Larry Boothe
Blog Post #6
Hannah Arendt; Origins of Totalitarianism
Chapter III; Totalitarianism in Power
Arendt describes the concept of total (totalitarian) domination and its relation to the movement itself. Totalitarian domination is just one form of domination that attempts to achieve it’s goals through “ideological indoctrination” and “absolute terror”. This total domination is only possible if each individual is reduced to a “never-changing identity of reactions” so that they lose all spontaneity and individuality. This was the goal of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. The human psyche is killed from the inside, without destroying the physical man, so that individuality and character become non-existent. The end result is “inanimate man”, or man who is incapable of being psychologically understood. If, as Arendt claims, the fundamental belief of totalitarianism is that “everything is possible”, then it is not surprising that total domination accompanies totalitarianism. There is no possible way to deprive man of something that comes with human freedom and life, (spontaneity, individuality) without resorting to total domination. Therefore, total domination is necessary to perpetuate the totalitarian state, because, without it, organization of the masses into one unit is impossible.
