A difficult book, but perhaps the best on the topic...

books:

	• The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt Harvest Books, 1973 - 576 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Got Time?

There's no question Arendt is brilliant and inspired, but I should read the Arendt for Dummies or choose a shorter book. I began to read this volume, which covers Origins of Antisemetisim and Origins of Imperialism also, and got bogged down, so I began skimming. Definitely important stuff in there, and I did glean information that was new to me, but in the end I shelved the book because it is too long. Choose it if you are "studying", not just an inquiring person.

More relevant than ever

Though this book was written in the 1950s, there is much in it that is relevant to politics as we know it today. In the wake of the disinformation we now know to be the basis for the debacle of the current war, some of the statements made by Arendt regarding totalitarian regimes sound a very loud warning bell. A case in point:

"Totalitarian politics....use and abuse their own ideologies and political elements until the basis of factual reality, from which the ideologies derived their strength...have all but disappeared."

There is a disturbing similarity between the refusal of some of our government officials to admit their mistakes and the description of some of the methods used by totalitarian leaders to manipulate facts and discernible reality in order to produce outcomes they have previously predicted. Totalitarian leaders never admit to error. If the reader finds no other relevance in this book but that, it will have been time well spent.

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A real classic

This is a must read for anyone interested in understanding popular history, values, and structures of modern western society, and how they relate to modern political power in the twentieth and twenty-first century. It challenges many values that are often taken for granted in national and international power play and politics. The Origins of Totalitarianism will remains relevant to current events, and a warning to those who advocate change without taking into account the mistakes committed by our forbearer. This book explains in detail the dangers to liberal democracy that the scourge of racism has been and could be again. On a darker note it could also be used as blueprint by those who wish to abuse power. A true classic.

At first glance one could be drawn into making close parallels between modern Pan Islamist movements and the Pan European movements of the twentieth century, but the analysis would be far from complete. The Pan European movements where primarily tribal in nature, where as the Osama's Pan Islamist movement forms a superset without full integration of racial components. The dangers and the cold bureaucratic cauculas are similar, however Islam spans many races and cultures. Race therefore cannot form the primary glue required to hold it together. Also Islamist movements are not progressive, they are reactionary in nature. On the other hand close parallels can be drawn to the Pan Slavic movement with regards to Saddam's Iraqi nationalistic movement. Osama's concept of Pan Islam differs in many ways from Stalin's or Hitler's base, the primarily glue is religious ideology and fear, not race or nationalism. Furthermore his ideology is not anywhere close to being shared by the masses within Islamic countries, and as a result terrorism is a requirement from start, not so much against the west, but against moderate elements or differing sects within the countries where this movement thrives. This is not to say that they do not use terrorism in all of it's traditional roles. Euro style nationalism is counter productive to the Pan Islamist movement, and one of it's objectives is to break down nationalism. In short if one must make parallels, they can be made to the books third section and Osama's Islamist movement operations, but only very weak correlation to sections one and two.

This book is written in a way that requires the reader to work hard, but it is worth the effort.

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A Book to be read now

I'll keep this simple: look at what is going on in the US, in the MId-East, in China. If that doesn't alarm you, you need to read this book even more carefully than the rest of us, as Histaory is about to repeat itself because our xenophobia knows no limits. This is as critical today as it was when Arendt wrote it.

A difficult book, but perhaps the best on the topic...

First let me say I read this book in reverse order. The text is divided into three sections, "Anti-Semitism," "Imperialism" and "Totalitarianism." I started out intending to read the final section only, and it is possible to read that part alone and not be entirely lost. However, after reading the third part I decided to go back and read the section on Imperialism as well. I will say that some basic knowledge of the conditions of Europe and Russia are definitely helpful in understanding the book. I was very well served by some lectures on WW2 and dictatorships of the 20th century I listened to recently.

This book can be a difficult read and it does take time to get through. It is densely packed and written with a philosophical style, German philosophy in particular. I should say there wasn't anything in the book that totally left me lost, that I simply did not understand. One of the difficulties of the book is the length of sentences at times, very long and drawn out thoughts with more thoughts and qualifiers and paradoxes in between, forcing one to re-read the sentence to make sure you got the point. In short this book is not overly friendly to the casual, modern reader, but it's probably still the best book on the topic that it covers. Another good one is the out of print "Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy" by Friedrich and Brzezinski, less on the origins and more on the nature of Totalitarian states of the past century. And with specific chapters on subjects such as agriculture, labor, industry and education (to give some examples) you can guess it is going to be a little more detailed than this one.

I'm going to present here what I consider a quick summary, and indeed it is impossible to give anything BUT a "summary" of a text like this because the detail leaves one at a loss to express its real depths.

Imperialism

In the Imperialism section Arendt spends much time speaking of the drive to send "idle capital and idle labor" abroad to be productive, and for Western European imperialism this went to Africa. The Western Imperialism model has a rather "white man's burden" to it. The drive often expressed was for profit, but was ultimately about expansion for its own sake. Those on the ground were of two types: adventurers, the dragon slayers of their time who believed they were benefiting humanity in some way, the other were of a sort of "mobster class" who enjoyed danger and a land far from home where they could get away with almost anything. Imperialism led to the beginning of "race thinking" as something more serious than it had been before. The Eastern European form of imperialism took a rather different model, created by societies which had not experienced a nation-state and which were more rootless than those found in Britain with its well-rooted peasant society. The pan-movements with their belief in tribal nationalism became influential but remained vague at first in their purpose and goals, and were part of the drive behind what Arendt calls Continental Imperialism; essentially land-locked imperialism opposed to overseas imperialism. In a bitter twist of irony these pan-movements used the model (consciously or unconsciously) of the Jews of a "chosen" people to make their claim to history. These Continental imperialists had lived not under constitutional government but under bureaucracy where it was "rule by decree" which was "power directly applied" opposed to law, leading to an unpredictable nature of what power was and how it would function from one day to the next. Arendt makes an interesting aside here about Kafka and how he viewed power and something one could not understand and the "naturalness of human guilt." Furthermore, as this Eastern form of imperialism grew, they transformed their governments at home. Theirs was not a patriotism or celebration of government, but a tribal nationalism and love for their race itself; on the contrary government was often bitterly hated by the Continental imperialists. In short these imperialists' formed movements which transcended parties and government and focused on the national above all, for example in Austria, pan-Germanic there bitterly opposed the Austrian government but loved their German heritage. And following the First World War a new class of virtually "non-people" were created; refugees who had no place to call home and as a result they also had no rights.

Totalitarianism

In the totalitarianism section Arendt begins by discussing how classes disintegrated into a classless society, the hypocritical society of the bourgeoisie was rejected along with it's insistence on individualism and competition. Private life too was something which was opposed although at the same time that the society was a large mass, it remained full of atomized, insecure individuals. Where the mob had been created in the colonial pillages, now these men became leaders of the early totalitarian movements. In short, following the First World War there was an immense level of dissatisfaction with the status quo and parties. Once the totalitarian movements were formed, terror and propaganda was used to realize their ideology, terror being the biggest factor, existing well after propaganda disappeared. The totalitarian idea justifies itself based on an "inevitable history" philosophy, claiming to have the key to history and acting in accord with something which cannot be refuted because it will always be proven in the future, with the side benefit that when one carries out atrocities one is just doing the inevitable. Furthermore, a reality is created where the conspiracies and ideals of totalitarianism come true, a spell is cast over people's minds which captivates them in a world which is better than the real world and things that happen in reality are interpreted by the ideology so they are internally consistent. Totalitarian organization has a sort of onion-structure, those in the center more radical and going outward from there and toward the outside world one finds less radicalism. The benefit of this is three-fold. First those in higher layers despise those in lower ones as gullible and this gullibility of the innumerable "average man" makes the lies more believable for those lower down and outside of the movement itself. Second, as one goes up this ladder of gullibility, cynicism increases and this attitude will never force the leader to speak the truth because lying fits their cynical mode of "the means satisfying the ends." Only those most gullible and low on the hierarchy believe the day-to-day and contradictory lies, those higher believe in the ideology and power of pure organization. Third, the final and outermost layer, "Front Organizations" presents the movement to the outside, non-totalitarian world. This layer functions to separate average members from the outside world while presenting a facade of normalcy to the outside world itself. This layering can be repeated within layers, creating more radical factions and insecurity in those less radical. In the structure of totalitarianism one also sees a parallel to secret societies with their conspiracies, rituals (ideologies in this case) and an "us vs. them" mentality. But according to Arendt it's a "secret society in daylight" because they openly declared their ideals and their appeal to the discontented masses was not their hidden conspiracies but the ideology itself which gives their life order and purpose. Once a totalitarian movement comes to power it must remain just that, in movement and not tied to any one nation, global rule always the goal. And settling down in a governmental structure and function would mean death for a movement deserving of the title. Furthermore, the pre-existing parts of the government and organizations are left in place, but become a facade behind which the party reigns in complete control. Fully indoctrinated party elites coordinate activity within these government organizations which gives the appearance of continuity from the pre-totalitarian stage. The leader is all important. Orders came down from the leader into a "shapeless" organizational structure, these orders are "intentionally vague" and with the ideological indoctrination of the elite factions they know how to interpret them. Often these elites will give them an even more radical spin than might have been intended to gain favor over other groups. But ultimately power granted to groups is constantly shifted around, as are people within them to keep comradeship from developing among members. In reality there is no hierarchy or independent levels of authority, only the will of the leader which comes down from above to groups who's power could be taken away tomorrow without reason given. In this sense the leader is "everywhere" and the one authority of the land; and without intervening levels of independent authority totalitarianism is opposed to the notion of "authority" itself. The role of the secret police is the most important perhaps above all others, even the army. "Objective enemies" are created, people who have not committed crimes, but who MIGHT commit them in the future because of "tendencies." The secret police ultimately have an ideological function, one is never certain who a member may be, and personal conversation is restricted because of suspicion. When a person or groups' power is taken away without explanation one is left in a paranoid state to wonder about the reasons power was taken away, and every word one has spoken. In this situation freedom ceases to exist, and one does not even need to exercise it in order to be punished and indeed disappear entirely from the face of the earth. And after someone is disappeared suspicion immediately falls on those close to them, driving wedges between individuals and maintaining an atomized society. The concentration camps serve as "laboratories" where the ultimate, logical ends of the ideology and the fundamental belief that "all things are possible" are both tested. Despite wars of aggression and oppression in history, never before was there a belief that all things were possible; perhaps being a perversion of modernism and science. Despite the horrific accounts of the camps, outsiders are incapable of understanding their true nature and purpose; instead it all dissolves into emotion and revulsion. Those sent to the camps seem entirely random and fear no longer exists because no matter what one does or does not do there is the possibility of being disappeared. Thus the concepts of justice, morality and eventually individuality and human dignity within the camps are completely eliminated through torture. Rebellion against such a system becomes meaningless when it assures the murder of oneself along with family and friends, and even more, the disappearance of ones meager attempt at rebellion from history. Human spontaneity and individual will are eliminated; thus totalitarianism is truly only achieved under the conditions of the camps. Totalitarianism is something new; it defies law and claims to operate entirely by some laws of History or of Nature, claiming lawlessness and legitimacy at the same time. The function of terror is to help History or Nature "overcome" human freedom which only slows down the inevitable future utopia. The "ideology" is something new in politics as well; it's looking at an idea and seeing MOVEMENT in it, seeing a logic which explains the world. When it is adopted one sees a "reality behind reality" and totalitarianism takes the idea to its logical extreme and final conclusion. Arendt concludes with a look toward the future saying that isolation of men from one another leads to uncertainty about one's self and one's beliefs. This loneliness creates men who are more willing to accept totalitarian ideas and conclusions about the world, and this condition of loneliness is growing even today, thus totalitarianism and ideological thinking will always be a threat.

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recommendations

Modern Dictatorships I: Concepts and Theories of Totalitarianism
Essays on Politics, Education, Social issues etc.
Imperialism: the Perennial Danger
For Readers of Hannah Arendt
Political Philosophy

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