Totalitarianism and Shared Values, a Management by the Discourses? The International Olympic Academy as a Totalitarian Experience

Resumo

This article intends to remind how the Olympic movement comprises the germs of totalitarianism known as the continual project of the command of a common ideal to individuals. The articlewill try toexplain howsuch a logic canbe realized at amicro-organizational scale, meaning at the level of interactionsbetween individuals.This article is also the result of a particularly theoretical thought by researchers who have taken part in the organization and have actively observed and participated to it.Given the importance of micro-powers in totalitarianism and the analysis being developed around the mechanism of knowledge and powerby Michel Foucault, it stands out that the speech logics have a sharp and permanent influence, far from the idea that the power and strength of great speeches would be the main cause for the influence on their addresses.An intra-organizational analysis has indeed made it possible to determine that the importance of the organizational speech is the main aspect both to spread the Olympic ideology, to set the individual in a pre-established cognitive mechanism and to strengthen the bond between the members of the organization essential to ensure its continuity. This article intends to go beyond the macro-social conception of the influence of masses that establishes the aura of the leader or the charisma of an idealized speech and intends to show that the ideology develops in the subtle game of micro-relations and requires to be spread by everyone. The combination of speech and action within the interpersonal relations seems to be the main aspect of the ideological influence on its members.

DOI: 10.5585/podium.v1i2.29