“… The totalitarian movements that have arisen after the First World War are basically religious movements. Their aim is not only to change political and social institutions, but also to remodel the nature of man and society.” — Waldemar Gurian, The Totalitarian State

“In the totalitarian movements of the past, this golden age was envisioned to be one of racial purity, or a Communist utopia of equality, efficiency, and prosperity for all. Today this totalitarian “golden age” is one in which mankind exists in harmony with mother earth, or in its more extreme form, an age where man merges with machine and transcends biological limitations of disease and death. Needless to say, totalitarian utopias never come to fruition, for as Karl Popper warned:

“The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.”Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies

“These utopian visions do, however, succeed in stimulating the religious enthusiasm of the masses and totalitarians use these visions to convince the population that the utopian end justifies any, and all, means – be it mass-surveillance, censorship, widespread oppression, mass-imprisonment, or even the extermination of groups of people.”