“Western names” (party, government,nelection, etc.) is to mislead the publicnabout the nature of regimes which reversena millennium of political developmentnin Europe. These regimes shouldnnot be analogized to the European developmentnjust because totalitarian propagandandoes so for reasons of its own.nvJne of the most misleading wordsn(actively exploited by totalitarian propaganda)nis, in this context, the word “democracy.”nUntil the 1830’s, or even then1930’s, the word was often used “in thenAristotelian sense,” as the opposite ofn”aristocracy.” Today, it has come tonmean the entire hierarchy of the mode ofnfreedom as it developed in Englandnthroughout the present millennium, beginningnwith trial by jury. In the 1930’snthe word began to be the opposite not ofn”aristocracy,” but of totalitarianism as itnappeared in countries like Hitler’s Germany.nThe confusion caused by the newnusage can well be imagined. Literally,nthe word means the “power of thendemos,” that is, the majority, in thenmodern perception. It would be difficultnPop IntellectualitynJeremy Rifkin with Ted Howard:nEntropy: A New World View; VikingnPress; New York.nby John C. CaiazzanJeremy Rifkin is at it again, this timenannouncing his anticapitalist and nogrowthnphilosophy as a world view. Thisnmight seem a little much, but thennagain, why not? The last time Rifkin andnHoward (with the help of the PeoplesnBusiness Commission) put out theirnline, it was as a form of religious prophecynin Who Should Play Go J.”Announcingna world view, therefore, is simply onenmore grandiose way of saying the samenDr. Caiazza is an administrator at thenUniversity of Massachusetts at Boston.nto invent a more absurd misnomer. Hitlernwas elected to his totalitarian position,nand certainly the worst totalitarianntyranny can claim its authority from thendemos, the majority. This was perhapsnwhy the election in Rhodesia in 1979nwhich the annual describes was thoughtnby some Britishers (including PrimenMinister Thatcher) to be “not yet fullndemocracy.” The attempt to realize “fullndemocracy” in Rhodesia by way of a newnelection was, of course, like trying tonbuild a new and more elaborate roof accordingnto the latest word of 20th-centurynconstruction engineering withoutnlearning whether the edifice has anynfoundation or walls—even at the level ofnthe Dark Age.n1 hope that Freedom in the Worldnwill at least stimulate some thinking onnthis subject. Judging by Mrs. Thatcher’snand her advisors’ actions in Rhodesia, itnwould seem that many consider it to benpart of knowledge allegedly imbibednwith mother’s milk, thus sparing one thentrouble of ever opening, in adult life, anhistory textbook. Dnthing, this time not as gospel, but as anbig historical moment. However, inventingnand describing world views is andifficult business requiring an intellectualneffort and access to many differentnforms of information, since the point isnto explain coherently all, or most, aspectsnof a culture as if they were expressionsnof a single idea. This is a hardnintellectual trick to bring off, as the reductionnof all aspects of a culture, fromnits economic arrangements to its schoolsnof philosophy, requires what amounts tonan artistic intuition about these things.nFurthermore, the newly enunciatednworld view must appear as the inevitablenconsequence of the historical movementsnwhich have preceded it: Hegel,nfor instance, could perceive in the Prussiannstate the latest and best expressionnnnof mankind’s search for freedom. Butneven if one does accomplish all this,nthere are always the existentialistsnamong us to point out that there is oftennlittle logic or inevitability apparent innhuman affairs, that if there is, only Godncan understand it, and that you haventherefore imposed an artificial rationalitynupon history. Thus, Kierkegaard’sncriticism of Hegel. It’s obvious, then,nthat Rifkin has his work cut out for him.nTo his credit, Rifkin is onto something,nfor there is a general sense thatnchange is in the air, that a sea change isntaking place in our value system and thatna readjustment of our priorities is atnhand. This change is taking place onnmany levels, three of which it is useful tondistinguish here—the increasing neednfor energy conservation, recent developmentsnin technology and industry, andntheoretical changes in empirical science.nWhat Rifkin has done is to lump thesenthree together and to insist that they arenall going in the same direction, not to anpoint of zero-growth or no-growth, butnto a point where major industries andnthe technological substructure that supportsnthem will be dismantled. On thisnwe should be clear: Rifkin’s is not anphilosophy of no-growth, but one ofnretrogrowth, i.e. of diminution from citynlife and intensive energy usfe to an arcadiannliving style in which technologicalndependence would be reduced and energynconsumption diminished. Rifkin insistsnthat all this must take place as anconsequence of a law of physics, thenfamous second law of thermodynamicsnwhich states that entropy, or the transformationnof energy from a usable to annunusable state, is constantly increasing.nEntropy is, in fact, the single idea mentionednabove, which in Rifkin’s worldnview explains every aspect of thought,nculture and economy in the new agenwhich is about to arrive. Among the aspectsnof our culture that Rifkin seesnundergoing a fundamental entropic shiftnare energy consumption and modes ofnproduction and technological dependencenas well as philosophy, religion andneducation. That’s a lot of freight for oneniS5nMarch/April 1981n