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, first published
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.
As we will come to discuss later, 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.
As Arendt would certainly warn us against, 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.”
This is also the dynamics we see at work on many levels of globalized
society today. Every reader, but especially politicians and
journalists, interested in human freedom, democracy and the rule of law,
should carefully read Chapter 11 on “The Totalitarian Movement” in
Hannah Arendt’s much-acclaimed book. She explains how 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 –
and here she does not mince her words – “[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.
On the commercial side, we have all the aspects of tracking people’s
behavior and preferences online, brilliantly explained in the
documentary The Social Dilemma,
confronting us with the reality that “Never before have a handful of
tech designers had such control over the way billions of us think, act,
and live our lives.” At the same time we see in operation 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?
So, what then, is totalitarianism? It 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.
In the following, we will look more closely at some of the basic
tenets of the totalitarian movement as described by Hannah Arendt and
how this enables the dynamics of institutionalized dehumanization that
we observe today. In the conclusion, we will briefly look at what
history and human experience can tell us about freeing society from the
yoke of totalitarianism and its dehumanizing policies.
The reader must understand that 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. Instead, as is the
role of a robust academic discourse, we will take a critical look at
what we see happening in society today and analyze relevant historical
and political phenomena that might instruct us on how we can deal better
with 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
When we speak about “totalitarianism,” the word is being used in this
context to describe the whole of a political ideology that can present
itself in different forms and stages, but that always has the ultimate
goal of total control over people and society. As described above,
Hannah Arendt distinguishes within totalitarianism between the
totalitarian movement and the totalitarian regime. I add to this
categorizing what I believe to be an early stage of the totalitarian
movement, called “totalitarian tendencies” by Legutko, and that I call
ideological totalitarianism in relation to current developments. 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.
The lonely masses
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: “Social atomization
and extreme individualization preceded the mass movement (..). The chief
characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but
his isolation and lack of normal social relationships.”
How familiar this sounds to any person observing modern society. 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. In hedonistic and materialistic Western societies this same
destruction happens through different means and under the neo-Marxist
guise of unstoppable “progress,” where technology and a false definition
of the purpose of science erodes the understanding of what it means to
be human: “In fact,” writes Dreher, “this technology and the culture
that has emerged from it is reproducing the atomization and radical
loneliness that totalitarian communist governments used to impose on
their captive peoples to make them easier to control.” 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. These movements, however, in the words
of Arendt, “demand for total, unrestricted, unconditional, and
unalterable loyalty of the individual member (..) [since] their
organization will encompass, in due course, the entire human race.”
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.” Without in any way wishing to downplay the
gravity and urgency of these issues in and of themselves, or the need as
a society to devise ways to deal with existential threats arising from
them, Corona political and media narratives are examples of such an
ideological totalitarianism that wants to completely control how human
beings think, speak and act in that area of life, whist keeping them in
perpetual anxiety through well-planned regular dramatic news updates
(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 role of the elite
Hannah Arendt then goes on to explain what is a disturbing phenomenon
of totalitarian movements, it being the enormous attraction it exerts
on the elites, the “terrifying roster of distinguished men whom
totalitarianism can count amongst its sympathizers, fellow-travelers,
and inscribed party members. This elite believes 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.
To achieve this total overhaul for the sake of complete control, the
elites are willing to work with any people or organization, including
those people, called “the mob” by Arendt, whose features are “failure in
professional and social life, perversion and disaster in private life.”
A good example of this is the West’s dealings with the Chinese
Communist Party. Although the flagrant corruption and human rights
abuses – including the genocidal campaign
against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang – perpetrated by this institution of
repression throughout history until today are well-documented, as is its
role 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.
Throughout the history of totalitarian movements and regimes the
offenders have been able to get away with much because they understood
very well what is the primary concern of the simple man or woman going
about their daily business of making life work for their families and
other dependents, as masterfully expressed by Arendt: “He [Göring]
proved his supreme ability for organizing the masses into total
domination by assuming that most people are neither bohemians, fanatics,
adventurers, sex maniacs, crackpots, nor social failures, but first and
foremost job holders and good family men.” And: “[n]othing proved
easier to destroy than the privacy and private morality of people who
thought of nothing but safeguarding their private lives.”
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.
Also, 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.
Totalitarian propaganda
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.”As Hannah Arendt
explains, both fear and science are extensively used to oil the
propaganda machine. Fear is always propagated as directed towards
somebody or something external that poses a real or perceived threat to
society or the individual. But there is another even more sinister
element that totalitarian propaganda historically uses to cajole the
masses into following its lead through fear and that is “the use of
indirect, veiled, and menacing hints against all who will not heed its
teachings (..)”, all the while claiming the strictly scientific and
public benefit nature of its argument that those measures are needed.
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 freely admits that the use of science as an effective
tool of politics in general has been widespread and not necessarily
always in a bad sense. This is of course also the case where it concerns
the Corona crisis. Even so, she continues, the obsession with science
has increasingly characterized the Western world since the 16th
century. She 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.”
Science is employed to provide the arguments for the justification of
societal fear and for the reasonableness of the far-reaching measures
imposed to “confront” and “exterminate” the external danger. Arendt:
“The scientificality of totalitarian propaganda is characterized by its
almost exclusive insistence on scientific prophecy (..)”
How many such prophecies have we not heard since the beginning of
2020 and that have not come to pass? It is not at all relevant, Arendt
continues, whether these “prophecies” would be based on good science or
bad science, since the leaders of the masses make it their primary focus
to fit reality to their own interpretations and, where deemed
necessary, lies, whereby their propaganda is “marked by its extreme
contempt for facts as such.”
They do not believe in anything that is related to personal
experience or what is visible, but only in what they imagine, what their
own statistical models say, and the ideologically consistent system
they have built around it. 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, that instead it is radical
consistency that the masses long for in times of existential crisis, as
it (initially) gives them a sense of security and predictability. Yet
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.”
Today we see this exacerbated, as I already mentioned above, through a
fundamentally flawed understanding and use of science by the powers
that be. 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. The moment however, Arendt points out, this system
error becomes clear to the participants in the totalitarian movement and
its defeat is imminent, they will at once cease to believe in its
future, from one day to the other giving up on that for which they were
willing to give all the day before.
A striking example of such an overnight abandonment of a totalitarian
system is the way in which most apparatchiks in Eastern and Central
Europe between 1989 and 1991 turned from hardline career Communists into
enthusiastic liberal democrats. They simply abandoned the system they
were so faithfully part of for many years and found an alternative
system that circumstances allowed them to now embrace. Therefore, as we
know from the rubble heaps of history, every effort at totalitarianism
has an expiry date. The current version will also fail.
II. Dehumanization at work
During my over 30 years of studying and teaching European history and
the sources of law and justice, a pattern has emerged about which I
already published in 2014 under the title “Human rights, history and
anthropology: reorienting the debate.” In this article I described the
process of “dehumanization in 5 steps” and how these human rights’
violations are not generally being perpetrated by ‘monsters,’ but for a
large part by ordinary men and women – helped by the passive ideologized
masses – who are convinced that what they are doing or participating in
is good and necessary, or at least justifiable.
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. The President of the United States
expressed pointedly what this means in a major live-televised policy
speech:
“We’ve been patient, but our
patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us. So,
please, do the right thing. But just don’t take it from me; listen to
the voices of unvaccinated Americans who are lying in hospital beds,
taking their final breaths, saying, “If only I had gotten vaccinated.”
“If only.”” – President Joe Biden September 9, 2021
The five steps
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.
Slavenka Drakulic, in her analysis of what led to the 1991-1999 Yugoslav
ethnic conflict, observes:” (..) in time those ‘Others’ are stripped of
all their individual characteristics. 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.
Fear for one’s own life is of course an understandable and entirely
justifiable response to a potentially dangerous new virus. Nobody would
like to get sick or die unnecessarily. We don’t want to catch a nasty
virus if it can be avoided. Yet once this fear is being instrumentalized
by (state) institutions and media outlets to help them achieve certain
objectives, such as for example the Austrian government has had to admit to doing in March 2020 when it wanted to convince the population of the need for a lockdown, fear becomes a potent weapon.
Again, Hannah Arendt brings in her sharp analysis when she observes:
“Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely,
through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar
ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion,
totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing
human beings from within.”
In his 9 September 2021 speech President Biden instrumentalizes for
political purposes the normal human fear for the potentially fatal virus
and goes on to expand it with fear for ‘unvaccinated people,’ by
suggesting that they are per definition responsible not only for their
own deaths but potentially for yours too because they are “unnecessarily
using” ICU hospital beds. In this way there has been established a new
suspicion and anxiety around a specific group of people in society for
what they might do to you and your group.
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. Even though it is not comparable to the levels of violence and
exclusion of 20th century totalitarian regimes, we are today
seeing active fear-based government and media propaganda justifying the
exclusion of people. 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:
“That’s nearly 80 million
Americans not vaccinated. And in a country as large as ours, that’s 25
percent minority. That 25 percent can cause a lot of damage — and they
are. The unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals, are overrunning the
emergency rooms and intensive care units, leaving no room for someone
with a heart attack, or pancreatitis, or cancer.” – President Joe Biden,
September 9, 2021
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. In many Western countries this
finger-pointing is happening now, especially towards those not
vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, regardless of the
constitutionally protected considerations or medical reasons why
individuals may decide against receiving this specific jab.
For example, 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 message is if you want to be
able to have a meal with friends and welcome people in your home, you
have to get vaccinated.” – State premier Gladys Berejiklian of New South
Wales, Australia, 27 September 2021
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.’ Hannah Arendt observes that “[t]he strong emphasis of
totalitarian propaganda on the “scientific” nature of its assertions has
been compared to certain advertising techniques which also address
themselves to masses. (..) Science in the instances of both business
publicity and totalitarian propaganda is obviously only a surrogate for
power. The obsession of totalitarian movements with “scientific” proofs
ceases once they are in power.”
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. They simply desire for a robust public discourse on the
question of how best to deal with the issue at hand and thus engage in a
common search for truth. This is the point where we know from history
that the ideology of the day has now been formally enshrined and has
become mainstream.
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.
Even though in scope and severity such measures cannot be compared to
those imposed by totalitarian regimes of the past and the present, they
do clearly show worrisome totalitarian tendencies that, when unchecked,
could eventually grow into something far worse. 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. In the most extreme
forms of totalitarian regimes that we have seen under Communism and
Nazism, but also the ethnic nationalism during the wars in the former
Yugoslavia 1991-1999; 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:
“A conception of law which
identifies what is right with the notion of what is good for – for the
individual, or the family, or the people, or the largest number –
becomes inevitable once the absolute and transcendent measurements of
religion or the law of nature have lost their authority. And this
predicament is by no means solved if the unit to which the ‘good for’
applies is as large as mankind itself. For it is quite conceivable, and
even within the realm of practical political possibilities, that one
fine day a highly organized and mechanized humanity will conclude quite
democratically – namely by majority decision – that for humanity as a
whole it would be better to liquidate certain parts thereof.”
III 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.
It was their long process of rediscovery of human dignity and their
nonviolent yet insistent civil disobedience that brought down the
regimes of the Communist elite and their allies of the mob, exposing the
untruthfulness of their propaganda and the injustice of their policies.
They knew that truth is a goal to attain, not an object to claim and
thus requires humility and respectful dialogue. They understood that a
society can only be free, healthy and prosperous when no human being is
excluded and when there is always the genuine willingness and openness
for a robust public discourse, to hear and understand the other, no
matter how different his or her opinion or attitude to life.
They finally retook full responsibility for their own lives and for
those around them by overcoming their fear, passivity and victimhood, by
learning once again to think for themselves and by standing up to a
state assisted by its enablers, that had forgotten its only purpose: to
serve and protect each and every one of its citizens, and not just those
it chooses.
All totalitarian efforts always end on the dustheap of history. This one will be no exception.
https://brownstone.org/articles/totalitarianism-and-the-five-stages-of-dehumanization/