For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness • Hacker News Board

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#71

Post by pavlov » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:53 AM UTC

gabereiser wrote: post #60

s1artibartfast wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you brought it up, what factors do you think made you ex-wife susceptible to qanon ideas?

She was always susceptible to misinformation. When we moved to Central Florida a decade ago, they have what’s called “Love Bugs”. An invasive flying beetle from Central America. While on the job as a barista, someone told her they were genetically engineered at UCF. She believed him. Arguing with me that was the truth until I pointed her to science articles and Wikipedia. Fast forward a few years and the thought of s…

Thanks for sharing, it’s really interesting to hear your firsthand perspective on how people end up in these circles.

Btw, the downvotes are not related to the specifics of what you posted. It’s simply that there are a bunch of people on HN who downvote every single comment that’s somehow critical of Trump or the alt-right. They come back even into old threads to do this. It’s absurd.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#72

Post by everybodyknows » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:13 AM UTC

jimmyvalmer wrote: post #22

I read Origins two weeks ago. Talk about couching overstatement in wordy layers of psychobabble. This piece is similarly long-winded and "in my feels" speculative.

For a treatment of the subject that remains firmly grounded in examples from history -- Martin Luther, Napoleon, Hitler -- try Eric Hoffer's The True Believer.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#73

Post by gabereiser » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #70

gabereiser wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was always susceptible to misinformation. When we moved to Central Florida a decade ago, they have what’s called “Love Bugs”. An invasive flying beetle from Central America. While on the job as a barista, someone told her they were genetically engineered at UCF. She believed him. Arguing with me that was the truth until I pointed her to science articles and Wikipedia. Fast forward a few years and the thought of s…

Thanks for the candid response! Sounds like a possible psychological disorder.

Yeah. I’m sure it is. Borderline personality disorder or something. We need to talk about this though because it’s not an instance of someone waking up one day and thinking “save the babies”, it’s a slow systemic grooming with ever increasing outlandish claims. Slowly warping the mind to believe what you want them to. To control their actions and behavior. It does no one justice to fight them head on. You have to acknowledge their views, empathize, and slowly unravel the web of lies.

I don’t have the qualifications or experience to know how to do that effectively. I’m happier now.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#74

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:45 AM UTC

platz wrote: post #48

rusk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest all I think I was really driving at is that he sets the tone in the first sentence that he’s uninformed about what he’s talking about. I kind of get the impression also that he’s trying to be divisive rather than understand the issues at hand. I kind of feel he goes against the hacker ethic on both points ...

> your point relies on the assumption that neoliberalism is left wing, when this is not true I didn't say that all neoliberals were left wing. I said that there were some people on the the left that were neoliberals. Please understand this difference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism#United_States > Early roots of neoliberalism were laid in the 1970s during the Carter administration, with deregulation of t…

[deleted]

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#75

Post by triceratops » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

tharkun__ wrote: post #69

triceratops wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do governments put every single decision they make to a general vote? You're confusing representative democracy with direct democracy. How many countries postponed or cancelled elections due to the pandemic? Only those would be considered to have "bypassed democracy".

You mean like the German state of Thuringia? https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/corona-pandemie-thuering...

It's in German, I don't know what that says. Assuming it says "Thuringia postponed elections" I guess sure, lockdowns in Thuringia past the term of the existing government were not democratic. That is, if Germany has statewide Covid restrictions, rather than national ones.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#76

Post by djmips » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

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…

Where does humiliation factor in. I think this is one of the most powerful emotions and likely a big factor in the rise of totalitarian leaders.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#77

Post by Gibbon1 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 5:53 AM UTC

platz wrote: post #59

rusk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, sorry, not convinced. There’s something askew in your outlook and I think it’s affecting your ability to make your point. I’d suggest reevaluating your fundamentals and going from there. Take care brother

Feel free to respond with reasons for your claims, thanks and take care

The answer is the left has a long history of opposing globalization, union breaking and neoliberalism in general. In particular the left attacks on centrist democrats embrace of neoliberalism has be vicious. They were the reason why Obama won the primary over Clinton in 2008. And why Sanders showed well in 2016 even though Clinton won. And Clinton despises the left for it.

See the 1999 Seattle WTO protests as an example of the left opposing neoliberalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#78

Post by platz » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #77

platz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to respond with reasons for your claims, thanks and take care

The answer is the left has a long history of opposing globalization, union breaking and neoliberalism in general. In particular the left attacks on centrist democrats embrace of neoliberalism has be vicious. They were the reason why Obama won the primary over Clinton in 2008. And why Sanders showed well in 2016 even though Clinton won. And Clinton despises the left for it. See the 1999 Seattle WTO protests as an exam…

You say "the left" like it is a well-defined thing or a single entity.

Just because those that were further-left than centrist democrats existed and opposed their centrist democrats policies doesn't mean centrist democrats weren't considered "on the left" by a great many people, who would also be considered left of the Republicans at the time.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#79

Post by mikem170 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #67

mikem170 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the people vote on something I'd say that is a democratic decision. Electing the U.S. president is a democratic decision. Referendums, where they have them, like in California, are democratic decisions. I would not say that quarantines in the U.S. have been democratic decisions. Like I said, I think the word democracy is abused. Is the U.S. a democracy? The word appears zero times in the constitution. Is the Democ…

> Why the need to defend this hot mess and everything it does as democratic, when technically it is not? If we're arguing technicalities, the US is "technically" a type of democracy - specifically a representative democracy. If we go by your more exacting standards every government decision, ordinance, or law except those by referenda isn't democratic. Which is neither technically correct, nor is it correct as genera…

I see where you are coming from, but I still object. Based on all the problems in our system I don't know that the U.S. deserves to be called a democracy, unless the word has lost much of its meaning.

Candidates are effectively preselected via funding by .02% of the population before people can vote, and gerrymandering districts is rampant so that political parties are selecting voters, instead of the other way around [0].

Would you say that things like that make the U.S. a de jure democracy, also?

I think the problems with our so-called democracy explain why Trump has had the following that he does. He had the money and media experience to get elected based on the outrage so many people have for all other politicians who do not really represent them. The establishment seemed more interested in getting rid of him than addressing the sentiment that brought him to office. I'm not a Trump supporter myself, and I loathe his demagoguery, but I think that understand why he got elected. He's popular with a lot of politically apathetic people because they really believed he would "drain the swamp" and that he wasn't like every single other politician - not another Bush, not another Clinton, another insider, not someone who was going to bail out Wall Street again, etc.

Apologies for nitpicking and spouting off a bit, but like I said this has all very much been on my mind lately. I know that I may be tilting at windmills here, but words are important and shape our thoughts, which led me to throw my original comment out there.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJy8vTu66tE

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#80

Post by tharkun__ » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #75

tharkun__ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like the German state of Thuringia? https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/corona-pandemie-thuering...

It's in German, I don't know what that says. Assuming it says "Thuringia postponed elections" I guess sure, lockdowns in Thuringia past the term of the existing government were not democratic. That is, if Germany has statewide Covid restrictions, rather than national ones.

Forgive me but Google Translate Exists (and not everything is reported internationally :)

And yes Germany is a weird mix of state and federal responsibilities and authority (sorta like the US just different). States are responsible for schools for example. But now Merkel wants to close _all_ schools in all of Germany. Some states object and want to keep them open. Bavaria introduced a requirement to wear FFP2 masks now, while no other state does etc.