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For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

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Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#21

Post by gabereiser »

pavlov wrote: post #13
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what I've seen from the crowd except during speeches. I, too, naturally tend to believe the worst about these people but there's definitely a sense of Trump supporter community there.

There is a community there, but for many the process of joining this new community has involved the destruction of their existing links to family and local society. QAnon is the most extreme example of this kind of cultish separation among Trumpists.

This. A slow toxic rot of self that erodes the family and community links until their thoughts and actions seem alien to the outside.

Sounds like my ex-wife (fell victim to QAnon). :/

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#23

Post by hirundo »

motohagiography wrote: post #2

That aspect of her thesis was called political "atomization," which was the creation of this lonely state by isolating people from each other, and ultimately from truth, so that they become neutralized to the totalitarian agenda. The destruction of communities, families, and social connections is a totalitarian process and agenda. It was the result of a campaign of arbitrariness and farcical lying because the real ta…

It would be nice if public health agencies formally considered the public cost of such atomization from covid lockdowns. They may find in the end that the cost is worth paying, but it should be part of the analysis.

But what kind of study could yield valid, reproducible data about how much atomization is caused by how much lockdown, and how much authoritarianism is caused by how much atomization?

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#24

Post by laurent92 »

8fhdkjw039hd wrote: post #8

Growing up, the internet did not feel real to me. Just a collection of memes fighting each other, fire-walled from reality. It seemed like an entertaining farce but not real. This was relatively true for the internet I grew up with, but it is certainly not true now. What happened in the capital was quite a wake up call. And much of the blame for it does look to be the result of things like click-through maximization…

So you are withdrawing yourself from having political opinions or learning about it. It also means you will follow what feels right, for example in promoting equality or getting rid of USA’s extreme elements at work. Since you do not decide for yourself, you will accept whatever is introduced to you as extreme elements.

Isn’t that the very definition of totalitarianism? People who won’t make decisions based on ideas they articulate, but rather let themselves go to accept other people’s decisions?

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#25

Post by motohagiography »

hexxiiiz wrote: post #15

"But in order to make individuals susceptible to ideology, you must first ruin their relationship to themselves and others by making them sceptical and cynical, so that they can no longer rely upon their own judgment" As much as I am sure this does happen quite a lot, something that does not get enough emphasis is how much people's relationships to themselves erode under the very ordinary conditions of quotidian life…

I'm over-commenting on this thread, but this is a pet topic of mine. A controversial observation of hers was that both fascism and communism were mere national movements, limited to their nation states, where what distinguished totalitarianism as a new form itself was using those nations as stepping stones and vessels for global domination. She gives some examples of totalitarian leaders rejecting both of these ideologies as not sufficiently ambitious, after using them as stepping stones.

My own interpretation is that it begins by inculcating an identity of shame and powerlessness, which respectively create the necessary righteous cruelty and infinite appetite for power to get a totalitarian movement going and neutralizing opposition to its aims, e.g. "for good men to do nothing." It is systematized, and simple enough to iterate and scale, because what it truly was is directed chaos. Defeating it is also simple set of rules, and is in fact related to defeating loneliness as well, but that's a much longer topic.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#27

Post by rzodkiew »

motohagiography wrote: post #25
hexxiiiz wrote: post #15

"But in order to make individuals susceptible to ideology, you must first ruin their relationship to themselves and others by making them sceptical and cynical, so that they can no longer rely upon their own judgment" As much as I am sure this does happen quite a lot, something that does not get enough emphasis is how much people's relationships to themselves erode under the very ordinary conditions of quotidian life…

I'm over-commenting on this thread, but this is a pet topic of mine. A controversial observation of hers was that both fascism and communism were mere national movements, limited to their nation states, where what distinguished totalitarianism as a new form itself was using those nations as stepping stones and vessels for global domination. She gives some examples of totalitarian leaders rejecting both of these ideol…

I think you're quite close with the inculcation of identity of shame and powerlessness. I'd go one step further and say it's inculcating of identity in general. As well as manufactured desires to keep power systems in place.

People are not encouraged to find their own identity or explore inner mind. It's all bread and circus everywhere, to stop you from paying attention to your inner self. We have ancient teachings on this topic dating way, way back (like Upanishads), yet we still haven't found a good way to actually teach and implement them.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#29

Post by platz »

motohagiography wrote: post #2

That aspect of her thesis was called political "atomization," which was the creation of this lonely state by isolating people from each other, and ultimately from truth, so that they become neutralized to the totalitarian agenda. The destruction of communities, families, and social connections is a totalitarian process and agenda. It was the result of a campaign of arbitrariness and farcical lying because the real ta…

It should be recognized that the left, especially neoliberals, has played just as much a role in atomization of the public as the right.

Indeed, it is usually conservatives that actually, in practice, attempt to promote community and family values.

Although portions of the right have contributed to atomization via the 'free market', the left's project of scientism and eschewing of tradition arguably has also contributed significantly to this.

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