Oakeshott and Totalitarianism

Abstract

Michael Oakeshott might seem at first glance to have little to say about totalitarianism and therefore to be an unlikely contributor to either the theory or the practice of Cold War liberalism. The word does not feature in any significant sense in his very extensive writings. If he noted the term totalitarian at all he would have mentally classed it with all those other words like nation-state and popular sovereignty that litter modern political discourse and in his view are best avoided by serious students of politics. Such ideas are derived from rationalist political doctrines and therefore belong to ideological politics. An ideology is an “abstract principle or set of related abstract principles which has been independently premeditated.”¹ Oakeshott believed that ideologies confuse more than they elucidate because they are based on a very superficial view of what politics is about, and prevent clear thinking about its nature.