The Roots of Totalitarianism | Who Was Hannah Arendt?

After considering some of Neil Postman’s seminal ideas, I’ve decided to go ahead and move on to our next great thinker, Hannah Arendt. We will return to Postman eventually, but for now it seems a good time to dive into the thought of one of our other great 20th century giants. While it might not initially appear that Arendt fits in with my focus on technology, if you listen until the end, I make an argument as to why her inclusion in You Are Not A Machine does, in fact, make sense.

Hannah Arendt was a remarkable thinker whose influence continues in conversations on politics, society, and human nature. She was born in Hanover, Germany in 1906. As a child, she was greatly affected by the catastrophic events of the 20th century, especially the rise of fascism in her country of birth. Arendt studied philosophy under some of the most prominent figures of her time, Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, among others. Her work was influenced by her Jewish heritage and, pushed by her intellectual curiosity and her historical circumstances, Arendt decided to study political theory and human rights. She fled the horrors of Nazi Germany as a young woman, and eventually moved to the United States.

Arendt is best known for her analysis of totalitarianism, which is a subject that she addresses in her seminal book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, where she dissects the nature and rise of totalitarian regimes, focusing on Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia. She wanted to understand the underlying mechanisms that permit such oppressive systems to take root and to flourish, so her exploration goes beyond mere historical analysis.

One of Arendt’s most influential concepts is the “banality of evil,” an idea that she introduces in “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.” She argues that Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi official, was not a fanatical ideologue but rather just an ordinary bureaucrat who was simply following orders, without considering the moral implications of those orders. Arendt’s idea challenged the conventional understanding of evil, and suggested that under certain conditions ordinary people could commit heinous crimes.

A great cultural critic, Arendt was gifted with the ability to connect philosophical ideas with contemporary social and political issues. She wrote about the nature of power, of authority, and of democracy, and offered insights that remain relevant to today’s political landscape. In her book The Human Condition she offers a profound study of human activity, and makes a distinction between labor, work, and action. She explores how these activities shape our world and our experience of our world.

One of Arendt’s great concerns was the health of public life, and she advocates for the use of political action to bring about meaningful change. She was a great champion of active participation in public affairs and warned about the great dangers of apathy and disengagement. In this book she makes particular reference to the American Revolution, and highlights her belief in the power of collective action and in the creation of new political spaces.

In her works, Arendt often addresses the complexities and contradictions of modern life, and in particular the tension between individual freedom and social responsibility. She believed that true political action requires both thought and courage, as well as a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths and to engage with others in the public sphere.

Hannah Arendt was more than a philosopher; she was a keen observer of the human condition and a great advocate for a vibrant, engaged public sphere. Both her life and her work challenge us to think critically about the world around us and the need for our active role in shaping it.

It may initially appear that Hannah Arendt doesn’t fit neatly into the critique of scientism and the modern apotheosis of technology that is at the heart of You Are Not A Machine. That said, among other things, Arendt’s work provides insight into the practical effects that the modern obsession with science and technology has on individuals and society as a whole.

The first of Arendt’s quotes that we will look at (in our next installment) begins with the words, “Totalitarianism begins in contempt for what you have.” The spirit of unregulated scientism and technological development is the anarchic spirit of revolution: it suggests that the current reality is “bad” and needs to be replaced at all costs and without reflection. Arendt, along with all of our great thinkers, knows that reality is more complicated than this, and that the 21st century’s attempt to build a utopia through science and technology is destined to end in the kind of disasters we saw in the 20th century’s attempts to engineer utopias in the Soviet Union, Germany, China, etc.

OK…that’s it for today…as always, thanks for reading!