totalism

Noun

totalism (countable and uncountable, plural totalisms)

1. (rare, uncountable, usually) A social, economic and/or political system in which some authority (e.g. the state or "the market") wields absolute power; totalitarianism.
   • If the political totalism of the fascist and communist world once tried, at horrendous human costs, to subordinate all economic, social, and cultural activity to the demands of an overarching state, the economic totalism of unleashed market economics seems now to be trying (at costs yet to be fully...2010, Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy, →ISBN
   • They contrasted the “organic” “leadership” organizations of German and Italian totalism with the “mechanical,” “dictatorship” organization of communist (Soviet) totalism.2011, Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire, →ISBN
2. (countable, rare) A philosophy, ideology or belief system that is total in its scope, one that covers everything.
   • To postmodernists, modernism gave the world science, reason, western civilization, Marxism, Freudianism, and other totalisms. Each of these totalisms tells a grand story that relates everything to everything else by using the system's universal principle as a theme.2004, Personal Epistemology: The Psychology of Beliefs, →ISBN, page 220
   • And ideologists pride themselves above all on what we might call their ‘totalism’. Georg Lukacs, for instance, regarded such totalism as the outstanding characteristic of Marxism: 'It is not the primacy of economic motives in historical explanation that constitutes the decisive difference between...2011, Lewis S. Feuer, Ideology and the Ideologists, →ISBN, page 130
3. (rare, uncountable) Totality; (the) entirety (of something).
   • Once the totalism of Sagehood is grasped, the disciple can throw away his li-books; he will be a perfect ritual actor naturally.1900, Robert Eno, The Confucian Creation of Heaven, →ISBN, page 69
4. (rare, uncountable) Totalness, absoluteness; the characteristic of being absolute in nature or scope.
   • The ideological fervor, the abhorrence of compromise, the attraction to conflict, and the totalism of his family's rejection of white culture were the biographical themes that served him best as he tried to reach the hearts of his followers.1981, The Psychohistory Review, volume 10, parts 2-4, page 173
   • The totalism of his commitment led, in turn, to his practice of taking charge of even the smallest matters and of ruling autocratically, since he believed God was holding him completely accountable for every act of his government.1993, Richard L. Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia, →ISBN, page 211