Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism.

Arendt’s interest in the development of totalitarian regimes stems from its morbid originality, differing essentially from all other forms of political oppression, such as despotism, tyranny and dictatorship. Whenever a totalitarian regime has arisen, its success has relied heavily on the dismantling of the nation’s traditional and spiritual ideology, taking advantage of the ability to unite the masses once these divides have been removed. Once a nation has been united under one ideology, often following the failure of traditional political values (such as the German hyper-inflation pre WWII), the totalitarian government can then act in any way they see fit, as it’s no longer restricted by the regulations of long standing tradition, justifying itself as a new ideology that is superior to all aspects of the former powers. This begs the question, can a totalitarian regime last? As with the development and stabilising of the new regime, laws must be passed in order to maintain the ideology in the long term, however, it is at this point that the darker aspects of said ideology come to light (a good example being the Nazi regime’s anti-Semitic tendencies), creating divides once again between those within the regime.

Looking at the birth of totalitarian regime within its historical context seems to offer a justification for a regime which in its final form seems unjustifiable. Following the development of the British Empire, Darwin’s theories on the origin of species, Nietzsche’s declaration of the death of God and the industrial revolution, European civilisation went through a relatively peaceful 100 years, which lead to a general sense of humanities progression and superiority over those who had come before, meaning that European perspective was one of evolutionary success, overcoming the more animalistic aspects of the species. With this in mind, it seems far more appropriate that national cultures, such as Russia and Germany should be swept up by the fervour of a new system supposedly aiming to progress society into more advanced and unchartered territory. Totalitarian regimes offered the final steps toward the end product of human evolution explored by the philosophers of the time, with the Nazi regime adapting the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche and his Ubermensch and Stalin twisting Marxist Communist ideals to fit his own ends in the same way.

Through this contortion of these philosophies, the totalitarian regime is able to lift itself from the restraints of even its own law, under the pretence that the state’s decision is the perfect one, as it claims to be progressing towards the final point, where mankind becomes the embodiment of natural law, without deteriorating into lawlessness. In this sense, totalitarian government lends itself towards the philosophies of John Locke as opposed to Hobbes, with regard to natural law, suggesting that the state can engineer this final stage, as long as it is not opposed, justifying the tendencies of such regimes to world domination.

This sense of the totalitarian government’s superiority over “inferior races” distorts those within the regime’s sense of “guilt and innocence”/right and wrong/good and evil as those who would stand in defence of the “inferior races” are “guilty” of standing in the way of the natural law that requires inferior beings to “wither away”, thus actively defining themself as an inferior being. This allows the regime to redefine justice and law as their own will, requiring a mass movement to oppose it.

Therefore, the intent of a totalitarian regime is to bring those within it together as one, removing their individuality and restricting their ability to break away from the purpose of the regime and thus the regime itself. This purpose, as mentioned before is the self-proclaimed acceleration of the natural law of movement, which seeks to eliminate all weakness from the species, giving them the right to eliminate all opposed to their ideal. The way in which totalitarian regimes enforce this “oneness” of its people is through strict bureaucracy at every level, ensuring that all members are directly underneath another member of the society all the way through to the founders of the ideology. This means that no individual is capable of counteracting the progress of the regime without being singled out and thus, punished, as for the person above them in the hierarchy to ignore it, they would have to out themselves as against the system.

Arendt’s redefines the word terror for The Origin of Totalitarianism: Terror, as Arendt uses it, defines the essence of the natural law of movement, which totalitarian governments profess to accelerate. Terror is the warped view of evolution or natural law, which totalitarian governments use to justify the extermination of others.

 

 “Total terror, the essence of totalitarian government, exists neither for nor against men. It is supposed to provide the forces of nature or history with an incomparable instrument to accelerate their movement.”

“By pressing men against each other, total terror destroys the space between them.”

 

By this, Arendt is suggesting that this terror is the essence of a world even more anti-social than that of Hobbes, as whilst one might be part of a “superior” collective to begin with, total terror’s requirement for the superiority of the fittest would lead to terror, that which bound the society together, becoming the reason for its collapse into smaller factions of those who believe themselves superior within the original regime once all other “inferior” classes/races had been extinguished. Thus, terror, though never called terror by any regime, is the scapegoat for the heinous acts of these regimes, as it is the terror that passes judgement over who should live and who should “wither away”. This removes the responsibilities of choice that is so emphasised by post-war philosophers; and is indeed one of the main features of Jean Paul Sartre’s philosophy.

From this, Arendt believes it is therefore not a case of those within the regime being evil or inherently bad people, rather a people stripped of the ability to take the responsibility of choice upon them; it is this that Arendt considers their crime. Basically a system constructed by Sartre’s “bad faith”. This usually goes against one’s view of humanity and the irrational belief that people of one’s nation or class could not act in such a way. Yet, taking into account psychological tests such as the Milgram experiment and the Stanford Prison experiment it becomes clearer that it is possible for people, who to most would be considered good, can act in ways that we would consider evil once we remove their individuality and employ them as a cog within a regimented system. The Stanford Prison experiment is particularly interesting on the basis that it shows the way in which even the prosecuted assume a role within this system, meaning that for the most part they accept their conditions, regardless of the depravity of such a situation due to the continual reaffirmation from peers and others around you to fulfil a role within the systems of the regime.

 

From these experiments it seems that most of us are heavily influenced by our social restrictions, such as those who were under totalitarian regimes that suggest we should chase the will of nature or history to the detriment of those who are deemed inferior peoples by the regime, OR capitalist economics, that suggest we should chase profit at the detriment of millions who die in lesser economically developed countries every day, after being convinced by a system/regime that places value only upon its own concept, money, and that it isn’t profitable to help those oppressed by the system, at least not in the same way that war and the development of military technology is within the monetary regime. If we accept that we are, as a whole, easily influenced by the restrictions of any social system we find ourselves within, then it becomes paramount that we should retain as much individual freedom as possible if we are to avoid the destructive nature of bureaucracy and social programming.

 

“If the essence of government is defined as lawfulness, and if it is understood that laws are the stabilising forces in the public affairs of men (as indeed it always has been since Plato invoked Zeus, the god of boundaries , in his Laws), then the problem of movement of the body politic and the actions of its citizens arises. Lawfulness sets limitations to actions, but does not inspire them…”

 

Whilst, for the most part Arendt’s philosophies on the nature of totalitarianism and the methods of its success seem quite sane, there is an ironic lack of perception regarding Plato’s Republic when Arendt makes reference to Plato’s laws as representative of lawfulness, which Arendt attributes to non-totalitarian society, yet Plato’s Republic shares many similarities with that of totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany, with the philosopher king basing his unquestioned rule on the principle of basic axioms of their ideology, yet, was this not the exact role of Hitler or Stalin within a bureaucratised system that split its populous into singular pluralities based on function, much like the warrior and labour classes of Plato’s republic, thus Plato’s republic, chose the executioners of terror’s rule based upon their abilities performing a function, forming the warrior and labour classes in the same way that Himmler used race to choose who should become part of their elite force of SS troops and other classes within the Nazi regime. With these similarities considered, I would disagree with Arendt’s view that the Nazi and Stalin regimes were the pioneers of totalitarian politics on the basis of one of the very examples she uses as an alternative to totalitarianism.

Having said this, Arendt’s study of the totalitarian political system offers a very interesting and perhaps frightening perspective regarding the vulnerability of human morality when under the influence of  socio-political programmes, as well as a deeper understanding of human psychology and the influences of historical events on the general mind-set of a culture. Also, how the only way to prevent the recurrence of totalitarian regimes is through constant vigilance and awareness of our susceptibility to contemporary systems.

“It is not recognised that large corporations are the only unit of organisation capable to manage planning on a scale appropriate to contemporary high-technology ventures. A world without large corporations would be a world without technologically advanced products.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 1972.

I do not disagree in so far as, yes, within the current system of economy where an amount of debt is created by any business venture due to the nature of the ever inflating economy, only the large corporations, who can exploit the slave trades of smaller and more debt ridden countries can actually manage to pass on the debts to smaller corporations.

For example, if we take the fact that these multi-national corporations are larger in terms of their economic power than most countries including some surprising European countries, such as Greece and Poland (the source of this info can be seen here: http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html), and consider that therefore, competing for profit within the same markets, the debts must be shifted to the weakest countries in order to maintain profits for the stronger economic competitors. The fact that these Corporations are privately owned and serve only their profit margins means that they have no responsibility to a people and unflinchingly put countries in debt, seeing them as competitors, allying themselves with the higher powers of nations such as a the US in order to maximise profits at the expense of entire nations.

Iraq, under the control of Saddam Hussein, refused to let American corporations come in to extract oil, in order to reap the economic benefits themselves, this idea was of course rejected by the multi-national corporations and the US Government from which they were spawned, this led to the use of what is termed an ‘economic hitman’ (the first example of this method of resource extraction was Iran, 1953 when Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister began to stand against the multi-national oil companies, asking that they pay more toward the people of Iran, rather than just exploiting the resources of Iran to the benefit of themselves, looking to take over the British oil assets within their own country, which is entirely understandable. Of course the British and US governments as well as the privately owned corporations who currently extracted the oil were not happy. Yet, as it was a perfectly reasonable request, the usual response of military action was not appropriate, or cost effective. It was at this point that CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (relative of Teddy Roosevelt) was sent over to Iran with a few million dollars and was very effective in raising the ‘coup d'état ’ against Mossadegh, bringing him out of power in a relatively short amount of time, and in a way that was far more cost-effective than military action. They then brought in Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī, who was far more lenient towards the oil companies. However, it was decided that the risk of repercussion through the use of a government agent was too great and decided to use private consultants from branches of the corporations in order to make the use of these ‘hitmen’ more anonymously.), the economic hitman in this case however failed to bend Saddam Hussein to their will, with him apparently rejecting an offer similar to the one accepted by the house of Saud in Saudi Arabia. This led to the second stage of the extraction process; the use of ‘Jackals’ whose job it is to instigate the overthrow of a government, or assassinate the current leader. These Jackals could not get by Hussein’s very tight personal security though, and so they too failed, this is most likely because, according to John Perkins (Author of: Confessions of an Economic Hitman) Hussein himself was a former employee of the CIA, used to assassinate a former president of Iraq and had failed, meaning that he knew the system that would be used against him. This led to step three of the system: Military invasion in 1991. This led to the destruction of the Iraqi military, leaving Hussein defenseless, this meant that, at this point Hussein was vulnerable, and so the US government thought to just use him to control the people of Iraq as he had been doing, yet now, in his weakened state, manipulate him into the allowed exploitation of their resources. And so, at this point (90’s), the economic hitmen were sent back into Iraq again. However, once again Hussein refused the advances of these hitmen, and so this led to the most recent invasion of Iraq and the death of Saddam Hussein under the pretense that he was developing weapons of mass destruction. The destruction caused by the military invasion was also profitable for US-based multi-nationals such as Halliburton who gained hugely lucrative contracts at the expense of the Iraqi economy for the re-construction of a country which was destroyed by a movement started by their own beneficiaries, thus extracting more wealth from the nation, re-funding the expense of military mobilisation.

This process is repeated throughout the world, meaning that the current monetary system allows for profits to lead to the death of people and the de-stabilisation of economies, under the assumption that they must maximise profit, regardless of the social and environmental cost.

And so, yes, the large corporations are the only ones capable of functioning using the forefront of technology, however, this is because within the current system of monetarily based economics, the only way to succeed, within a system with more debt than money in circulation and thus a system of desperate competition to shift such debts onto others, is to overpower the entire economy of the country which supplies the resources needed, by, essentially, stealing it for rock-bottom prices on the basis that the economy has had any resistance removed or scared into line by the economic/monetary power of these alliances forged in the name of profit. So, the only legitimate way to enforce/maintain corporate and governmental responsibility for the wellbeing of the population, is to remove this monetary system.

I won’t dive head first into a what new systems could potentially replace this ridiculously outdated system, as we’d be here forever. However, I will suggest watching this video on an idea for a new method of global resource management, which, whilst full of flaws is the first step toward a far more efficient and economic (in the original sense of the word) system.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w

Existentialism: An Overview.

Existentialism: the renewed interest in the dilemmas of personal choice. Clearly influenced by Nietzsche’s ‘Death of God’, which released the bonds of servitude created by organised religion, Existentialism is a reaction to the second world war and realisation that, if god is dead, as Nietzsche proclaimed, then where do we look for direction?

Following Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of god, intellectual society was left with the knowledge that, if the moral restrictions that have been placed on us through religion are false creations of others in society, then what, in this seemingly pointless world, should we use to decide how we should conduct ourselves, if indeed we should allow anything to influence how we act.

Free from the restrictions of religion, we are liberated and given the choice of how we conduct ourselves and how we should use this short period of life that we have. This vision of humanity, with no preconditioned features, serving no purpose, gave inspiration to the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson and the like, who sought to portray events with no bias or preconditioned opinion. Such was the impact of existentialism.

With Existentialism, the development of one’s character came from the complete, passionate immersion in something. This could be considered an influence of Heidegger, the dirty Nazi bastard, who invented the term ‘Dasein’ by which he meant ‘being in the world’; the idea that, in order to be participating in the most constructive way in life, one must immerse oneself in a task, becoming the very action they are performing, such as one does when reading a book or a carpenter during his work. This could explain the desire of people to feel like an individual, to feel like what they are doing serves a purpose fulfilling our desire to be seen as part of life through our participation. The irony for those who wish to be seen taking part in life as an individual is that they place the importance in the act of being observed as opposed to the act of achieving Dasein.

The main aspect of Existentialism is that of choice, as before the realisation that god does not exist, humans were bound to follow the absolutes enforced by organised religion. This choice means that the responsibility of how a person conducts themselves is entirely down to them. All stereotypical preconceptions as to how certain groups should act are discarded, allowing for the freedom of groups such as homosexuals, females and the lower echelons of the social class system are now free to act as they will, no longer bound by the bleak expectations placed upon them by backward, metaphysical gibberish.

This liberation of ideas meant that, as a species we were free to roam our potential as individuals and push the boundaries of what is humanly possible. This bright future has, however, never been fully realised and I’m sure the likes of Jean Paul Satre would be bitterly disappointed in the religio-capitalism, that washes through the brains of the majority in the Western world, for allowing religion to remain, and not allowing for the fall of the bourgeoisie even in the face of mass starvation in a world where, with the proper application of scientific knowledge and resources, everyone could be fed and treated with humanity. In a time where morality is individual property, it is the wealthiest within our ‘economy’ with the least morality.

 

For more information on two of the key figures in terms of the existentialist movement I recommend these documentaries:

Jean Paul Satre (part 1(part two can be found on youtube)):

Martin Heidegger: