Hannah Arendt Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a system of government in which the state acts to extends its absolute authority and power into all aspects of its citizen’s lives and have that population be completely under the control of a totally pervasive ruling ideology of a single leader. The essence of totalitarianism can be found in its very name; it is a form of rule in which the government attempts to maintain 'total' control over society, and further seeks to meld that state’s beliefs within that societies core roots, an example of this occurrence can be liquidised through Stalin and his methods in Russia during the 1920’s and 30’s. Carl Friedrich’s, a late political scientist and historian of the 20th century formed the basis of a totalitarian

An evolutionary biologist is someone who intensely studies animals over hundreds and hundreds of years. Over that time span, the scientist will look at how the animal lives within its environment or how the physical characteristics were influenced by the environment and how this all may have changed into the wildlife we see today. I like to believe that Hannah Arendt is the evolutionary biologist of philosophy. In this class it was evident that she likes to examine a concept she sees in our society such as freedom or something we may not observe too often like revolution, and from this she looks back at history and tries to follow its tracks to see how we arrived here today. Her usual suspects for comparables that seem to be her favorite to

Totalitarian regimes have utilized mob mentality as means to sustain power and oppress those who oppose them. Mob mentality is not restricted as a tool for only totalitarian regimes in real life to take advantage; mob mentality is a universal tool that is used to uphold the power of authority whether fictitious or not. In the books 1984 and The Circle written by George Orwell and Dave Eggers respectively mob mentality is used to distract the common people from the lies the authority figures spread through misinformation. Through them being the main outlet for information, having the ability to punish any opposition, and having a majority following which allows them to do anything they want the authority figures have no limit to their power.

In the 20th century totalitarian governments had come to power in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union. These governments had forced their political authority and centralized control over all aspects of life (Document 3 and 6). The government had imposed public gatherings to invade people’s lives and indoctrination of totalitarian ideas had influenced youth organizations and literature to help the government gain authority over one’s country (Document 2). One method used by totalitarian dictatorship is having mass rallies and speeches. The totalitarian government that used these method leaders was Benito Mussolini of Italy and Adolf Hitler of Germany.

In her excerpt "Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government" from her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt reveals that terror is at the core of a totalitarian government, and that this terror is based upon ideology. This type of terror exceeds fear. Totalitarianism dominated many governments during the twentieth century. Unlike other forms of government that oppress its people; a totalitarian form of government escapes the boundaries of definition. A totalitarian government is commonly mistaken as a tyranny or dictatorship. Arendt explains that this is because it must begin as a tyranny to lift the boundaries of the laws. Arendt uses two particular governments as examples to help clarify the nature of a

The 20th century was marked by many unforgettable events such as World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Some of these events occurred because of the birth of a government system called totalitarianism. A totalitarian regime is gained either through legal or illegal means and transforms the entire society into a single party regime with the sole purpose of conquering society (Zani, 2003). One of the founding fathers of totalitarianism, Joseph Stalin, ruined the lives of many by taking complete control over their lives through brainwashing techniques and destroying their rights to express their opinion.

The strongest argument totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature, that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate….. is a totalitarian’s dream.

Good people can cause severe harm if their motives are influenced by the values shared in a public corporation or are a result of manipulation controlled by the law. Bob Henderson’s ability to satisfy his interests to obtain success by dismissing social responsibility and contributing to the rise in obesity is wrong. Hannah Arendt founded the theory “The banality evil’ through analyzing Adolf Eichmann’s case during the time of the Holocaust. Eichmann and Henderson share similarities of both being ordinary men who influenced large scale harm. The intent of this essay will be to compare and contrast the perception of evil and discuss at which point radical evil may be mistaken for banal evil.

According to the text On Lying: Writing Philosophical History after the Enlightenment and after Arendt by Sophia Rosenfeld focuses on the works by Hannah Arendt. Hannah Arendt was a German-Jewish intellectual who fled Germany with the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933, lived in Paris as a stateless refugee and Zionist activist until 1941 and then fled to and settled in the United States (Isaac). Hannah Arendt wrote a “Political Lying” essay at the end of the 1960’s and first years of 1970’s. During this time Arendt became an experienced world traveler.

The movie Hannah Arendt is about a political theorist who was a former German Jew that fled to America to escape the Nazi regime. She is mostly known for writing “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, a work that would give her the stature of being considered one of the 20th centuries greatest thinkers. Her works focus was on power in politics, authorities, direct democracies, and totalitarianism. Emphasis has been given to her work published in the New Yorker on Eichmann trial due to the controversial phrase “Banality of Evil” that means a belief that a person’s behavior is not considered evil if that behavior has been normalized by the current society in which they reside.

Hannah Arendt is a German Jewish philosopher, born in 1906 and died in 1975. She studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger as Professor. Her works deal with the nature of power and political subjects such as democracy, authority, and totalitarianism. She flew away to France in 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in Germany. She flew away from Europe to the United States after escaping from the concentration camp of Gurs. She became a Professor in New York city, in which she became an active member of the German Jewish community. In 1963, she was sent to Jerusalem to report on Eichmann’s trial by The New Yorker. Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on Eichmann’s trial were expected to be harsh, considering the philosopher’s roots. However, her

Total Domination is described by Hannah Arendt as being “when people are brought down to such a low state that they aren’t even humans anymore but just a set of reactions”, this statement however, cannot be used to describe Egypt under the rule of Hosni Mubarak. Arendt’s definition of total domination can be used to describe the Nazi’s but not really the rule of Hosni Mubarak. He doesn’t use fear to try and control the people, nor does he put people in a group and send them to camps. His rule was oppressive and ended up being “charged with complicity in the murder and attempted murder of hundreds of peaceful demonstrations protesting his rule in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and several other Egyptian governorates” (hrw.org). Mubarak was intent

Many people have sought to evaluate the vulnerabilities associated with states and markets that are under totalitarianism, which is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society. First developed in 1920 by the Italian fascists, and in particular Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy for over twenty years, totalitarianism embossed the minds of those who lived under it. This system was conceptualized mainly to highlight the similarities between Nazi Germany and other fascist states. There’s one underlying difference that one must understand for one to assess the restrictions that totalitarianism puts on one’s liberty. One should realize that totalitarianism states are states where there is a single party rule, where a dictatorship is type of government in which a single person rules. Aldous Huxley and George Orwell are famous authors who opposed totalitarianism, and through their philosophical ideals, attempted to inform people of the dangers faced by society under this restricting system, where people are inhibited from holding any sort of authority. George Orwell, in 1984, discusses concerns relating to big government and big brother and Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, discusses predatory markets impinging on our personal freedoms. Through their works, they attempt to question societal beliefs on brute force and physical coercion verses the manipulation of preferences and tastes leading to willing submission. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley each

In “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” Hannah Arendt analyzes Adolph Eichmann while he is on trial in Jerusalem for the crimes that he committed while being a Lieutenant Colonel in the SS during the Nazi Regime. In the book Arendt talks about how Eichmann’s actions were “banal” in the sense that he seemed to be an ordinary person who just committed acts that were evil. Italian-Jewish Writer Primo Levi, a Holocaust Survivor, states that SS officers like Eichmann lived in their own self-deception that made them believe that their actions were caused by just following their orders in the SS. In this paper, I will analyze the views that both Arendt and Levi had about the Eichmann trial and then compare and state the differences of their views. I will then explain the reasons why both Hannah Arendt’s and Primo Levi’s analysis of Adolph Eichmann that show that the actions that he committed were all truly evil actions.

In her classic work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt articulates a vision of totalitarianism that is juxtaposed against her own conceptions of freedom and the purpose of humanity. In this contrasting however, she ignores her own recognition that the meanings of such concepts are intimately tied with the narrative of a given society or group. As a result, this essay will argue that Arendt’s claim that totalitarianism destroys freedom as a living political reality is unjustified, and that instead totalitarianism gives a meaning to freedom that is informed by the collapse of ultimate concepts such as the law of History and the law of Nature into the sphere of man. To show this, we will explore the way Arendt lays the seeds of the