Totalitarianism - Revision Notes

Totalitarianism is all about control. HANNAH ARENDT argued that the 20^th century totalitarian regimes were completely different from anything that had come before.

Everything is in the state, the state controls everything and there is nothing outside of it. The aim is to completely strip away peoples individuality and undermine their humanity. Two methods to destroying individuality:
1) State Terror – Destroys their ability to act against the government
2) Ideology – Eliminates the capacity for individual thought and experience

Ideology is a type of specialist knowledge and is also used as justification for the authority of rulers. It is a way to avoid responsibility and gives people “total explanation of the past, the total knowledge of the present, and the reliable prediction of the future”. Ideology frees you of common sense and reality. The breakdown of a stable human world breaks the institutional and psychological barriers that normally set limit to what is possible, e.g. concentration camps. For Arendt when the Nazi’s denied the Jews citizenship it removed their humanity. Totalitarianism highlights the fragility of civilisation. If you control language you control thought.

Totalitarianism is so different from what has come before; it develops an entirely new political institution and destroys all political, legal and cultural traditions of the county. It transforms the classes into masses and destroys individuality. Because it’s so different from what has come before it’s difficult to predict their course of action.  

Some try to compare totalitarianism to tyranny, but the difference is that tyranny has no law, whereas totalitarianism believes in higher law. Totalitarianism defies all positive law (common, cultural law). Nazi Germany followed the law of nature, using biology as the basis of their laws. The race struggle and segregation of the Jews was based on DARWIN’S idea that man is a product of natural development. Whereas Stalin’s Communist Russia was based on MARX’S teleological view of history, that history is working towards something.

You do not have to be inherently evil to do evil things, Arendt calls this the banality of evil. An example of this is the Eichmann trial. Eichmann was a Nazi fugitive who stood on trial in Jerusalem. He provided transport for Jews across Europe to concentration camps. His defence was that he was just doing his job and he didn’t directly kill any Jews. Arendt takes an existentialist view to this in that he had a choice to make and as far as SARTRE is concerned, by not making a choice he is living in “bad faith”. Eichmann was just doing his duty and following the categorical imperative of KANT. But you can’t just sit back and be passive in your own life, you have to be accounted for, you have to choose.

Totalitarianism Seminar

The Origins of Totalitarianism – Hannah Arendt

Totalitarianism is completely different from other forms of political organisation. It develops an entirely new political institution and destroys all political, legal and cultural traditions of the country. It transforms the classes into masses and strips people of their individuality. Totalitarianism is so different from what has come before it’s difficult to predict their course of action. Some may try to compare totalitarianism as some modern form of tyranny but the difference is that tyranny is entirely lawless but totalitarianism believes that there’s a higher law.

Totalitarianism defies all positive law, even those it has established itself. Positive law= Statute and common law, laws that are developed by society. Totalitarian law is derived from the law of history or the law of nature. Arendt uses the examples of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia to demonstrate different types of totalitarian societies. Nazi Germany followed the law of nature, using biology, as the basis for their laws. The race struggle and segregation of the Jews was based on Darwin’s idea that man is a product of natural development. Whereas Stalin’s Communist Russia was based on Marx’s teleological view of history, that history is working towards something. Engels referred to Marx as the “Darwin of History”.

Totalitarianism is prepared to sacrifice everyone’s interests to follow the letter of the law. You remove people’s individuality so they can’t break away from the regime. It has total bureaucracy so that if one person goes against the ideology then there is always someone above them to punish them. Because totalitarian regimes invade every aspect of society there are no public spaces for people to express their feelings or exchange ideas of rebellion, so people begin to feel isolated, which prevents revolution.

Terror and ideology strips away peoples responsibility and ability to choose as they depend on the authority to take the responsibility. An example of this is the Milgram experiment.
You don’t have to be inherently evil to do bad things, Arendt identifies this as the “banality of evil”. An example of this is the Stanford Prison Experiment, where Professor Zimbardo created a prison atmosphere using student volunteers who were assigned the role of prisoner or guard for two weeks. Zimbardo took the role of prison officer. He gave the guards the position of total power but they weren’t allowed to use physical violence. By day 2 some of the prisoners chose to rebel by barricading themselves in their rooms with their bed. The professor didn’t expect them to rebel so early but they were rebelling against the status differences. The guards were given reflective sunglasses so they couldn’t see their eyes which reduced their humanity. The prisoner at the head of the rebellion was put in the “hole” which was a completely dark, small, cramped space. The guards would wake the prisoners up in the middle of the night to disorientate them and force them to do menial tasks and hard physical work, whilst they hurled insults at them. One prisoner asked to leave, at which point the professor (acting as prison officer) offered him instead the option to act as a snitch. The prisoner then took this as he was not allowed to leave and he returned to tell the other prisoners that they weren’t permitted to leave. The prisoner then pretended to be crazy but this soon began to turn into real mental issues, at which point he was allowed to leave the experiment. After he left rumours began that he was going to return to free the other prisoners. The professor reacted to this as a prison officer and saw this as a real threat so chose to relocate the prisoners. Zimbardo was questioned about the legitimacy of the experiment but he was by this point more concerned about the prison than the experiment.  The rumoured jailbreak never took place which they took out on the prisoners. The prisoners then lost their unity and didn't stand by one another. Prisoner 819 went to leave the experiment but when he was leaving he heard the other prisoners shout “prisoner 819 did a bad thing”. This made 819 not want to go as he didn't want to be a bad prisoner and the professor had to remind him that this wasn't a real prison. As time went on the guards became more creative with their evil. Prisoner 416 went on a hunger strike and by da 5 was put in the hole. The prisoners were offered the option to give up their blankets in return for 416 being allowed to leave and none of the prisoners agreed to this. The prisoners completely lost any sense of unity and sided with the guards view of 416. By day 5, 4 prisoners had broken down and been released. Another professor went down to see the experiment and she was disgusted by the suffering of the young men. The next day the experiment ended.

There are three types of ideology:
1) Based on motion based on history.
2) Becomes independent from experience/reality
3) Individuals perceptions of reality always changes

Propaganda removes the reality from experience. Terror is the realisation of the totalitarian movement. The totalitarian regime claims to transform human beings into unfailing carriers of law, which before they were just subject to. 

Totalitarianism

How can good people do evil things?

Totalitarianism is all about control. Hannah Arendt argued that the 20^th century totalitarian regimes were utterly different from anything that had come before. “Everything we know of totalitarianism demonstrates a horrible originality”. Everything is in the state, the state controls everything and there is nothing outside of it. The aim is to completely strip away any individuality, you are all one thing. Arendt saw imperialism as a predecessor to totalitarianism because it contained so many traits that new regimes could use. One trait of imperialism was racism, undermining their individuality to undermine their humanity. The concentration camps used by the British were the model that the Nazis used.

You destroy people’s individuality as it makes them hard to control. There are two methods to destroying peoples individuality:
1) State Terror- destroys their ability to act against the government.
2) Ideology – Eliminates the capacity for individual thought and experience.

Ideology is also a type of specialist knowledge and is also used a justification for the authority of rulers. It is a way to avoid responsibility and gives people “the total explanation of the past, the total knowledge of the present, and the reliable prediction of the future”. Ideology frees you of common sense and reality. The breakdown of the stable human world means the loss of the institutional and psychological barriers that normally set a limit to what is possible.

For Arendt the first move the Nazis made on the road to the “Final Solution” was to deny Jews citizenship. Remove their rights, you remove their humanity. Nazis saw Jews as a rival master race, a model to be emulated and over taken.

Totalitarianism highlights the fragility of civilisation and how quickly groups and people can fall through the cracks, even in the heart of Europe. To be civilised human beings we need laws, freedom, rights and shared experience.

If you control language you can control thought. Thought takes place in purely linguistic terms and mind control is possible through the manipulation of language, e.g. George Orwell 1984 “newspeak”. This is demonstrated in modern day through the implementation of “PC” language which prevents negative connotations.

What is your responsibility in a totalitarian regime? Would you collaborate? An example of this is the Eichmann trial. Eichmann was a Nazi fugitive who stood on trial in Jerusalem. His main responsibility during the Holocaust was to organise the transport for millions of Jews across Europe to concentration camps. For Arendt it was a shock to see Eichmann as he was proud to be a law-abiding citizen. This just highlights the point that you don’t have to be an evil person to do evil things, Arendt called this the “banality of evil”. Arendt believed that Eichmann’s greatest crime was not thinking. She holds the existentialist view that he had a choice to make and he didn’t make it, as far is Sartre is concerned Eichmann was acting in bad faith by not choosing. Eichmann was just doing his duty and following the categorical imperative of Kant; he was just following the rules. If everyone else is doing it that’s no excuse, you have to choose, you have to think. You cannot giveaway your responsibility by following the law. Sometimes disobedience is our responsibility.