Historical forgeries and the pathology of power: On silence, mediocrity, and prolonged decline
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper constructs a theoretical framework regarding the "pathology of power" during the succession phase of authoritarian regimes. The author argues that when a successor faces a deficit of legitimacy, the system inevitably regresses into a mechanism of "Defensive Replication" reliant on past totems. This mechanism manifests as a ritual designed to mask current political emptiness and mediocrity by appropriating the violent symbols of the founder. The text dissects the three stages of this pathological evolution: First, "Immunological Compensation," where the successor, through a psychological inversion akin to patricide, purges the moderate legacy of the predecessor and synthesizes artificial toughness through excessive violence. Second, "Structural Degradation," characterized by the "negative selection" of bureaucracy, where independent political elites are replaced by subservient technocrats, causing the system to lose its feedback loops and resilience. Third, "Social Atomization" and "Spectacle Politics," which maintain high-cost static control by severing horizontal social ties and manufacturing visual grand narratives. Finally, the paper introduces the concepts of "Terrarium Politics" and the "Garbage Time of History." It predicts that this involuted mode of control, driven by extreme risk aversion and fiscal exhaustion, will lead not to a dramatic collapse, but to a prolonged systemic necrosis and a nihilistic historical silence.
Author: Archivist,, Fiscal Data
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7128779672
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