Thursday, January 22, 2009

Totalitarianism: The surprising facts

Through re-analyzing the important points and view on Totalitarianism through Hannah Arendt’s book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, one can see many unexplored views on Totalitarianism that most of us would often misinterpret about.
Among the first essential points I would like to discuss here is the fact that the concept of a stateless society. One of the potentially dangerous things Totalitarianism has done is the fact that when it meant a socially equal society, it meant the removal of the identities of the human person, that is, the human person as being unique and different. In the case of Totalitarianism, it has transformed every human person into a mere big group of species. Resulting from the abusive power of Capitalism, as seen through Marxism,Totalitarianism likewise treats history as a perpetual process, revolving on the cycle between the totalitarian leader and the masses following the totalitarian leader blindly. Likewise, Totalitarianism is considered to be a part of modernity due to the exchange of roles of the public and the private sphere. Before, the public sphere in classical political theory is managed by the lawmakers while the private sphere is managed by the people of the state. In modern political theory, what happens is the the public sphere becomes the people, in the case of Totalitarianism, the masses, while the private sphere became the rulers, and in the Totalitarian aspect, the Totalitarian leader who has absolute control over the masses.
Like how Arendt discuss how Totalitarianism came about, we can look at Totalitarianism as being originated from Capitalism. How? Because in Capitalism, the main goal of it is to gain as much profit as possible with the least investment. Hence, Capitalism attempts to expand the overall power of the nation state, but what it has underestimated is the fact that this “stretching of power” has a certain limit; there will come a time wherein there are little to no possible ways of expanding the profit power of the nation state. As a result of this Imperialism was born.
Through Imperialism, the emerging capitalist nation state now then expands without any concern for territorial borders, capturing as many states as possible. Now because of this further expansion of the capitalist nation state to other states, the capitalist nation state would then give an illusion of helping the other states of their needs, yet in reality, this certain support the capitalist nation state can give would be only guaranteed to its people; hence, it does not give absolute protection to every state it captures since the capitalist nation state would not bother to protect nation-less states. The main priority of the capitalist nation state is always its people first.
As a result, the captured states are then absorbed to a bigger blob - that is, the capitalist nation state, and hence would result into the degradation of the people of these captured states into the mass man, wherein they are species being who do not belong to anywhere, which has been the case for the anti-semitism approach of the Nazi party during the rule of Adolf Hitler.
Another important point that is seen with Totalitarianism is the nature of the masses being discussed here. The masses here are being described into a feeling of uselessness - a result of the first point - and hence bringing the masses into a state of loneliness. What happens is that the totalitarian leader, through the power of propaganda, tries to “relate” to these masses, and hence persuading the masses to join his movement. What happens then is the masses becoming obedient blindly to the totalitarian leader, and because they are the followers of the totalitarian leader, they end up being dependent with the totalitarian leader.
Now what makes the totalitarian leader problematic? First of all, the problem with this is that the masses, which would amount to millions of people, end up trusting this sole human person leader they have when it comes to outside relations, giving the image of the totalitarian leader having control of one big blob, that with the one big blob, everyone should agree to it at all costs. In addition, because of the existence of mass movements being for the leader, criticizing the leader for his wrong decisions or flaws is now an impossible task since the mass movements are people who are brainwashed in the first place, and because they still remain powerless, the result of it becomes simple: the masses believe therefore that the leader is always right.
This does not mean therefore that because of this the totalitarian leader is absolutely powerful; it has its downfall as well. The major downfall of Totalitarianism, which is surprising, is its lack of ambition. Because of the totalitarian leader being “perpetually” right in away, this makes the leader himself not desiring for more as he has reached the end of the line. Also, because of the blurring between friends and career in a Totalitarian government, the leader therefore is torn apart, ending into an uncompromising desire.

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