"Hannah Arendt’s seminal work The Origins of Totalitarianism (1948) makes for sobering reading in the world we see developing around us in the year 2021.
Indeed, we find ourselves in an impasse of epic proportions where the essence of what it means to be human is at stake.
“The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man.” – Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1948
Although it is hard to claim that – at least in the West – we find ourselves once again under the yoke of totalitarian regimes comparable to those we know so well from the 20th century,
there is no doubt that we are faced with a global paradigm that brings forth steadily expanding totalitarian tendencies, and these need not even be planned intentionally or maliciously.
... the modern-day drivers of such totalitarian tendencies are for the most part convinced
– with the support of the masses
– that they are doing the right thing because they claim to know what is best for the people in a time of existential crisis.
Totalitarianism is a political ideology that can easily spread in society without much of the population at first noticing it and before it is too late.
In her book, Hannah Arendt meticulously describes the genesis of the totalitarian movements that ultimately grew into the totalitarian regimes of 20th century Europe and Asia, and the unspeakable acts of genocide and crimes against humanity this ultimately resulted in.
... we should not be misled by the fact that we do not see in the West today any of the atrocities that were the hallmark of the totalitarian regimes of Communism under Stalin or Mao and Nazism under Hitler.
These events were all preceded by a gradually spreading mass ideology and subsequent state-imposed ideological campaigns
and measures promoting apparently “justifiable” and “scientifically proven” control measures and actions aimed at permanent surveillance
and ultimately a step-by-step exclusion of certain people from (parts of) society because they posed “a risk” to others or dared to think outside of what was considered acceptable thought.
In his book The Demon in Democracy – Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, the Polish lawyer and Member of the European Parliament Ryszard Legutko leaves no doubt that there are worrying similarities between many of the dynamics in Communist totalitarian regimes and modern-day liberal democracies, when he observes:
“Communism and liberal democracy proved to be all-unifying entities compelling their followers how to think, what to do, how to evaluate events, what to dream, and what language to use.”
... long before totalitarian regimes take actual power and establish complete control, their architects and enablers have already been patiently preparing society – not necessarily in a coordinated way or with that end-goal in mind – for the takeover.
The totalitarian movement itself is driven by the aggressive and at times violent promotion of a certain dominant ideology, through relentless propaganda, censorship, and groupthink.
It also always includes major economic and financial interests.
Such a process then results in an ever more omnipotent state, assisted by a host of unaccountable groups, (international) institutions and corporations,
that claims to have a patent on truth and language and on knowing what is good for its citizens and society as a whole.
Although there is of course a vast difference between Communist totalitarian regimes of the 21st century that we see in China and North Korea, and Western liberal democracies with their growing totalitarian tendencies,
what seems to be the unifying element between the two systems today is thought control and behavioral management of its populations.
This development has been greatly enhanced through what was coined by Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff as “surveillance capitalism.”
Surveillance capitalism, Zuboff writes, is “[a] movement that aims to impose a new collective order based on total certainty.”
It is also ... “[a]n expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above: an overthrow of the people’s sovereignty.”
The modern state and its allies, whether communist, liberal or otherwise, have – for the above and other reasons – an insatiable desire to collect massive amounts of data on citizens and customers and to use this data extensively for control and influence.
... “Never before have a handful of tech designers had such control over the way billions of us think, act, and live our lives.”
... the “social credit” system rolled out by the Chinese Communist Party that uses big data and permanent CCTV live footage to manage people’s behavior in public areas through a system of awards and punishments.
The mandatory QR code first introduced in China in 2020 and subsequently in liberal democratic states around the world in 2021, to keep permanent track of people’s health status and as a prerequisite for participating in society, is the latest and deeply troubling phenomenon of this same surveillance capitalism.
Here the dividing line between mere technocracy and totalitarianism becomes almost extinct under the guise of “protecting public health.”
The currently attempted colonization of the human body by the state and its commercial partners, claiming to have our best interests in mind, is part of this troubling dynamic.
Where did the progressive mantra “My body, my choice” suddenly go?
... totalitarianism ... is a system of government (a totalitarian regime), or a system of increasing control otherwise implemented (a totalitarian movement)
– presenting itself in different forms and at different levels of society
– that tolerates no individual freedom or independent thought and that ultimately seeks to totally subordinate and direct all aspects of the individual human life.
In the words of Dreher, totalitarianism “is a state in which nothing can be permitted to exist that contradicts a society’s ruling ideology.”
In modern society, where we see this dynamic very much at work, the use of science and technology play a decisive role in enabling totalitarian tendencies to take hold in ways that 20th century ideologues could only have dreamed of.
Furthermore, accompanying totalitarianism in whatever stage, institutionalized dehumanization occurs and is the process
by which the whole or part of the population is subjected to policies and practices that consistently violate the dignity and fundamental rights of the human being and that may ultimately lead to exclusion and social or, in the worst case, physical extermination.
... I am in no way comparing or equating the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century and their atrocities to what I see as the increasing totalitarian tendencies and resulting policies today.
... the present course of events that, if not corrected, does not bode well for a future of freedom and the rule of law.
I. The workings of totalitarianism
... “totalitarianism ... always has the ultimate goal of total control over people and society.
... For totalitarianism to have a chance of succeeding, Hannah Arendt tells us, three main and closely intertwined phenomena are needed:
the mass movement,
the elite’s leading role in steering those masses and
the employment of relentless propaganda.
For its establishment and durability totalitarianism depends as a first step on mass support obtained through playing into a sense of permanent crisis and fear in society.
This then feeds the urge of the masses to have those in charge constantly take “measures” and show leadership to ward off the threat that has been identified as endangering the whole of society.
Those in charge can “remain in power only so long as they keep moving and set everything around them in motion.”
The reason for this is that totalitarian movements build on the classical failure of societies throughout human history to create and uphold a sense of community and purpose,
instead breeding isolated, self-centered human beings without a clear overarching purpose in life.
The masses following the totalitarian movement are lost themselves and as a result in search of a clear identity and a purpose in life that they do not find in their current circumstances:
... The chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships.”
... In an age where social media and whatever else is presented on screens set the tone above all else and where teenage girls fall into depression and increased suicide attempts because of the lack of “likes” on their Instagram account,
we indeed see a disconcerting example of this lack of normal relationships that were instead meant to involve in-person encounters leading to profound exchanges.
In Communist societies it is the Party that sets out to destroy religious, social and family ties to make place for a citizen that can be completely subjected by the State and the dictates of the Party, like we see happening in China and North Korea.
... Not only have the smartphone and social media drastically reduced genuine human interaction, as any teacher or parent of schoolchildren can attest to, but the social framework has in recent times further dramatically deteriorated through other major shifts in society.
The ever-growing Big-Tech and government policing of language, opinions, and scientific information in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, accompanied by a level of censorship not seen since World War II, has greatly reduced and impoverished the public discourse and seriously undermined trust in science, politics and the community.
In 2020 and 2021, mostly well-meant yet often ill-advised government-imposed Corona measures such as lockdowns, mask-mandates, entry-requirements to public facilities and Corona vaccine mandates have further massively limited the unimpeded human interaction that any society needs to retain and strengthen its social fabric.
All these externally imposed developments contribute from different directions to human beings, especially the young, increasingly and ever more lastingly being deprived of those ‘normal social relationships’ Hannah Arendt speaks of.
Seemingly lacking alternatives, this in turn leads large groups of the population – most of them not even realizing it – into the arms of totalitarian ideologies.
...The final goal of totalitarianism, she explains, is the permanent domination of human beings from within, thus involving each and every aspect of life, whereby the masses have to be kept constantly in motion since “a political goal that would constitute the end of the movement simply does not exist.”
... (One tool being used for this successfully throughout the world is the constant well-rehearsed press conferences by grave-looking ministers in suits behind Plexiglas and flanked by experts and state flags), instrumentalized heartbreaking stories and calls to immediate action (“measures”), dealing with (perceived or real) new threats to their person, to their cause and to society as a whole.
Fear is the main driving force behind keeping this perpetual anxiety and activism going.
The elite believe that what is required for solving the acute problems society is currently faced with is the total destruction, or at least the total redesign, of all that was considered common sense, logic and established wisdom until this point.
When it comes to the Corona crisis, the well-known capacity of the human body to build natural immunity against most viruses it has already encountered is no longer deemed relevant in any way by those imposing vaccination mandates, rejecting foundational principles of human biology and established medical wisdom.
... in covering up the 2019 outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wuhan perhaps resulting from a lab leak, most countries in the world have become so dependent on China that they are willing to look the other way and cooperate with a regime that is willing to trample on all that liberal democracy stands for.
Hannah Arendt describes another disturbing element that is part of what she calls the “temporary alliance between the mob and the elite” and that is the willingness of these elites to lie their way into obtaining and retaining power through “the possibility that gigantic lies and monstrous falsehoods can eventually be established as unquestioned facts.”
At this point it is not a proven fact that governments and their allies are lying about statistics and scientific data surrounding Covid-19; however, it is clear that there exist many serious inconsistencies that are not, or not sufficiently, being dealt with.
... the primary concern of the simple man or woman going about their daily business of making life work for their families and other dependents ...
We all long for security and predictability and hence a crisis makes us look for ways to obtain or retain security and safety, and when necessary, most are willing to pay a high price for this,
including relinquishing their freedoms and living with the notion that they might not be told the whole truth about the crisis at hand.
It should be no surprise then that considering the potential lethal effect the Coronavirus can have on human beings, our very human fear of death has led most of us to part without much of a fight with the rights and freedoms that our fathers and grandfathers fought so hard for.
... as vaccine mandates are introduced around the globe for workers in many industries and settings, the majority is complying not because they themselves necessarily believe they need the Corona vaccine, but only because they want to reclaim their freedoms and keep their jobs so they can feed their families.
The political elites imposing these mandates know this of course and make smart use of it, often even with the best of intentions believing that this is necessary to deal with the crisis at hand.
The most important and ultimate tool used by totalitarian movements in the non-totalitarian society is to establish real control of the masses by winning them over through the use of propaganda:
“Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself; the masses have to be won by propaganda.”
... Both the deliberate instrumentalization of fear and the constant referral to “follow the science” by political actors and the mass media in the Corona crisis has been extremely successful as a propaganda tool.
Hannah Arendt ... sees the totalitarian weaponization of science, quoting the German philosopher Eric Voegelin, as the final stage in a societal process where “science [has become] an idol that will magically cure the evils of existence and transform the nature of man.”
... Organization and single-mindedness of purpose is what the totalitarian movement aims at for obtaining full control, whereby the content of the propaganda (whether fact or fiction, or both) becomes an untouchable element of the movement and where objective reason or let alone public discourse no longer play any role.
Until now, respectful public debate and a robust scientific discourse have not been possible when it comes to the best way to respond to the Corona pandemic.
The elites are keenly aware of this and use it to the advantage of forwarding their agenda ...
this is also where the great weakness of totalitarian propaganda lies, since ultimately “(..) it cannot fulfill this longing of the masses for a completely consistent, comprehensible, and predictable world without seriously conflicting with common sense.”
... Former Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff, a well-known epidemiologist and biostatistician specializing in infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety, notes what is the correct application of science and how this is lacking in the current narrative:
“Science is about rational disagreement, the questioning and testing of orthodoxy and the constant search for truth.”
We are now very far removed from this concept in a public climate where science has been politicized into a truth factory that tolerates no dissent, even if the alternative viewpoint merely outlines the numerous inconsistencies and falsehoods that are part of the political and media narrative.
... Since March 2020 we have been witnessing the global unfolding of a serious health crisis leading to unprecedented government, media and societal pressure being exerted on whole populations
to acquiesce in far-reaching and mostly unconstitutional measures limiting people’s freedoms and in many cases through threats and undue pressure violating their bodily integrity.
During this time, it has become increasingly clear that there are certain tendencies to be seen today that show some similarities to the sort of dehumanizing measures employed as a rule by totalitarian movements and regimes.
Endless lockdowns, police-enforced quarantines, travel restrictions, vaccine mandates, the suppression of scientific data and debate, large-scale censorship, and the relentless deplatforming and public shaming of critical voices are all examples of dehumanizing measures that should have no place in a system of democracy and the rule of law.
We also see the process of increasingly relegating a certain part of the population to the peripheries whilst singling them out as irresponsible and undesired because of the “risk” they pose to others, leading to society gradually excluding them.
... Those peddling political rhetoric today that sets up the “vaccinated” against the “unvaccinated, or vice versa, are going down a very dangerous road of demagoguery that has never ended well in history.
... They are no longer acquaintances or professionals with particular names, habits, appearances and characters; instead they are members of the enemy group.
When a person is reduced to an abstraction in such a way, one is free to hate him because the moral obstacle has already been abolished.”
Looking at the history of totalitarian movements eventually leading to totalitarian regimes and their campaigns of state-controlled persecution and segregation, this is what happens.
The first step of dehumanization is the creation and political instrumentalization of fear and the resulting permanent anxiety amongst the population: fear for one’s own life and fear for a specific group in society that is considered to be a threat is constantly being fed.
... The creation of fear towards that specific group then turns them into easily identifiable scapegoats for the specific problem that society is facing now, regardless of the facts.
An ideology of publicly justified discrimination based on an emotion present in individual human beings in society has been born.
This is exactly how the totalitarian movements which turned into totalitarian regimes in recent European history started.
... First the “asymptomatic,” then the “unmasked” and now the “unvaccinated” are being presented and treated as a danger and a burden to the rest of society.
How often have we not heard from political leaders during the past months that we are living through the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and that the hospitals are full of them.
The second step of dehumanization is soft exclusion: the group turned into scapegoats is excluded from certain – though not all – parts of society.
They are still considered part of that society, but their status has been downgraded.
They are merely being tolerated whilst at the same time being berated in public for them being or acting differently.
Systems are also put in place that enable the authorities, and thus the public at large, to easily identify who these ‘others’ are.
Enter the “Green Pass” or QR code.
... on November 5, 2021, Austria was the first country in Europe to introduce highly discriminatory restrictions for the “unvaccinated.”
These citizens have been barred from participating in societal life and can only go to work, grocery shopping, church, have a walk or attend to clearly defined “emergencies”.
New Zealand and Australia have similar limitations.
Examples are manifold around the world where without proof of Corona vaccination people are losing their jobs and being barred entry into a host of establishments, shops and even churches.
There are also an increasing number of countries barring people from boarding planes without a vaccination certificate, or even forbidding them explicitly to have friends over for dinner at home, like in Australia:
The third step of dehumanization, mostly occurring in parallel with the second step, is executed though documented justification of the exclusion:
academic research, expert opinions and scientific studies widely disseminated through vast media coverage are used to underpin the propaganda of fear and the subsequent exclusion of a specific group;
to ‘explain’ or ‘provide evidence’ why the exclusion is necessary for the ‘good of society’ and for everybody to ‘stay safe.’
... The interesting caveat here is that the science is of course often being used in a biased way, only presenting those studies that fit the official narrative and not the at least equal number of studies, no matter how renowned its authors, that provide alternative insights and conclusions that might contribute to a constructive debate and better solutions.
As mentioned before, here science becomes politicized as a tool for promoting what the leaders of the totalitarian movement have decided should be the truth and the measures and actions based on that version of the truth.
Alternative viewpoints are simply censored, as we see the likes of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook engage in on an unprecedented scale.
Not since the end of the Second World War have so many renowned and acclaimed academics, scientists and medical doctors, including Nobel Prize recipients and nominees, been silenced, deplatformed and fired from their positions only because they do not support the official or ‘correct’ line.
... The fourth step of dehumanization is hard exclusion: the group that is now ‘proven’ to be the cause of society’s problems and current impasse is subsequently excluded from civil society as a whole and becomes rightless.
They no longer have a voice in society because they are deemed not to be part of it anymore.
In the extreme version of this, they are no longer entitled to the protection of their fundamental rights.
When it comes to Corona measures imposed by governments worldwide and to varying degrees, in some places we are already seeing developments leaning to this fourth stage.
... In Melbourne, Australia, for example, a euphemistically called “Center for National Resilience” will soon be completed (as one of various such centers) that will act as a permanent facility where people are to be forcibly locked up in quarantine, for example when returning from foreign travel.
The rules and regulations for life in such an already existing internment facility in Australia’s Northern Territory state make for chilling Orwellian reading:
“Chief Health Officer Direction 52 of 2021 sets out what a person must do when in quarantine at the Centre for National Resilience and at Alice Springs Quarantine Facility.
This direction is law – every person in quarantine must do what the Direction says.
If a person does not follow the Direction, the Northern Territory Police may issue an Infringement Notice with a financial penalty.”
The fifth and final step of dehumanization is extermination, social or physical.
The excluded group is forcefully ejected from society, either by any participation in society being made impossible, or their banishment into camps, ghettos, prisons and medical facilities.
... this then leads to those people being physically exterminated or at least treated as those that are “no longer human.”
This becomes easily possible because nobody speaks for them anymore, invisible as they have become.
They have lost their place in political society and with it any chance to claim their rights as human beings.
They have stopped being part of humanity as far as the totalitarians are concerned.
In the West we have thankfully not reached this final stage of totalitarianism and resulting dehumanization.
However, Hannah Arendt gives a stark warning that we should not count on democracy alone being enough of a bulwark against reaching this fifth stage:
... Conclusion: how do we liberate ourselves?
History gives us powerful guidance on how we can throw off the yoke of totalitarianism in whatever stage or form it presents itself; also the current ideological form that most do not even realize is happening.
We can actually stop the retreat of freedom and the onset of dehumanization.
In the words of George Orwell “[f]reedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
If that is granted, all else follows.”
We live in times where exactly this freedom is under grave threat as a result of ideological totalitarianism, something I have tried to illustrate with how Western societies deal with the Corona crisis, where facts too often seem not to matter in favor of enshrining the latest systemic ideological orthodoxy.
The best example of how freedom can be recovered is how the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe ended the totalitarian reign of Communism in their countries starting in 1989.
... All totalitarian efforts always end on the dust heap of history.
This one will be no exception."
Thursday, November 18, 2021
"Totalitarianism and the Five Stages of Dehumanization"
Note:
The original article was too long, and had too many long sentences. After a lot of editing, these were the main points -- which became the best article I read in the past 24 hours.
Ye Editor
Source:
Author Christiaan Alting von Geusau
holds law degrees from the University of Leiden (Netherlands) and the University of Heidelberg (Germany). He obtained with distinction his doctorate in philosophy of law from the University of Vienna (Austria), writing his dissertation on “Human Dignity and the Law in post-War Europe”, which was published internationally in 2013. He is President and Rector of ITI Catholic University in Austria where he also serves as a Professor of Law and Education. He holds an honorary professorship at the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Lima, Peru and is President of the International Catholic Legislators Network (ICLN).
