The essay discusses the state of democracy in today's world, paying attention to conformity, totalitarian trends, and totalitarianism as threats to democracy. One of the main arguments is that conformism and totalitarian trends as such do not yet equal to totalitarianism, but external conformism and the concentration of power in the hands of some groups might offer a trajectory bound to totalitarianism. A holistic three level model differentiating between representation, structure, and drive is construed both a means of showing what is going on and as a means of finding a cure. The model is inspired by a monistic turn in the middle of the previous century. Eino Kaila, Arthur Koestler, and Paul Tillich are identified as central figures in that turn. What is common for them is that they started to anchor thought in life, seeing life as a unity. The article concludes with a discussion of re-establishing the center of personality as a way of counteracting totalitarian tendencies.