The Origins of Totalitarianism: Totalitarianism, Ideology and Terror

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt - Book Overview and Thoughts

Mar 08, 2024

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Totalitarian Regimes and Classless Societies: Totalitarian movements often aim for a classless society but achieve it through different means. While Nazi Germany's society became classless relatively naturally, the Soviet Union implemented it more artificially through widespread purges and fear tactics under Stalin's rule.
Propaganda and Fictional Reality: Totalitarian movements rely heavily on propaganda to create a coherent fictional reality for the masses, offering them a sense of purpose and belonging. The content of propaganda matters less than its ability to fabricate a narrative that explains reality, manipulating individuals' beliefs and behaviors to align with the regime's goals.
Scientific Prophecy and Ideological Appeal: Totalitarian regimes emphasize scientific justification for their ideologies, claiming to have discovered secret forces that will bring about radical societal change. They appeal to the masses by offering a vision of a utopian future based on these supposed scientific principles.
Constant Motion and Resistance to Stability: Totalitarian regimes must avoid stability and normalization to prevent the collapse of their fictitious world created through propaganda. They constantly shift goals and regulations to maintain momentum and control over the masses.
Duplication of Administrative Structures: Totalitarian regimes create duplicative administrative structures, placing the party above the state while allowing the state to neutralize the party as needed. This leads to bureaucratic chaos and confusion, serving the regime's objective of maintaining instability.
Claim to Legitimacy through Natural Laws: Totalitarian regimes claim legitimacy by asserting obedience to higher forces, such as natural or historical laws, rather than human-made laws.
Separation of Thought from Experience: Ideologies separate thought from experience, emphasizing logical deduction over lived reality. Individuals are encouraged to rely solely on ideological dogma rather than personal experience or empirical evidence, leading to a distortion of reality.
Prevention of Transformation of Reality: Ideologies hinder the transformation of reality by imposing rigid dogma that cannot adapt to changing circumstances. Ideology cannot learn from experience.

This part of the book may seem less significant because the other chapters have already explained the origins of totalitarianism. However, this section offers some really insightful information about how totalitarianism manipulates the masses before gaining control as well as how it functions when it is in power.

Furthermore, the second chapter of this section, The Totalitarian Movement, is probably the most insightful and interesting. We’ll look into it in this newsletter, but for now, let’s begin with the first chapter.

A Classless Society

As the title of this chapter reveals, Hannah discusses the outcomes of a society without classes, which emerged from the instability of the nation-state structure. As we may already be aware, a central theme in Hannah's political philosophy is the sense of belonging that provides us with purpose and direction. Thus, she argues in this section that when social classes are eliminated, people often feel isolated and in search of meaning, which makes them susceptible to the influence of movements or ideologies.

Now, it's critical to comprehend what classes are in order to move forward. According to Hannah, a population's many interests are reflected in its classes. There are interests shared by the bourgeoisie, working class, and so forth. They all speak for specific political parties, which simplifies and makes it easier to distinguish between the interests of the many different groups that make up a population.

Furthermore, Hannah argues that not all the people belonging to these different classes are political. This means that most of these people are, what she calls, masses, or people with less pronounced political opinions. Individuals who are indifferent to who holds authority or not. Simply put, they don't really seem to mind. This contrasts them with the elite, which are the people who represent them and leave the masses as more passive participants. However, the only time the masses start to worry about political issues, Hannah claims, is when the class system breaks down, that is, when there isn’t a political party that represents their interests.

Consequently, the lack of strong political opinions among these masses makes them easier to organize and control. Hannah characterized these individuals as "atomized," angry, and isolated. These isolated individuals, who emerged from the disintegration of conventional social structures following World War I, felt marginalized and ignored by political parties.

Moreover, the lack of place in society, which makes them lack purpose and direction, and the fact that they were not politically knowledgeable, made them propense to participate in political movements. They did not know what they really needed or wanted, and they did not know what problems needed to be fixed. All they knew is that they wanted to be a part of a movement that seems to be working towards an important milestone that will better the course of events.

Following this, all the totalitarian movements of the nineteenth century had classless societies. However, they all achieved them in different ways. While in Nazi Germany the classless society was achieved almost naturally, in the Soviet Union things needed to be done more artificially.

In order to turn Lenin’s dictatorship into a totalitarian rule, Stalin had to strategically atomize and make the society a structureless mass in order to solidify control. He began by eliminating the classes that owned property, for ideological reasons, and then proceeded to eliminate workers, bureaucrats and police officials. Stalin's regime was known for its liquidation of classes, which was accomplished by widespread purges and guilt-by-association strategies that created a climate of fear and mistrust among the general public.

The fact that both movements had quite different goals accounts for all of the differences in how they were able to achieve a structureless mass. A classless society founded on Marxist-Leninist principles was the Soviet Union's objective, while Nazi Germany wanted to create a society that was "pure" in terms of race by means of racism.

Following this, totalitarian regimes demand absolute loyalty from people in addition to their desire to establish a society without classes. By methodically cutting people off from social connections, this is accomplished. Totalitarian regimes try to eliminate all forms of activity and only allow people to feel like they belong if they join their movement. They accomplish this by offering an ideological framework, which gives them direction and purpose. Instead of discussing political programs, they simply use emotional appeals to persuade people to join a constantly evolving movement.

This brings us to a crucial aspect of these movements: they always give the impression that their actions are not motivated by self-interest. They are successful in convincing the masses that their cause transcends their individual interests.

Now, in our previous newsletter, we mentioned that intellectuals tend to be attracted to these movements. And in this section of the book, Hannah does not think any differently.

Even though totalitarian ideologies seem evil and arbitrary, elite interest in these movements is rooted in a rejection of the status quo and a general disappointment with society. The truth is that elite members of a society, i.e., intellectuals, possess a deeper understanding of the ideological framework prevailing in their societies than anyone else. Totalitarianism provides a platform for intellectuals to question dominant ideologies and a radical break from accepted norms.

Furthermore, by emphasizing activism and terrorism, totalitarian movements drew in both the intellectual class and the mob. In contrast to previous revolutionary societies, terrorism was a way for people to vent their anger and frustration. Hannah draws attention to a difference in the mob's and the elite's perspectives in light of this. While the mob wanted to be in power and rise in fame, the elite valued staying anonymous and despised the cult of genius perpetuated by bourgeois society.

Nonetheless, both groups took pride in seeing reputable establishments fall from grace. This means that the elite's obsession with rewriting history was compatible with the fabrications found in totalitarian propaganda. Totalitarian regimes' distorting of historical facts fulfilled the elite's thirst for destroying established narratives and institutions.

It is noteworthy, though, that Hannah argued that the elite was drawn to totalitarian movements and not to totalitarianism in power, which is an entirely different thing that we will discuss in the upcoming chapters. However, by the time totalitarian movements have seized power it is already too late.

The Totalitarian Movement

We have discussed what the masses are as well as the elite. But it is important to understand that while the movement's momentum convinced the elite and the mob, propaganda was necessary to persuade the masses. The mob and the elite became, in a sense, friends, since they both acted in a team to break apart existing established institutions. However, when the masses were won over, the elite and the mob were driven apart.

Having said that, the topic of this chapter is the totalitarian movement. It is about understanding propaganda and the techniques of totalitarian movements before the terror of their takeover of power materializes.

This chapter has the potential to be especially thought-provoking because it suggests that elements of totalitarianism may be present in contemporary political movements. However, while drawing these parallels is interesting because it can help us in recognizing when things are getting out of control, it's crucial to keep in mind that Hannah is discussing the totalitarian movements of her time.

To start this chapter Hannah discusses propaganda, which she claims is a primary component of political organization. She argues that the important thing about it isn’t the content, but the fact that it creates a coherent fictional reality out of structureless masses, making them go away from the real world and into a world fabricated by lies and false narratives.

To put it simply, what matters is not the ideology itself, but rather that the content creates a coherent fiction that makes sense and explains reality. In a way, what matters is that it provides a sense of purpose and shape to a world in which the masses feel lost, giving them a sense of belonging, despite the fact that this reality is entirely fabricated. In a sense, the masses sacrifice their security and comfort in pursuit of this meaning. Instead of joining the movements to advance their personal interests, the masses prefer to pursue what they believe to be the truth in the midst of a complicated and meaningless existence.

Moreover, totalitarian movements must function in a manner that keeps them close to current information, they cannot just impose their worldview by means of terror. In a sense, they must first persuade before oppressing or causing terror.

This prompts Hannah to claim that, in terms of dealing with the non-totalitarian world, propaganda may be the most significant tool of totalitarianism. She argues that it is possible that some people under totalitarian regimes have not fully embraced the ideology, making the need for exposure to propaganda a constant necessity to further solidify the regime's beliefs.

However, she also adds that while propaganda may involve lies in order to manipulate, it is essential not to let these distortions overshadow the regime's genuine goals, which may not always be apparent.

This leads us to the claim that, once in power, totalitarianism transitions to indoctrination and employs violence not merely to instill fear but to enforce their ideological beliefs. However, what kinds of arguments are totalitarian regimes using?

The crucial point about totalitarianism, according to Hannah, is that because it is a fiction, its concern with certainty is not with facts but rather with creating a prediction or a fictional world and working towards it. That is, it does not matter if it is a lie, what it must do is create a lie and make it come true afterwards. Implying that it does not matter if it happens in the present, as long as it can happen in the future. But, how can totalitarian movements convince people into this?

This brings us to scientific prophecy, and how totalitarian regimes make a strong emphasis on scientific nature to address to the masses. This obsession is characterized by insistence on scientific proofs rather than other means of appeal. The ideological origin of racism and socialism in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, pretended to have found secret forces that would change the universe and end all of the problems faced by humanity.

That being said, the most important aspect of totalitarian movements is that they need to provide a consistent and coherent narrative. They seek patterns of coincidence and consistency to appeal to the masses and fabricate a narrative that makes sense to them. As argued by Hannah, the human mind needs consistency and order to counteract the chaos in reality. Totalitarian regimes exploit this by offering a fictional world that seems more consistent and understandable than reality itself.

With this in mind, the Nazis and Bolsheviks used different tactics that were aimed at manipulating reality to fit their narratives. The Soviets, for example, used the ideology of class struggle to portray the Communist Party as the vanguard of the proletariat fighting against the bourgeoisie. The Nazis, on the other hand, promoted the idea of a Jewish world conspiracy to unify and control the masses.

This means that totalitarian regimes seek to persuade by targeting existing prejudices and stereotypes. The Nazis, for instance, capitalized on anti-Semitic sentiments that were already present in society to scapegoat Jews for reasons that have been seen on previous newsletters. They also blend conflicting ideologies to appeal to a wider audience. The Nazis, for instance, combined nationalism with socialism and named their movement “National Socialism,” when in reality their aims were far from being either totally socialist or nationalist in nature.

Furthermore, she makes the case that totalitarian movements usually attempt to restrict their propaganda efforts to foreign policy or other overseas activities. Nonetheless, there are instances in which foreign spread propaganda clashes with what is being said domestically. Under such circumstances, the regime might provide an explanation to its domestic audience, labeling the opposing propaganda as a "temporary tactical manoeuvre."

For instance, Hannah gives the example of Stalin who struggled with contradictory propaganda after the war with Hitler placed him in the democratic camp. As a result, he likely had to make sudden explanations to reduce the possibility of confusion brought on by the contradictory propaganda narratives. This also meant avoiding specific details about policies or laws, focusing instead on broader themes like race or class struggle. This allows totalitarian regimes to maintain flexibility and control over its message.

Now, we can understand that totalitarian movements seek to control information by isolating the masses from the real world, which ends up shaping people's beliefs and behaviors. This means that totalitarian regimes need to make the members of their world act and react according to the laws of the fictitious world that they’ve created.

This leads Hannah to explain more about the organization in totalitarian regimes. She claims that in order for these movements to control the level of commitment and indoctrination of its followers, they must make distinctions between party members and sympathizers in their front organization. Party members are usually those who have undergone deeper ideological indoctrination and are fully committed to the cause, while sympathizers may support the movement to varying degrees without being fully immersed in its ideology.

This means that totalitarian movements often restrict actual party membership to a select few while actively seeking to increase the number of sympathizers. This allows them to maintain a core of dedicated followers, which is easier to control, while also projecting the illusion of broader support within the population.

However, the primary function of the front organization—in spite of its divisions—is to establish a barrier between the real world and the totalitarian fictitious world. Members are protected from outside influences when they associate with other like-minded people, which affirms the movement's ideological purity and keeps members from challenging its principles. Additionally, these "walls" reduce the possibility of disagreement. Individuals may fear punishment if they deviate from the party line, which solidifies their loyalty to the movement.

In other words, the “walls”create a sort of normalcy in which they start to be immersed in, because remember, totalitarianism aims at removing any touch with the outside real world. Totalitarian regimes have several degrees of fiction, and each one of them is protected from the outside world from the one further out.

Furthermore, as we continue to explain the ways in which totalitarian regimes organize themselves, we can see that although propaganda is useful for organizing, totalitarian regimes also require ongoing maintenance of the fictions they have constructed. These regimes vanish if they don't grow and exercise caution when it comes to opposing ideologies that might run counter to their imagined reality.

This means that, in addition to not admitting everyone to the party, totalitarian regimes use different levels of militancy to assist elite members in transitioning from common supporters to elite members, as well as gradually becoming accustomed to the movement's radical ideology without overwhelming them. This relates to the idea that these regimes strive for several layers of fiction until they become completely disconnected from the real world.

Surprisingly, this reminds me a lot of how secret societies or sects function. Scientology, for example, operates in the same manner: it initially persuades people, but it does not reveal its full radical thinking until the target has been gradually moving up the ranks.

In fact, Hannah claims that totalitarian regimes are similar to secret societies in that they have hierarchical structures, consistent lies to deceive the outside world, a binary division of the world into allies and enemies, and a constant demand for loyalty from their members, even if it means accepting absurdities from leaders.

This breeds cynicism among elite party members, who believe everything the leader says despite recognizing its falsity. Elite members no longer care about the movement's ideological aspects; they understand they are false, and what matters is that the falsehood works. These members are critical to the organization because they know the truth about it and play an important role in the movement's ability to maintain its true objectives.

This leads us to the leader of a totalitarian movement that plays a central role in shaping its ideology, strategy, and organizational structure. Totalitarian leaders often rise to power through the manipulation of internal party politics rather than sheer force or charisma. They cultivate an inner circle of trusted advisors and allies and leverage their support to consolidate power and eliminate rivals.

In addition to this, the leader frequently fosters an air of authority and mystery. The leader's perceived power is increased and followers' loyalty is strengthened by this mystique. As a result, the leader's standing frequently depends on the backing of their inner circle, who act as a bridge between them and the larger membership. This inner circle significantly influences the movement's priorities and direction by limiting access to the leader and influencing decision-making.

Furthermore, the leader ensures that his will is carried out and that everything he says or commands is beneficial to the end goal. This makes the leader irreplaceable because it convinces party members and sympathizers that the complex structures he has built cannot function without his will and commands. This also removes autonomy from members' actions, as everything they do is now the responsibility of the leader. No one needs to explain the reasoning behind their actions in any situation, turning them into instruments of the leader's will.

Finally, one interesting point Hannah makes is that the totalitarian leader's secret private life contrasts to the publicity value that all democracies find in showcasing the private lives of prime ministers, presidents, and kings, which reinforces the movement's goal without confusing or distracting sympathizers, thereby enhancing the fictitious world they seek to create and maintain.

Totalitarianism in Power

When totalitarianism takes power, it must confront reality, which creates one of the most difficult aspects of these movements, namely the need to be in constant motion, as Hannah argues earlier in the book. These regimes must resist stability and normalization because they risk tearing down the movement and destroying the fictitious world they created through propaganda.

Moreover, Hannah emphasizes that totalitarian regimes go beyond a mere tyranny or dictatorship by not only seizing power but also actively reshaping reality to fit their ideological narrative. This means that totalitarianism in power must constantly shift their goals. It is insufficient to simply kill Jews; new goals must be created and recreated on a continuous basis. This is because totalitarianism exists to provide people with direction and meaning, therefore people should always feel as if they are a part of a movement aiming at something bigger.

Additionally, totalitarianism in power must compete with other ideologies, which requires regimes to remove any competing ideology, resulting in perpetual expansion.

In other words, totalitarianism is a fictitious reality that fades away if it doesn't fully dominate. It must be international and global, making nationalism its polar opposite.

This leads us to Hannah's claim, which establishes that totalitarianism is not the same as tyranny or dictatorship, despite some similarities. She claims that a one-party government seizes control of the state and fills its offices with party members, resulting in unity between the state and the party. In contrast, a totalitarian regime attempts to retain the crucial link between the state and the movement. It aims to prevent the party and movement from being absorbed by the state.

As she says in her book by quoting Hitler, "Not the state, but the race is the central focus." That is, the actual power is in the institutions of the movement as opposed to the state.

Consequently, totalitarianism uses the state as a front organization, but in reality the party is the organizational structure of these regimes. The moment a dictatorship transitions to a totalitarian regime it seeks to eliminate realities not only opponents as in the case of a dictatorship.

This means that in order to completely vanish realities, one must employ different kinds of power. Removing a reality inevitably leads to destruction, which is why totalitarianism transforms power into something different - a direct confrontation with reality, the complete eradication of freedom and spontaneity from the human experience. Organization becomes a form of power, in which it creates a unity with no room for spontaneity that eventually helps to keep the movement going.

We will now begin to discuss the various aspects of totalitarian regimes in power, beginning with the totalitarian state. So far, we know that a totalitarian regime must avoid stability. This means that the totalitarian state is inherently unstable; it creates as much as it destroys and recreates regulations.

This leads her to her theory of duplication, which is essentially the duplication of administrations that place the party above the state while also allowing the state to neutralize the party as needed. This means, as mentioned in the previous newsletter, that there are several bureaucracies involved, to the point where there isn't really a structure but rather just a direction. When one law or regulation overlaps with another or does not appear to be consistent with the end goal, it can be ignored or new ones can be created. Nonetheless, the most important aspect of all this chaos is that this is precisely its objective: to create confusion and chaos.

As we saw in the previous chapter, this confusion and chaos place the leader in a position of mystery, which he must maintain in order to maintain the regime. The leader must be perceived as acting unexpectedly in order to keep the public and bureaucrats guessing what he will do next. As everything changes constantly, people continue to live in chaos and confusion, with no trust in anyone, leading them to see the leader as the only one who can be trusted.

Power becomes unstable, it seeks to be constantly mobilized by constantly organizing people and institutions.

This brings us to the secret police whose aim is to terrorize people. These entities are very important to the process of transforming reality. They are the ones who impose the fictitious world on the masses by tormenting them if they do not comply with the new rules of reality.

Furthermore, the main ingredient of this terror is that it replaces an ordinary suspect with an objective enemy. That means that it does not matter what the person has done, as long as the rulers decide these people are enemies, such as Jews or bourgeois in the case of the Soviet Union, they must be terrorized or killed as if they have committed crimes.

This results in suspects being something different; suspects are now everywhere. As previously stated, totalitarian regimes seek unity, forcing the masses to think and act in specific ways. This means that if a line of thought or action deviates from the main ideology, which is easy because people can think and form opinions, everyone becomes a suspect and can be arrested. If anyone can be arrested, party members are constantly terrified because they know they can be arrested and replaced at any time. Again, the goal is to instill confusion, chaos, and terror in those who make up the movement and keep it under control to the point of total domination.

This total domination, as previously stated, is the ability to organize human plurality and differentiation as if humanity were a single individual. Total domination is achieved when each individual is reduced to a never-changing identity of reactions that can be changed at random for any other. It must destroy the plurality that emerges from each individual through ideological indoctrination and terror, as well as destroy the spontaneity, freedom of choice, and action that come with being an individual.

In other words, terror prevents spontaneity and forces men into inaction, making them easier to manipulate and control.

This brings us to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia's concentration camps, where the entire structure of people's lives was geared towards these goals by means of terror, reducing everyone to the level of animals.

Moreover, to begin her claim, she argues that horrible things like wars have happened in the past, but they weren't as bad because they were governed by practicality and common sense, which is difficult to accept, but she is essentially saying that there was a practical aim, making them less terrible.

Totalitarianism, on the other hand, goes beyond this. It shows people that anything is possible. She argues that this is dangerous thinking because the majority of people don’t see it as a warning, but a possibility. Instead of being repelled by the atrocities of a movement, some people are attracted to the power they imply and the possibilities it can lead to. In other words, it teaches men that everything is possible beyond the terror it can cause.

Furthermore, she claims that three things are required to prepare a person to participate in concentration camps: killing the juridical person in man, killing the moral person in man, and killing the individual in man. By killing the juridical person in man, you place certain people outside of the law; in a sense, the camps appear to be outside of a system of laws, which is in line with the arbitrariness that exists in totalitarianism; laws replace laws, resulting in a chaotic and structureless system.

Moreover, killing the moral person renders martyrdom impossible. Setting up the camps in secret keeps morality and opposition away from the fact that they exist because there are no witnesses. Finally, by killing the moral and juridical person, you kill the individual. No room for being yourself is left; all that remains is an individual who acts as a marionette without free will, which means that people have successfully turned into obedient masses.

Finally, she argues that simply knowing about these horrors isn't enough to prevent them from happening again, and that the only effective way to keep them away, is fear of the extreme consequences. She claims that this fear should unite people across different political beliefs to oppose totalitarianism.

However, I believe it is important to consider that while instilling fear can be perceived as an effective deterrent against totalitarianism, it may also hinder progress towards better outcomes. This dynamic can be seen already in our current societies, where historical fears have influenced political discourse in different ways.

For instance, the fear of Bolshevism has led to widespread anti-communist propaganda, particularly in the United States. This avoidance has hindered discussions about alternative perspectives on societal structures and economic systems, preventing the investigation of potential solutions to our current economic system. Anything resembling communism or socialism is automatically revoked.

Similarly, fears stemming from Nazi atrocities have resulted in two different issues: The first is the rise of political correctness and anti-racism movements, which have created an environment in which any opposing viewpoints or comments about race are regarded as threats. This, in turn, has reduced the diversity of perspectives in societal discourse.

Second, this fear has encouraged minorities to rise up and advocate for their rights in an already diverse society, which is not a bad thing. However, because totalitarian movements have historically used propaganda, the opposite side of the political spectrum has responded, fueled by the same fear, by claiming that these tendencies of inclusion or visibility appear totalitarian.

At the end of the day, we have created a world in which each side of the political spectrum fights to the death to prove that the other side is totalitarian, leaving us with a world filled with perpetual hatred for one another, no meaningful or productive discourse, and, most importantly, no societal progress.

To put it simply, creating a world based on fear has prevented us from comprehending the world and each other. It has made us afraid of going the "wrong way," and it has made us vigilant to the point of insanity.

However, this is a topic for another day, and I encourage listeners and readers to expand on this argument.

Furthermore, it appears that Hannah refined her thought with her action theory on the Human Condition, because otherwise, we might be dealing with a paradox in her thinking. Her claim that fear should be used to prevent totalitarianism restricts action, as described in the Human Condition.

Nonetheless, we can leave this discussion here and emphasize Hannah's main point, which is that the only way to prevent totalitarianism in its purest form is to instill fear rather than simply remembering the horrors it has caused.

Finally, Hannah argues that throughout history, people couldn't really understand the idea of pure, extreme evil. Even philosophers like Kant, who tried to explain it, struggled. She argues that this extreme evil comes from a system where everyone, including the leaders, is seen as superfluous, which means basically disposable or worthless. This makes totalitarian leaders especially dangerous because they don't care about their own lives or anyone else's.

This thinking of seeing people as superfluous is dangerous, Hannah argues, especially in a world where populations are growing, and more people become homeless or unproductive. The Nazis and other totalitarian regimes had factories where they killed millions of people, seeing it as a solution to problems like overpopulation or having too many “useless people.” Even after these regimes fall, the idea of using extreme methods to solve big problems like this might still be tempting to some people and Hannah warns about this in her book.

Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government

We are on to the last chapter of the book and here Hannah is going to conclude with the claim on ideology and how it is fundamental to totalitarianism.

We already know why Hannah believes totalitarianism is a completely new type of government that differs from tyranny or dictatorship. These types of governments, while attempting to control and pacify populations by breaking the law and remaking regulations on the fly, do not introduce entirely new political structures or destroy existing social, legal, and political traditions, as totalitarianism does. Totalitarian regimes reduce social classes to masses, replace traditional party systems with mass movements, delegate power from the military to the police, and pursue a foreign policy of global domination.

However, the most important aspect of totalitarianism is that, while previous governments were typically classified as lawless, totalitarianism challenges this by claiming that it strictly sticks to natural laws rather than human-made laws. Despite defying laws, totalitarian rule is not considered as arbitrary; rather, it asserts obedience to higher forces, positioning itself as a lawful embodiment of justice on earth.

Furthermore, totalitarianism claims to know the truth by following natural or historical rules, which means it is not lawless. It aims to transform humanity into containers of these laws, actively carrying out their dictates rather than passively being subjected to them. Totalitarian regimes regard all laws as laws of movement rather than stabilizing forces. As a result, terror in totalitarianism is the realization of the movement's laws, which arise from premises that are imposed on reality.

For example, the Nazis' race laws were justified as expressions of natural laws based on Darwin's evolutionary theories, while the Soviets’ emphasis on class struggle stemmed from Marx's idea of historical determinism. In both cases, nature and history are viewed not as stabilizing sources of authority, but as dynamic movements guiding humanity. Totalitarian regimes used these views of nature, relying on terror as their essence and principle, to try to accelerate the natural or historical process they claim. However, they do so by removing individual freedom and action, reducing people to passive participants in the unstoppable movement of nature or history.

Furthermore, the most important aspect of all of this is that ideologies are scientific in nature, capable of explaining everything from a single premise. They reduce the complexities of life and phenomena to predetermined narratives. Totalitarian regimes use ideologies to justify their actions and maintain control over everything, claiming that they are working towards a predetermined goal.

To elaborate, we can see how the deductive process generated by scientific claims is then used to interpret and explain history, with each event fitting into an ideologically established logical framework.

To put it another way, all claims are logically deduced from axioms or premises that came from the ideology itself, making the processes more important than the idea.

This line of thought appears to connect with what Hannah wrote later in the Human Condition, which explains why she believes human nature cannot be explained or known by man. At the same time, this claim about logical deduction and mental processes is related to the dangers she highlights of relying solely on mental processes that we have created, which hinders spontaneity and experience in favor of mental or human created processes. Ideologies separate thought from experience, focusing entirely on logic. We stop experiencing and exist only in the realm of logical thought and ideas. As a result, totalitarianism does not need to persuade people; instead, the ultimate goal is to render them unable to distinguish between fact and fiction, forcing them to rely solely on the laws of the imposed reality.

Furthermore, the fact that human nature cannot be known by man means that these premises aren’t really connected with being, but with becoming. It means that they justify any act that accelerates the motions of nature or history as claimed by these ideologies.

Moreover, ideologies go beyond claiming human nature from premises. They are independent of all experience and therefore unable to learn from experience, as claimed by Hannah. This means that whatever shows in experience isn’t “truer” than the ideology itself which has created a world of fiction. And lastly, ideologies cannot transform reality since they come from a premise that emerged from a human construct. Hannah argues that reality does not work this way. Life is made up of complexities and there is no proof that there is a specific starting point nor a last destination. In order to change reality, we need to understand it and the dogmatic belief that is found in ideologies hinders them from experiencing and understanding it.

In addition to this, I think her claim on ideology is brilliant, well constructed, and well written. It is by far the easiest to understand for anyone, and even if we believe we live in a post-ideological world, when we apply this argument to our current societies, we cannot avoid seeing ideology rule our lives. Ideology negates actual experiences because it has created a world of fiction, and has constructed laws that claim to come from nature, when in reality their logical nature makes them a human construct. It causes us to reflect on what is important at the end of the day. Experience and empiricism or actual mental processes formed through reason? And most importantly, can we continue to ignore what our eyes and experience reveal to us?

Lastly, ideologies submit entirely to the logic of history and crush freedom by viewing people merely as tools for historical progression. As seen in her book The Human Condition, Hannah describes freedom as the ability to initiate, to interact with others, and to maintain individuality which brings plurality into our societies.

This spontaneity and the ability to initiate are crucial for true freedom in the eyes of Hannah. As described in her book The Human Condition, true freedom is in reality the true spontaneity of people in the practical world. A "beginning" could be something as simple as the birth of a new child. In other words, a beginning is the possibility of something entirely different from what has preceded it. Totalitarian regimes succeed in hindering beginnings and thus spontaneity; they isolate individuals from society and reduce them to mere cogs in a historical machine that runs its course without the possibility of new ideas or beginnings. Hannah compares this to labor, in which individuals contribute to production without truly collaborating.

However, she claims that totalitarian atomization extends beyond and is distinguished by its totalizing nature. Loneliness exists in societies, and it represents more than just being unable to interact with other men, but also being completely isolated from and abandoned by them. Loneliness is linked to men's superfluousness in modern society, because someone who has been completely abandoned by their community is irrelevant to that community. Since loneliness exists in even non-totalitarian societies, totalitarianism must be viewed as a potential threat to the world.

To further explain this, it is important to note that isolation is not synonymous with loneliness. Isolation keeps privacy, and loneliness means being deserted by all human companionship. Totalitarianism is a response to loneliness, but it is a loneliness defined by a sense of not belonging to the world or not finding it meaningful. Hannah believes that when we are immersed in loneliness and meaninglessness, we are unable to trust our experiences or ourselves, and instead rely solely on our human minds and logical reasoning. This is why Hannah encourages political discourse and the politics of friendship, both of which she later investigated. She was a firm believer in the value of human relationships and the importance of maintaining a public space where people could discuss political ideas that led to new beginnings.

Lastly, Hannah warns that totalitarianism is a serious threat to humanity. She claims that, while Nazism and Bolshevism are no longer with us, the conditions that led to their emergence are still present in the modern world. Loneliness and meaninglessness are part of our modern world, and movements offer solutions to them. While our society is plagued by meaninglessness and loneliness, new totalitarian ideas or movements that address these modern problems may emerge. The meaning crisis at its finest.

However, she also expresses some optimism, hoping that the continuous birth of new generations will bring forth new ideas and opportunities for true freedom.

Sources:

Arendt, H. (1951). The Origins of Totalitarianism (2017th ed.). Penguin Classics.

Beyond Thought.

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