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.