Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

Csípem Hannah Arendtet. Nem csupán szikrázóan okos, de megvan benne az az intellektuális mersz is, ami nélkül a filozófia aligha művelhető. Enélkül hogy is lehetne bátorsága közvetlenül a második világháború után (az egyik totalitárius rendszer kimúlt, de a másik köszöni szépen, jól van) megragadni a jelenkor grabancát, a modern társadalom pillanatnyi állapotát, és a politika- és történetfilozófia eszközeivel visszafejteni, hogyan jutottunk el eddig. show more Hosszú és szerteágazó ösvény ez, ami valahol a humanizmusban kezdődött, de lehet, már az ókori görögöknél ott volt mindennek a magva, következésképp a szöveg is csak és kizárólag szerteágazó lehet, és ennek megfelelően igencsak sűrű, amolyan „na, ezt a bekezdést fussuk csak át még egyszer”-féle. Nem célja mindazonáltal, hogy jövőbe mutató próféciákkal vagy megoldási javaslatokkal traktáljon minket – egyszerűen csak elemzi a helyzetet, tárgyilagosan, veretesen. És bár nem tudjuk meg, mit tegyünk – a „Mit tegyünk?” kérdéskör amúgy is a forradalmárok és a politikusok homokozója, a filozófus legfeljebb talapzatot ácsol nekik –, de azt igen, honnan ered az illúzió, hogy ha a gondolkodók a passzív szemlélődésből a cselekvés mezejére lépnek, akkor egyszeriben megoldják azokat a kérdéseket, amelyekkel a filozófusok nem boldogultak. Pedig cselekvésükkel csak újabb folyamatokat indítanak el, amely folyamatok csak újabb kérdéseket szülnek – következésképpen a filozófus munkája nem szűnik meg, sőt, egyre bonyolultabbá és kilátástalanabbá válik. De Arendt azért megoldja.

Egyetlen fejezettel vannak fenntartásaim. Arendt kiválóan szlalomozik a gondolkodás akadálypályáján, ha absztrakciókról – tekintélyről, kultúráról, igazságról – van szó, de az egzaktabb kérdéseknél már nem ilyen egyértelmű a helyzet. Ez konkrétan az amerikai oktatással foglalkozó szöveghelynél zavart, ahol értelmezésemben szakpolitikáról van szó, amit szakpolitikai eszközökkel kéne bírálni, illetve szakpolitikai javaslatok segítségével kéne orvosolni, de Arendt inkább egyfajta általánosítást kísérel meg, amitől az egész homályos lesz és könnyű, mint egy üres tejfelespohár. Ez a rész nekem elavultnak és félreérthetőnek tűnik – de ezen nem berzenkednék sokat, hisz végtére is a csoda az, hogy az azóta eltelt évtizedek ellenére a többi milyen friss és ropogós maradt.

Szóval Arendt remek forma. Nem is értem, miért kavart azzal a Heideggerrel. show less

The Origins of Totalitarianism - Hannah Arendt
First published in 1951, Arendt has divided her book into three fairly equal parts; Antisemitism, Imperialism, and Totalitarianism. I found it a difficult read for a number of reasons. It is a fairly academic text and so takes some concentration to follow the arguments, Arendt can approach her arguments from several sides and so there is quite a bit of repetition, which means the text does not flow easily. The first two parts antisemitism and show more imperialism delve back into history; (after all the title of the book is The Origin's of........) which can make for some turgid stuff depending on your interests. The final difficulty is relating it to the time it was written (after the end of the second world war 1948-51) because some of it is so prescient that it could refer to the current world situation and I had to pinch myself at times to remember I was reading a book published initially in 1951. In the preface to the first edition Arendt says:

"Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organise masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives."

In part 1 Arendt discusses what she means by antisemitism and how jewish people fitted into the pre-industrial world; how they remained aloof from society even though near to the seats of power and concentrated on family ties. She goes on to tell of the rise of the jewish financiers and the Rothschilds family in particular. Their aloofness caused suspicion and there became two recognisable groups, the very rich and the masses living in various degrees of poverty. Arendt claims Benjamin Disraeli as the most successful jew. Following the scandal of the Dreyfus affair in France and the shock troops of the accusers appearing on the streets; antisemitism became a major political concept.

In part 2 Imperialism Arendt soon finds herself discussing Hobbs's Leviathan - the so called philosophy of the bourgeoise capitalist. Everyman is valued according to his worth and according to his power over others. Arendt maintains that the process of never ending accumulation of power necessary for the protection of never ending accumulation of capital, determined the progressive ideology of the late 19th century and foreshadowed the rise of imperialism. She says racism has been the powerful ideology of imperialistic policies and her case study is the Dutch Boers. She claims that a new breed of jewish financiers found themselves the enemy of the capitalists and the mob. The Nazi's learnt lessons from South Africa as evidence that one could push their own race to be the master race. After the first world war their arose the problem of the stateless people and the curse of the refugees to the new nation states and once equality before the law has broken down then the nation dissolves into an anarchic mess of over and under privileged individuals.

Part 3 is Totalitarianism and Arendt takes as her examples Nazi Germany and the Bolsheviks in Russia. She reminds us that Stalin and Hitler both came to power legally. Would be totalitarian rulers usually start their careers by boasting of their past crimes and carefully outlining their future ones. It was characteristic of the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany and the communist movements in Europe after 1930 that they recruited their members from a mass of apparently indifferent people whom all other parties had given up as too apathetic or stupid for their attention. Totalitarianism most external characteristic is their demand for total, unrestricted, unconditional and unalterable loyalty of the individual member. Such loyalty can be expected only from completely isolated human beings who without any other social ties to family, friends, comrades, or even mere acquaintances derives his sense of only having a place in the world from his belonging to a movement, his membership of the party. - Informing on others is de-rigour. Arendt says:

"The pronounced activism of totalitarian movements, their preference for terrorism over all other forms of political activity, attracted the intellectual elite and the mob alike, precisely because this terrorism was so utterly different from earlier revolutionary societies. What proved attractive was that terrorism had become a kind of philosophy through which to express frustration, resentment, and blind hatred, a kind of political expressionism which used bombs to express oneself, which watched delightedly the publicity given to resounding deeds and was absolutely willing to pay the price of life for having succeeded in forcing the recognition of ones existence on the normal strata of society."

Propaganda from a totalitarian state is directed at the outside world. Inside indoctrination is coupled with terror. Arendt demonstrates how propaganda lies were believed outside and inside the country. In Nazi Germany the lies were centred around the conspiracy of the Jews and in Russia it was the Trotskyites or the 300 families. The essential conviction shared by all ranks, from fellow-traveler to leader, is that politics is a game of cheating and that the “first commandment” of the movement: “The Fuehrer is always right,” is as necessary for the purposes of world politics, i.e., world-wide cheating, as the rules of military discipline are for the purposes of war.

Arendt then talks about the trappings of a totalitarian state, the secret police and the concentration and extermination camps. The constant purges where new younger activists replaced more experienced individuals. She says that:

"The real horror of the concentration and extermination camps lies in the fact that the inmates, even if they happen to keep alive, are more effectively cut-off from the world of the living than if they had died, because terror enforces oblivion. Here, murder is as impersonal as the squashing of a gnat."

The horrors of Nazi Germany had become common knowledge in 1951 and Arendt reminds her readers how appalling conditions in the camps were, and then compares them with Stalin's Russia, where details of internment camps were just surfacing. Fresh from the memory of failed totalitarian states, she imagines the ultimate totalitarian state, the one that manages to develop to full fruition. This is in keeping with much of her book, where concrete examples lead her to theorise how events lead to situation where totalitarian states could exist.

"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."

Arendt's theories as to how both Stalin and Hitler managed to inflict totalitarian rule on their followers goes some way to explain just what happened. How ordinary people could be persuaded that they are guaranteed unconditional belonging and loyalty to a state that manifests a fictitious world through constant lying and that is hostile to the outside world. It is not the truthfulness of the Leader’s words, but the infallibility of his actions which is the basis for the structure.

I spent some time reading this book which acted like some kind of unpleasant drug. There are country's today that could be considered totalitarian, I am thinking of North Korea and others that have the seeds or early warning signs that they are heading that way: Russia, China, USA and Israel, which all happen to be nuclear armed; Afghanistan and Iran which are not yet members of the nuclear club are also in the frame. It is all pretty depressing. Hannah Arendt in her June 1966 preface said:

"Stalin, like Hitler, died in the midst of a horrifying unfinished business. And when this happened, the story this book has to tell, and the events it tries to understand and to come to terms with, came to an at least provisional end."

That sounds a little too optimistic to me - 4 stars. show less

The first part of the book, Truth and Politics, was first published in 1954 and remains incredibly relevant today. Politics and lying have gone hand in hand for pretty much all of modern history. In other words, our time is not unique in that regards. Not much of a comfort though. The second part of the book, Lying in Politics, was written after the release of the Pentagon Papers and specifically addresses the lying and self-deception of everyone involved in the Vietnam War. While specific show more to that war, there is still much that applies to our current times as well as the first and second Iraq wars and the War on Terror and pretty much every other war the U.S. has been involved with since Vietnam. Apparently no one in government ever read the Pentagon Papers and continues to do the same things over and over again. Same poo, different war. show less

I've read two by Hannah Arendt previously—On Violence, which I think I enjoyed, and The Origins of Totalitarianism, which I couldn't finish. However, a recent book I read about humanist Zionism mentioned this book as an inspiration—so I picked it up because I've been obsessed with learning more about the creation of Israel, the holocaust, and Judaism in general. Someone worded my journey as “reading history through the lens of identity,” and I like that.
My grandparents were Holocaust show more survivors. After the war, they tried to return home, only to find their land taken and their neighbors hostile. With emigration to the U.S. and Canada heavily restricted, they attempted to reach Palestine but were turned away and ended up in Germany for a time before eventually settling in the U.S. I could’ve been born a Sabra. And if I had, I would’ve understood why my grandparents made the decision they did—while also opposing the ongoing genocide committed by my people.
Adolph Eichmann (if you don't know who he is, go read some history) was captured (or “kidnapped”) in Argentina, around twenty years after the war ended, and put on trial in Jerusalem. Hannah Arendt was a reporter at the time, and covered the trial, eventually putting it all together into a fascinating book. I wasn't able to read the whole book because my copy had a 30+ page printing error that made it unreadable.
Eichmann was a weird dude, and I'm glad I got to learn more about him for many different reason. For starters, he didn't seem to be a monster. How could a man who was responsible for that many horrible deaths not be a monster? Well, he loved and needed structure (he was German, after all) and joining the military provided him with this in abundance; he was all about following those orders, even if it meant going against his consciousness. Also, he claimed to love Jews and from the evidence presented I believe that he believed that. He considered himself a zionist, had many Jewish friends, tried to help some escape, and was obsessed with all things Jewish; pretty weird for a dude who did what he did, but as he said, he would have killed his own father if he was so ordered. I found these facts most interesting when I compared them to the modern white supremacist MAGA movement.
Personally, I'm glad Eichmann was taken off this planet, but Israel went about it in a weird way. It's true that too many former Nazis got off far too easy, but Israel's reason for doing what they did is very zionist. They claimed that only a Jewish court could render justice to Jews, and used the trial (as they also often use genocide) to claim that Jews were too meek (sound familiar?) and this would help them be heroes. Arendt didn't go too deeply into this, but it's not hard to see the zionist mythmaking involved. Again, I have no problem with any means used to kill this piece of shit, but using it to justify the founding of a genocidal state doesn't sit well with me. Vengeance is a slippery slope.
The main reason I'm not complaining about Israel seeking justice in the way they did is because of the lack of response from the rest of the world. Germany put a few former nazis on trial, but it was a joke: in one example a man was convicted of 6,280 women and children. His sentence: six years and six months in prison. There were countries like Argentina, where little nazi communities sprung up because of the refusal of the government to do anything. Even worse, the US and USSR both gave former nazis immunity for their help in scientific matters.
Perhaps the most controversial part of this book (not by my standards) is Arendt's criticism of her people for selling out their own communities, helping the Germans commit genocide, and being assholes to one another. Personally I have no idea why this is controversial: the Germans would not have been able to do what they did without the overwhelming help of Jewish Councils. These “important” Jews existed in every community and help feed the nazi death machine by handing over the people they were supposed to be looking out for. Then, once in camps, it was mostly fellow Jews who were Kapos and the ones who gassed the inmates and were often more cruel to each other than the nazis were. Finally, there was the division within the oppressed—the fact that Jews from western Europe judged Jews from the east; that Jews living in the place they were born, treated refugee Jews like second class citizens; rich Jews hating on poor Jews; and more.
This isn't much different than the situation we're in today. I don't know how many times I've been called a self-hating Jew or not a real Jew because I don't support my people destroying an entire nation just to feel some fake sense of security. We also see this in the middle and lower classes of all groups—the upper class (who have hella class solidarity) convince the rest of us that Mexicans are coming here to steal our jobs or Black people are criminals, in order to stop us from uniting and taking them down.
Speaking of comparisons, there are so many between 1940s Germany and 2020s US. The way the Germans (and other shitty countries like Hungary, Romania, and Greece) spoke about the Jews as being immigrants and invading their countries sounds exactly like what we're hearing today about non-white people in the US. The amount of people who have loyalty not to their home or a specific political party, but to their leader is the same as it was. Snatching people off of the streets, threatening to invade and take over other countries, and the slow crawl to fascism are some more things that should be raising alarms for everyone.
Something Arendt heard a lot when talking of residents of the countries affected by this is that most of the residents didn't think that something like that could happen “here.” This is also something I've heard from my grandparents and other survivors—they saw what was happening or heard rumors but either refused to believe them or figured they were safe where they were. It reminds me of a podcast called It Could Happen Here, the premise of which is that if we're aware of the possibility of war or genocide or fascism, it will be less likely to happen.
I see why this book is important, even if it was misprinted and not quite what I expected. Arendt forces readers—especially Jews like me—to sit with deeply uncomfortable truths: that complicity isn’t limited to villains, that fascism doesn’t look like evil at first, and that none of us are immune. It’s not a perfect book, but I’m better for having read it. show less