Professor Dr. Dean Komel, research member of the International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic) has published the book Totalitarium, in which he has dealed the phenomenon of totalitarian structure; however, the discussion is not limited to the totalitarianisms of the 20th century, but considers the ontological, metapolitical, biopolitical, and technoscientific aspects of the elevation of society to the state of unconditional subjectivity. The phenomenological unfolding of the archontics of the world as the whole of Being serves as the basis for a structural definition of the system of “social power,” which triggers the systematic “control of the world.”
In the first part, the research focuses on the philosophical works of Martin Heidegger, Vanja Sutlić, and Ivan Urbančič, insofar as they represent both a direct confrontation with the totalitarian reality in the 20th century as well as an attempt to think totalitarianism from the viewpoint of key metaphysical elements (Absolute, Will to Power, Nihilism, Gestell, Imperialism, Totalitarium). On this basis, reflections are made on the totalitarian reverberations of past social revolutions and historical nihilism, which are also presented within the current debate on European future and global justice. Furthermore, it is important to consider the conjunction of capital, technology, and politics, which in the unbridled will to control the world concerns the balance between freedom and justice that affects not only sociability, but also the very humanness of the human being. The total functionalization of human resources for production and consumption is accompanied by existential indifference and thoughtlessness, which, as Hannah Arendt already indicated, fundamentally characterizes the totalitarian structure.
