"It is ultimately a cruel misunderstanding of youth to believe it will find its heart's desire in freedom," says Leo Naphta, the great character of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" "Its deepest desire is to obey." On Sunday, voters as far apart as Caracas and Vladivostok took to the polls and put Naphta's theory to a practical test.
The phenomenon in which masses of people enthusiastically sign away their democratic rights is not new:
But it's one that Americans especially have a hard time coming to grips with.
That is the crucial context in which Chavismo and Putinism need to be understood. "The totalitarian phenomenon," observed the late French political philosopher Jean-Francois Revel, "is not to be understood without making allowance for the thesis that some important part of every society consists of people who actively want tyranny: either to exercise it themselves or--much more mysteriously--to submit to it. Democracy will therefore always remain at risk."
clipped from: www.opinionjournal.com