Hannah Arendt - Author of "The Origins of Totalitarianism

 

"No One has the Right to Obey"

I write this post about a woman author who heroically wrote about the wrongs of man toward fellow man.

I came across one of Hannah Arendt's books earlier this year, and it was so deep and fascinating to me for its breakdown of Nazism and Totalitarianism, that I felt I better understood today's flirtation with fascism and dictatorship. I and many Americans I've spoken with during and after the Trump Administration have been asking the same question over and over again:

What is it that can cause a respected and principled democratic political party to turn 180 degrees and start marching in the opposite direction, away from all pledges and principles once beholden to them? 

What can make politicians, both women and men, and many highly educated, take a loyalty pledge to any man, above and beyond the pledge taken to serve the United States of America?

And what is so rewarding that it elicits from pre-Trump party members outright lies and untruths, suggesting many party members are willing to tear down American institutions which have served the country since its inception?

Answer: Power/Evil

Hannah Arendt gave us a great analysis 73 years ago of what drives totalitarianism. Though many have disagreed with her analysis and theories, all will agree what she wrote gives one pause to consider the failures of previous totalitarian movements, as well as the horrific potential of future ones. Her writings are as relevant today as they were when first appearing on the scene in 1950's post-WWII. She not only wrote about Nazism, but she also lived it. Arendt was arrested and briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1933 for performing illegal research into antisemitism. She was Jewish.

The following is taken from writings about and by Hannah Arendt on her wikipedia page:

The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was Hannah Arendt's first major work, where she describes and analyzes Nazism and Stalinism as the major totalitarian political movements of the first half of the 20th century.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.^[397][398]

The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs^[400]

Arendt took a broader perspective on history than merely totalitarianism in the early 20th century, stating "the deliberate falsehood and the outright lie have been used as legitimate means to achieve political ends since the beginning of recorded history."^[404][405] Contemporary relevance is also reflected in the increasing use of the phrase, attributed to her, "No one has the right to obey" to reflect that actions result from choices, and hence judgement, and that we cannot disclaim responsibility for that which we have the power to act upon.^[326] In addition those centers established to promote Arendtian studies continue to seek solutions to a wide range of contemporary issues in her writing.^[406]

Arendt's teachings on obedience have also been linked to the controversial psychology experiments by Stanley Milgram, that implied that ordinary people can easily be induced to commit atrocities.^[407][408] Milgram himself drew attention to this in 1974, stating that he was testing the theory that Eichmann like others would merely follow orders, but unlike Milgram she argued that actions involve responsibility.^[409][410]

In Search of the Last Agora, an illustrated documentary film by Lebanese director Rayyan Dabbous about Hannah Arendt's 1958 work The Human Condition, was released in 2018 to mark the book's 50th anniversary. Screened at Bard College, the experimental film is described as finding "new meaning in the political theorist's conceptions of politics, technology and society in the 1950s", particularly in her prediction of abuses of phenomena unknown in Arendt's time, including social media, intense globalization, and obsessive celebrity culture.^[413]