Hannah Arendt Totalitarianism
When Hannah Arendt completed her work The Origins of Totalitarianism, she essentially took a historical approach for her analysis. The stories of Nazism and Stalinism exhibited the power of reorienting the mass for political purpose. However, her work foreshadowed what happened 15 years later in China -- The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The key elements reappeared and constituted another experiment of pushing the regime to be totalitarian. I argue that the influence of mass and the strategy of manipulating the mass are indeed inseparable from the construction of totalitarianism. The only puzzle is, nevertheless, if there is any relationship between a political religion, and totalitarianism.
Arendt characterized the most significant factor of totalitarianism as the “mass support.” Only through mass support could Hitler and Stalin maintain their authority. This “mass” should be as large as possible. Yet, the momentum of population was more easily found in Asian countries rather …show more content…
In Germany, the charismatic leader -- Hitler -- himself declared his faith in Christianity, and worded the Nazi ideology as of it had transcendent power. In China, the idea of pure Communism was held as a truth and was advocated to be believed by all. In both cases, the propaganda of “truth” occupied yet another central position, and the regimes required not only obedience but also belief. These politically religious elements mingled with totalitarianism. Therefore, could political religion be seen as one of the displays of totalitarianism? Was there any totalitarianism without religious interventions? Or, are totalitarianism and political religion mutually exclusive? If these two major concepts can merge one way or another, the importance of ideology itself may be
Arendt characterized the most significant factor of totalitarianism as the “mass support.” Only through mass support could Hitler and Stalin maintain their authority. This “mass” should be as large as possible. Yet, the momentum of population was more easily found in Asian countries rather …show more content…
In Germany, the charismatic leader -- Hitler -- himself declared his faith in Christianity, and worded the Nazi ideology as of it had transcendent power. In China, the idea of pure Communism was held as a truth and was advocated to be believed by all. In both cases, the propaganda of “truth” occupied yet another central position, and the regimes required not only obedience but also belief. These politically religious elements mingled with totalitarianism. Therefore, could political religion be seen as one of the displays of totalitarianism? Was there any totalitarianism without religious interventions? Or, are totalitarianism and political religion mutually exclusive? If these two major concepts can merge one way or another, the importance of ideology itself may be