamenka/1969/marxism+ethics.pdf

17. https://sundayguardianlive.com/investigation/manufacturing-discontent

18. https://unintendedconsequenc.es/bezmenovs-steps/

19. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/12/05.htm

20. https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/cpsu/1961/builder-communism.htm

21. https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf

22. https://www.mccc.edu/pdf/vpa228/the%20founding%20and%20manifesto%20of%20futurism%20-%20marinetti.pdf

23. https://books.google.nl/books/about/Futurist_Manifestos.html?id=84CYjgEACAAJ

24. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Filippo-Tommaso-Marinetti

25. https://earthcharter.org/wp-content/assets/virtual-library2/images/uploads/The%20Earth%20Charter%20as%20a%20Global%20Ethic.pdf

26. https://earthcharter.org/podcast-list/ron-engel-podcast/

27. https://earthcharter.org/new-book-launched-the-earth-charter-a-framework-for-global-governance/

28. https://earthcharter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Inspiration-for-Global-Governance-Lubbers-and-Lambooy-6.pdf

29. https://bibliotecaia.ism.edu.ec/Repo-book/t/TheThirdWay.pdf

30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiXO5puLFiU

31. https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789401206877/B9789401206877-s008.xml?language=en

32. https://hal.science/hal-03187462v1/document