From Arendt’s analysis, what strikes you as a principal (perhaps the principal?) factor enabling a massive abuse of power (totalitarianism) in a society? Note Arendt’s worries about post-WWII society. How relevant are her concerns for society and leadership in the 21st-century?
According to Arendt’s analysis, “total terror” (Arendt, 612) in a “totally fictitious world” (508) composed of a highly “atomized, isolated mass of individuals” (412) is the principal factor enabling totalitarianism, a massive abuse of power in society.
In the aftermath of WWI where warfare, strife, killing and death were the norm, leaders of totalitarianism (such as Hitler and Stalin) assumed, with the backing of supporters, a godlike, infallible figure, whose will is above all things. They manipulated the masses by perversing human nature, abolishing moral standards of right and wrong, abandon truth, virtue and democracy, and exploiting the dejected psyche of the masses riddled with “self-centered bitterness”, “loneliness” and “isolation”.
Totalitarianism is based on deception and fabricated lies accepted by an idle, gullible, cynical (500) and compliant majority. The masses under Hitler and Stalin were “obsessed by a desire to escape from reality because in their essential homelessness they can no longer bear its accidental, incomprehensible aspects” (461) in postwar life. The makings of totalitarianism draw inspiration from gangsterism and American advertising strategies to brainwash, cheat and hypnotize. It exploits science for power and control, using scientific explanations as propaganda to promote unscientific ends.
Totalitarianism is more than a form of government, it is an imposed, thwarted “mentality” (414), a dominating way of life on all through the means of cruelty, consistency and logicality, demanding absolute loyalty, and destroying both public and private individuality and liberty, erasing the freedom of thought, convictions, consciousness and relationships.
As much as Arendt’s concerns about the makings and realities of totalitarianism pertain to the postwar psyche of the 1900s, her observations serve as relevant, important warnings for society and leadership in the 21st century, where a good proportion of the masses are also/still idle, gullible, cynical and compliant. With pre-pandemic globalization and urbanization, interracial, minority and immigrant populations are ever-present. Race remains a deep issue, as evident in recent racial movements against Asian and Black communities in the West. Terrorism lingers. Pressures of social atomization continue to intensify. Governments and corporations are corrupted, often with the latter having unwarranted influences over the former. Problems of poverty, social injustice, climate change, human rights, unethical business dealings, etc. persist everywhere, adding to the hopelessness and dissatisfaction of both the mob and the masses. All these factors, and more, present a fertile soil for totalitarianism to brew.
Instead of a Hitler or Stalin, we are certainly being manipulated by technology and corporate giants/monopolies backed by governments. It is not difficult to imagine a future where artificial intelligence and machines take over and assume leadership, not just in the form of tyranny, but very possibly, even totalitarianism. In fact, with the pervasiveness of and our dependence on the Internet and smart technologies (e.g. GPS, QR codes, etc.), Netflix and social media in our daily lives, people around the world can easily be mobilized into one great, unorganized, structureless mass. This global mass of people that we are a part of is indeed, across varying degrees, isolated, lonely, connected online but disconnected offline, not able to distinguish truth from falsity, the real from the fake, one would think that we are already on our way to our own total destruction.
Works Cited:
Arendt, H. (2017). The Origins of Totalitarianism. Penguin Classics.
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