Arendt-Theory of Totalitarianism Essay

Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as one of the most important, unique and influential thinkers of political philosophy in the Twentieth century. Arendt was greatly influenced by her mentor and one time lover, Martin Heidegger, whose phenomenological method would help to greatly shape and frame Arendt’s own thinking. Like Heidegger, Arendt was sceptical of the metaphysical tradition which tended towards abstract conceptual reasoning; ultimately at odds with the reality of human lived experience. Consequently, Arendt was highly dubious of being referred to as a philosopher, as she felt philosophy was, by its own essence, confined to the proverbial ivory tower. She believed political life was at the apex of human experience and so she identified as a political thinker/actor. Her emphasis on the phenomenological nature of the lived political experience permeates her life’s works and perhaps can be said to constitute her own distinct brand of political philosophy. Arendt’s early publication, Ideology & Terror: A Novel Form of Government, is a profound elucidation of the nature of the theretofore unprecedented (she argues) phenomenon of Totalitarianism and its â€Å"origins†¦ elements†¦ and functioning†¦ † A Novel Form of Government: Arendt posited that the totalitarian forms of â€Å"government and domination† (Arendt. 03) which characterised the Nationalist Socialist party in Germany and Stalin’s oppressive regime in Soviet Russia, which saw systematic genocide and terror visited upon literally millions of innocent people, were unprecedented in the history of political systems, and were not mere modern manifestations of ancient forms of violent government such as despotism or tyranny. She went further even, to suggest that totalitarian systems had destroyed the very foundations upon which traditional ideas and presuppositions of government rested. Although totalitarianism seemed to contain elements of tyrannical or despotic forms of government i. e. terror, violence, absolute power etc Arendt contended that totalitarian regimes differed in important ways which rendered them qualitatively distinct. Tyranny and dictatorships, she argues are marked by â€Å"Arbitrary power, unrestricted by law, yielded in the interest of the ruler and hostile to the interests of the governed, on one hand, fear as the principle of action, namely fear of the people by the ruler and fear of the ruler by the eople†¦ †(Arendt. 306) Terror, according to Arendt, has traditionally been used as a means to an end, or tool for tyrannical regimes, namely the end of maintaining and sustaining a position of power over its subjects. Totalitarian systems however, do not function in this way, ideologically at least, According to Arendt. â€Å"total terror leaves no arbitrary lawlessness behind it and does not rage for the sake of some arbitrary will or for the sake of despotic power of one man against all. † (Arendt. 311) Context and Content: In order to understand the nature (if there is one) of Totalitarianism forms of government, it is important first to understand both their historical contexts and the Ideologies which underpin them, as Totalitarian regimes, are by their nature ideological, as Arendt shows. Take for example National Socialism, the political ideology which took root in Germany during the 1930’s, characterised by militant nationalism and overtly inherent racism. The context in which the Nazi party rose to prominence was the extreme devastation, debt and resulting poverty and hunger left in Germany in the wake of the First World War. It can indeed be argued that Adolph Hitler’s demagoguery and flair for rousing public sympathy with his intense speeches, was also crucial to the widespread proliferation, acceptance and support for Nazi ideology, at a time when people yearned for a clear solution to their plight and poverty. Hitler’s bellicose rhetoric displayed a typical trait of ideologies; a final solution, the idea that the answer to all of life’s problems can be understood and solved by following a particular stringent course of action determined by a single unambiguous worldview. Ideologies-isms, which to the satisfaction of their adherents can explain everything and every occurrence by deducing it from a single premise† (Arendt. 315) Nazi Ideology had at its core, a politically and indeed racially motivated perversion of the Darwinian concept of a natural hierarchy of species, in which the stronger/more successful species would inevitably replace the weaker ones. Darwin’s profound insight into the ways in which organisms evolve was warped and misrepresented by the Nazis, who filtered it through their racist and nationalist worldview, justifying the extermination of Jews and other supposed degenerate races by claiming they were following and indeed implementing a Law of Nature. In Darwin, Arendt explains, the Nazi party had found what they saw as an unbending Natural Law, the very source from which positive (manmade) laws had been traditionally derived. far from being â€Å"lawless,† it goes to the sources of authority from which positive laws received their ultimate legitimation† (Arendt. 307) Arendt argues that this Law of Nature was taken to be a suprahuman edict which was used justify their campaign of terror and genocide, and furthermore usurp any positive laws which were counter-productive to their cause. Nature itself mandated the extermination of lesser â€Å"degenerate† races according to Nazi ideology. And so the carrying out and indeed hastening of the process of this â€Å"Natural† decree was the end which the Totalitarian regimes sough to effect. In fact, Totalitarian ideology sought for the actual societal embodiment of these supposed Laws of history and nature, and asserted that by the strict implantation and of these laws, a utopia on Earth would be realised. â€Å"the Law of Nature or the law of History, if properly executed, is expected to produce mankind as its end product† (Arendt. 307) Arendt is highly critical of this thinking which she describes as particular to Totalitarian government. One of the most obvious critiques which she makes is the complete disregard in this line of thinking for basic anthropological concerns i. e. ow humans actually tend to behave and function. â€Å"It applies the law directly to mankind without bothering with the behaviour of men†¦ Totalitarian policy claims to transform the human species into an active unfailing carrier of a law to which human beings otherwise would only passively and reluctantly be subjected† (Arendt. 307) Terror as the essence of Totalitarian rule: Built into the notion of executing the Laws of nature and history is an inherent eschewing of the legitimacy, importance and even relevance of manmade or positive laws, which are intended to govern and ease the functioning of societies in which people participate. The denial of positive laws and their replacement with the bringing into effect, a Law of Nature or indeed a Law of History as per Totalitarian ideology, is, Arendt argues largely what separates Totalitarian regimes from despotism and tyranny. Because they drew their justification from the very source of all positive laws i. e. Natural law, Totalitarian regimes were able to substantiate this denial of the legitimacy of positive laws by claiming that in aiming to produce the perfect rule of Natural Law on earth, that mankind itself would become the very â€Å"embodiment of the law† (Arendt. 08) By claiming to actualise and bring into effect fundamental laws which determine the inevitable course of history by establishing the perfect rule of Natural law on earth through use of terror, Totalitarian regimes subvert at the same time traditional notions of government and also notions of the utility of terror. Terror was no longer merely an arbitrary tool of oppression, (although it was of course the methodology with which the terrible ideology of Totalitarianism was realised) Terror was itself the embodied form which submission to the supposed Law of Nature took, or as Arendt puts it â€Å"Terror as the execution of a law of movement†¦ Arendt. 311)† Terror was in fact now the end goal itself; as such Terror is indeed Totalitarianism’s essence. Arendt uses a good analogy to illustrate this point. â€Å"the absence of crimes in any society does not render laws superfluous but, on the contrary, signifies their most perfect rule-so terror in totalitarian government has ceased to be a mere means for the suppression of opposition, though it is also used for such purposes. Terror becomes total when it becomes independent of all opposition; it rules supreme when nobody any longer stands in its way. If lawfulness is the essence of non-tyrannical government and lawlessness is the essence of tyranny, then terror is the essence totalitarian domination† Dangerous Ideology: What made Nazism and Stalinism so dangerous, according to Arendt, were not merely the ideas which characterised their respective ideologies i. e. racism and dialectical materialism, but the logic which one could arguably follow from these types of thinking. If Ideologies are the logic of ideas, (which they are! ) then it is the seemingly logical implications of these ideas, which made them dangerous. To put it simply, if one concludes that there are suprahuman forces which determine the very course of history, as espoused by Nazism and Stalinism, then one must be bound to follow the logical steps which lead from this idea. â€Å"Whoever agreed that there are such things as â€Å"dying classes† and did not draw the consequence of killing their members, or that the right to live had something to do with race and did not draw the consequence of killing â€Å"unfit races,† was plainly either stupid or a coward†. (Arendt. 318) The dangers of commitment to the logic of ideas bviously are determined by the extremity of the ideas themselves, however as Arendt rightly points out, it is this ice cold reasoning which both Hitler and Stalin were very fond of which gave their ideologies a trajectory of power and an pseudo-scientific guise which legitimated them. Rather than a principle of action aimed at some common good or societal benefit such as the prevention of crime, this â€Å"logicality of ideological thinking† (Arendt. 321) is what makes Totalitarian government tick. Isolation, The Phenomenology of Terror: As we have seen, terror is the essence of Totalitarianism. But it is important to realise exactly what this means for the experiencing subject of Totalitarian rule. Terror, Arendt explains, destroys the ability to engage in any public life. Isolation is the most salient feature of terror. Terror wrought isolation has been used throughout the centuries by tyrannical rulers to inhibit political agency and thus destroy the possibility of revoltâ€Å"†¦ terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other and that, therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring isolation about†¦ Isolation and impotence, that is the fundamental inability to act at all, have always been characteristic of tyrannies. † (Arendt. 321-322) The final way in which Totalitarian governments differ from those regimes of tyranny, which have also employed terror as a tactic, is for Arendt, the destruction by terror of the private sphere of human life. Total terror, as it were, is not content with merely destroying the public life of people and their ability to interact. Total terror permeates the mind and destroys the faculties of creativity and mental autonomy. Totalitarianism seeks to destroy the entire ability for people to create something new and bring it into the world. While it obviously needs to destroy the ability of political life, it also enforces utter personal isolation (loneliness) on the mind of the individual, so that he or she has no outlet vent and indeed no ability to form ideas of their own. â€Å"In isolation, man remains in contact with the world as the human artifice; only when the most elementary forms of human creativity, which is the capacity to add something of one’s own to the common world, are destroyed, isolation becomes altogether unbearable†¦ Totalitarian government, like all tyrannies, certainly could not exist without destroying the public realm of life, that is, without destroying, by isolating men, their political capacities but totalitarian domination as a form of government is new in that it is not content with this isolation and destroys private life as well. It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man. † (Arendt. 24) The phenomenological and anthropological implications of this total terror are for Arendt the complete breakdown of the human actor. She argues that humans are essentially social beings who need social interaction to function and live as we are hardwired to do so; our complete sense of who we are and what our world means ultimately derives from our experience of interacting with others. â€Å"For the confirmation of my identity I depend entirely upon other people† (Arendt. 324) In conclusion I think it may be prudent to summarise the central elucidations which Arendt makes in Ideology and Terror. . Totalitarian governments were unprecedented governmental forms before the early 20th century. 2. Totalitarian governments are ideological in nature and functioning, and derive their justifications from suprahuman â€Å"Laws of Nature and History† and implement the logic of these ideas through use of terror. 3. Terror is the primary tool and also the essence of Totalitarian governments, i. e. Total terror becomes the actual embodied form of the Laws of History and nature made manifest 4.  Totalitarian governments destroy the ability to act politically as all tyrannies do, but also they destroy the realm of private life as well, rendering human existence a miserable one in attempting to make each person the actual embodiment of Natural and Historical Laws Arendt’s masterful work has shed light on one of the darkest periods in human history and it al so lends insight into the nature of government, society and the human subject more broadly speaking. She remains a seminal figure in the discipline of political philosophy and continues to inspire thought and debate to this day.