Hannah Arendt: Totalitarian Dreams

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Good evening. This is
Radio Free Beszel.

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I am Alphonse. Tonight:
totalitarianism.

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Imagine you're lonely.
I'm not talking about

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solitude; I'm not talking
about the wind

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in the trees or the songs
of birds and that

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feeling of being connected
to all creation:

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I'm talking more about
what it feels

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like when you're on
the train to work

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and the people who are
around you look

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right through you as
if you're not there.

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I'm talking about the
feeling that you have

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problems and there's
no one to talk to,

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and the more people are
around you the more you

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feel alone. The world doesn't
make sense. It

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seems random, arbitrary,
without meaning - you've

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done all the right things,
you've worked hard,

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you're not getting
ahead you're not

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finding out what
it's all about.

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Some groups are doing very
well. They're helping

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people like them, but they're
not helping people

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like you. I mean it's not
fair. A lot of people

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know that it's not fair.
Now there's a movement,

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and the movement - there
are rumors it's a

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little bit crazy, a little
bit radical - it

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has an explanation: There's
privilege, there's

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favouritism, there's power
taken unfairly.

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And although you've
heard these rumors

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about it maybe being
a little crazy,

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you notice more and more
that people around you

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are sympathetic to the movement.
And these people

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aren't crazy, they're not
radical, they don't

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want to hurt anybody. You
know these people.

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You learn that it's a big
story. It's not just

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you. There are lots of people
who feel this way.

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A lot of people think there's
something to it.

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Now you get on your own
and you start thinking

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about it. You think about
that privilege

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and that power and that
injustice and it's

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really clear - I mean
there's real truth

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to it. This - this makes
sense. It would

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explain so much. So you
join the movement.

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And the movement - it does
things. It doesn't just talk.

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It goes out and it protests.
It makes changes.

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It gets bad people removed.
It helps good people.

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And you find that when
everyone is together -

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everyone is on the same side
- things can change.

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You know now that enough is
enough. And you're not

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just doing this for you:
you're doing it to help

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everyone else. And the people
who come after you

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realize in fact that the
injustice was so great

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that it had to happen one
day. It was inevitable.

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And the only people standing
against it - in fact

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even people who are
simply neutral

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and do nothing - those
are the people:

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all they want to do is
keep the status quo

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- in effect they're
favoring injustice.

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Hannah Arendt was a Jew
who fled Germany when

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Hitler took power. She
fled to France then to

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the United States, and in
1951 she published a

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book - The Origins of
Totalitarianism - which

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was trying to explain what
had happened both

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in Nazi Germany and in
Russia under Stalin.

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And there're four factors
that I take,

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or four ideas that
I want to focus on

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from what Arendt described.
The first of these

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- and I've tried to illustrate
all of them - the

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first of these is loneliness.
You see, reality

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has a problem. It really
isn't a good story.

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It's inconsistent. A lot
of things don't make

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sense. A lot of things
aren't explained. Good

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things happen to bad people
bad things happen

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to good people. It has
gaps, it has holes

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that that never get filled.
What a totalitarian

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ideology offers is a
big lie - a myth,

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a story so big that it can
fill all those gaps.

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When you compare the big
lie to actual reality,

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the big lie looks truer.
It looks like a better

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story that explains more
and is more meaningful.

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The second idea is logic.

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We get a lot of our knowledge
about the world

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through interacting with
it, observing it,

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testing things, seeing whether
things are true

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or false, whether they work
or whether they they

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don't work. But when we're
all alone the only real

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kind of thought that we
can do is logic. We can

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start with a premise and
we can develop it, and

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we can develop it further
and see where it goes.

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But as Arendt says, as she
warns, the problem with

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logic is it doesn't really
generate new knowledge.

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Everything it produces
was there

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in a premise, or perhaps
an error,

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and as you proceed with
your chain of logic you

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can get farther and farther
from reality. Which

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really isn't surprising,
because if reality -

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if the real world - kind
of doesn't make sense,

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then logic isn't necessarily
going to get you there.

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The third thing that Arendt
talks about, the real

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innovation that she credits
to totalitarianism,

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is sympathizers, or what
we might call allies.

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A totalitarian movement doesn't
just have members:

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crucially, it also has these
allies around it.

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These are people who have
not joined the movement,

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but who sympathize with it,
who share some of its

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ideas and goals. And they
perform a vital function

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for helping the movement rise
and help it succeed.

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The first of these functions
is that for

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outsiders, they make
the movement seem

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normal. There may be radicals
in the movement

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who believe crazy things
or hateful things,

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but if most of the people
you see who are

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talking about it and sympathetic
to it are

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reasonable ordinary people,
they make it

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look normal. It makes
it look as if those

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radicals are just
a few bad apples:

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that's not really
what it's about.

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The second function that
these allies perform

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is for those who are
inside the movement.

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If you're in the movement
and you're

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starting to agree with
its beliefs, then

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if you're surrounded by people
who sympathize with

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the movement it seems like
you're in a majority,

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as if everybody's on your
side, as if nobody

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disagrees with you. And
you don't encounter

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people who have other ideas.
And as you move

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deeper and deeper into the
movement, as you become

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more of a believer in
its core ideas, as

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you discover how far it's
willing to go, at

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every moment you're surrounded
by people who are

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thinking just like that but
maybe not just so far

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along. Arendt says that
a totalitarian movement

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is like a secret society
that isn't secret. Even

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within it it has gradations,
just like the the

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sympathizers and the movement
members you have

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people inside who have moved
to a certain level,

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and other people who've moved
farther along. And

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if you look around you and
you see these people,

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and they have similar views,
you think, "Well you

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know I'm just more advanced
than they are. When

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they figure it out, when
they reason it through,

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they'll follow me to where
I am." And so these

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allies create this insulation,
this protection

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that allows the movement
to grow without

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seeing seeming too radical
from the outside,

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and that allows the people
on the inside

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to proceed and become
more extreme without

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noticing they're becoming
more extreme - without

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perhaps ever confronting
someone who disagrees.

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What it does, she says,
is it blunts that

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conflict. If a totalitarian
movement thrives

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or at its heart has this
conflict between itself

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and something it's fighting
against, what the

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sympathizers do is blunt
that conflict and make

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it look as if this is a
natural progression.

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The fourth factor is action,
movement. The Nazis

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talked about themselves as
a movement, a bewegung.

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The big lie that the movement
tells isn't enough. I mean,

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people don't just want ideas.
The real problem

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in life - if, say you're
lonely or unhappy, or

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you're not finding meaning
- isn't just a matter

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of what you think. It's a
matter of what you do.

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How do i live my life?
How do i solve these

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problems? Well, the movement
solves that,

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or addresses it through
movement, through action

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- and it proves that its
false reality, that the

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myth that it tells is true
through that action.

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For example, if the movement
tells you that race

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is everything - and you
find in fact that

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whether you get a job
depends on your race,

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and whether you have friends
or are able to join

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social groups or social
activities depends on your

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race, whether you get food
rations depends on

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your race, indeed in the
end whether you live

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at all depends on your
race - then the

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movement has proved
the lie correct.

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As long as the movement
is creating its own

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reality, it can make the
big lie seem true.

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So the movement has
to keep moving.

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It has to continually
make what

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its leaders may call
predictions, but are in fact

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intentions that then have
to be realized, at even

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very high cost. It's worthwhile
for the leadership

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and for the movement to make
its actions happen,

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to make things happen so
that the lie seems to be

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true. Because if it loses
that momentum, it may

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lose the faith of its believers:
but so long as

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it has that momentum it can
be very hard to stop,

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because when you're in
this movement and it

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seems so powerful, and
everybody is on the

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same same side, and they're
all moving in the

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same direction, it can
seem as if this is an

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inevitable part of history.
You know, at first

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you may have thought that
you need to fight for

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the movement to make it
progress, but now it seems

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that this was going to happen
anyway, and the only

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question is are you going
to join with history or

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are you going to be off to
the side, irrelevant.

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It's not enough for
the movement in

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fact if you choose
to support it.

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Because choosing to agree
is still a choice. If

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the movement is inevitable,
there are no choices.

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This compulsion can
be so strong that

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people give up their
lives for it.

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Arendt gives the example
of Stalin's secret

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police. He would send
the police to pick

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someone up. They pick you
up and they accuse

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you: "You," they say, "well
you have been you,

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pretend to be a faithful
member of the

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movement, but in fact
you betrayed us."

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And they accuse you of
something that you

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did not do, and they
ask you to confess.

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You say, "I didn't do it,"
and they say, "It

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doesn't matter, comrade.
If you didn't do it

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you still need to
confess, because

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that's what the movement
asks of you.

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Do you want to stand in
the way of history,

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or do you want to
help us succeed?"

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And you're left with a terrible
choice. Because

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if you refuse to confess they
will still kill you,

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but your life will
be meaningless.

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It will be as if you
had never lived.

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If, on the other hand,
you confess, at

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least you will be helping
something that

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you believed in and
fought for. At

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least your life will
have meaning.

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You notice in my description
of all of this, up

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until that last example,
I said nothing about

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violence. Because that's
not the core concept of

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totalitarianism. It's not
about what prejudices it

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has or what groups it hates.
It's about dissolving

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individuals into the total
organism: the idea that

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society is like a creature
or a machine, and

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every person has their
role in that machine,

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that politics is everywhere,
there is no

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private place you can go,
there is no personal:

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there is only political.
The movement is total

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and that's why it's called
totalitarianism.

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This is Alphonse for Radio Free
Beszel. B-E-S-Z-E-L. Good night.