The Origins Of Totalitarianism - Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, The Human Condition, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age. At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes of her last major philosophical work, The Life of the Mind, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging).
the origins of totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt, a German-born woman of Jewish descent, witnessed the rise of antisemitism in Germany in the early 1930s and even got arrested by the Gestapo. The Origins of Totalitarianism, a thick volume on political philosophy, written in the aftermath of World War II, is Nietzschean in its approach (cf. On the Genealogy of Morality) and covers a vast amount of topics:
a) Antisemitism and Jewish identity, through its varied and palpable expressions — with a focus on the divisive Dreyfus affair, in France, at the turn of the 20th century.
b) Imperialism, or the domination of the wealthy and the capitalistic expansionism over a Mob that seeks a hard-headed leader and is ready to believe in an uncomplicated ideology.
c) Totalitarianism, by way of its two central figures (at the time): Nazism and Bolshevism — not to be confused, says Arendt, with other regimes such as despotism, tyranny or dictatorship, since totalitarianism proper is based on turning people into a commodity, the prohibition to dissent and the absence of privacy. Internet and big-data surveillance, in this sense, might well be, nowadays, a totalitarian’s dream.
One can undoubtedly skip the massive bulk of this book (600+ pages) and go straight to the last section, a very dynamic text titled Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government. This chapter is a masterful analysis of ideology. In particular, the author describes the complicated relationship between ideologies and truth. Indeed, ideological frameworks are often based on superstition, magical thinking, pseudo-science or disputed theories, yet claim to be the sole and total truth. Its precepts supersede facts (remember the debate between “fake news” and “alternative facts”), and anything that does not back up the ideology’s belief system or final purpose should be considered a “hoax”. In other words, canned messages and comforting fantasies need to win over the complexities of reality. However, suppose an ideology is having a hard time because reality is a bit too chaotic to handle? In that case, there are still practical last resorts, such as the “ostrich approach” or the “scapegoat approach” (heap abuse on the wayward minorities or on those who stand up for the facts).
In short: an ideology needs people who cannot make the difference between fiction and reality and consent to be led like lemmings. In Arendt’s own words: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist” (Penguin paperback edition, p. 622). Moreover, this ideal subject of totalitarian rule is best brewed when people mope around in isolation, loneliness, impotence, “uprootedness” and “superfluousness” (let us add unemployment, poverty and distress): an all too common experience in our postmodern condition. And once a rule of terror is established, no one is ever loitering, floundering or left alone anymore.
Arendt’s examples are mainly Nazism and Bolshevism. However, her book can help to decipher other political regimes. For instance, in fiction: Kafka’s world in The Trial, Orwell’s Oceania in 1984 or Atwood’s Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale. More importantly, of course, it can help us think of today’s regimes in different parts of the world. It is also an invitation to reflect on the disturbing tendencies of the populist/nationalist movements, sprouting almost everywhere and running the risk of becoming the germs of future forms of totalitarianism.
a) Antisemitism and Jewish identity, through its varied and palpable expressions — with a focus on the divisive Dreyfus affair, in France, at the turn of the 20th century.
b) Imperialism, or the domination of the wealthy and the capitalistic expansionism over a Mob that seeks a hard-headed leader and is ready to believe in an uncomplicated ideology.
c) Totalitarianism, by way of its two central figures (at the time): Nazism and Bolshevism — not to be confused, says Arendt, with other regimes such as despotism, tyranny or dictatorship, since totalitarianism proper is based on turning people into a commodity, the prohibition to dissent and the absence of privacy. Internet and big-data surveillance, in this sense, might well be, nowadays, a totalitarian’s dream.
One can undoubtedly skip the massive bulk of this book (600+ pages) and go straight to the last section, a very dynamic text titled Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government. This chapter is a masterful analysis of ideology. In particular, the author describes the complicated relationship between ideologies and truth. Indeed, ideological frameworks are often based on superstition, magical thinking, pseudo-science or disputed theories, yet claim to be the sole and total truth. Its precepts supersede facts (remember the debate between “fake news” and “alternative facts”), and anything that does not back up the ideology’s belief system or final purpose should be considered a “hoax”. In other words, canned messages and comforting fantasies need to win over the complexities of reality. However, suppose an ideology is having a hard time because reality is a bit too chaotic to handle? In that case, there are still practical last resorts, such as the “ostrich approach” or the “scapegoat approach” (heap abuse on the wayward minorities or on those who stand up for the facts).
In short: an ideology needs people who cannot make the difference between fiction and reality and consent to be led like lemmings. In Arendt’s own words: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist” (Penguin paperback edition, p. 622). Moreover, this ideal subject of totalitarian rule is best brewed when people mope around in isolation, loneliness, impotence, “uprootedness” and “superfluousness” (let us add unemployment, poverty and distress): an all too common experience in our postmodern condition. And once a rule of terror is established, no one is ever loitering, floundering or left alone anymore.
Arendt’s examples are mainly Nazism and Bolshevism. However, her book can help to decipher other political regimes. For instance, in fiction: Kafka’s world in The Trial, Orwell’s Oceania in 1984 or Atwood’s Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale. More importantly, of course, it can help us think of today’s regimes in different parts of the world. It is also an invitation to reflect on the disturbing tendencies of the populist/nationalist movements, sprouting almost everywhere and running the risk of becoming the germs of future forms of totalitarianism.
