In the Bestiarum (A Contribution to the Cultural Anthropology of Real Socialism)

Every society can be understood in terms of tension between two realms: transcendence, embodied in art & philosophy, & the bestiarum, embodied in inhumane & destructive institutions. Barbarism is a condition in which transcendence is no longer successfully maintained. Liberal capitalism is not barbarism as transcendence remains actively present in society. Naziism & fascism, on the contrary, bring the bestiarum to the fore. The bestiarum of real socialism, or dictatorship over needs, is often identified with the GULAG system, but also includes brutal indifference, mob-like rudeness of personnel, an atheism without moral values, & a Jacobinism embodied in hostility to personal conscience & collective moral slandering of the enemy. Techniques that create this bestiarum include: mobilization of the infinity of time against the finiteness of individual life; abandonment of target groups to nature; & subordination of the body to the soul, as in confinement of dissidents in insane asylums. Real socialism is a neurotic social pattern, whereas Naziism was a hysterical one. This new barbarism appears unlikely to give rise to any new transcendence. W. H. Stoddard.