Nihilistic Authoritarianism: Power as an End-in-Itself

This paper introduces “nihilistic authoritarianism” as a useful concept for political analysis. This term has not been employed before in the scholarly literature, even though the basic idea is familiar from the history of political thought. It is not unusual to say that authoritarians desire power for its own sake. But the basic nihilism of such an idea has not been adequately analyzed. This idea is distinguished from “Platonic authoritarianism,” which consolidates power around a teleological commitment to a set of ethical values or social goals that transcends the political realm. Nihilistic authoritarianism is different. It is “autotelic” in the sense that it does not seek to actualize some further telos or to satisfy some principled justificatory schema. It also tends to consider political power as “autonomous” in the sense that “the political” is severed from other systems of value. Because of its strangeness, nihilistic authoritarianism is often misunderstood and misdiagnosed. The analysis presented here builds upon work found in critical theory and in more recent scholarly discussions of authoritarianism, while offering historical and literary references that help flesh out the phenomenon of nihilistic authoritarianism. In conclusion, a remedy is briefly suggested, which focuses on a broader integration of political power and other ethical and social ends.