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hulaspots 's review for:
The Origins of Totalitarianism
by Hannah Arendt
If you want to understand what is happening, why it is happening, and how it might end, read this book. Though it was written in the 1950's everything it says still rings true. The psychology of men has remained the same in the years since she wrote this book and today. It is actually quite striking how little things have changed. It seems the only thing that truly progresses is technology, not minds, morals, or empathy.
This was quite possibly one of the least fun books I have ever read. If one end of the spectrum is a beach read, this book has escaped that spectrum in a daring escape, cut itself off entirely from it, and no longer answers that spectrums frantic texts. Yes, this book ghosted fun long ago, to go off into it's own world of endless and hard hitting truths.
The book covers unsurprisingly the origins of totalitarian regimes, especially focusing on the regimes of Stalin and Hitler and the systematic destruction of the Jews. It details how these regimes gain power and appeal to lonely men, how they bend truth to their own means, and how they rule through prophecies and proclamations and the establishment of the eternal and unwavering criminal, the group that will always be the cause to obliterate others and flirt with societal suicide.
Totalitarian regimes eliminate relality, they destroy personhood and trust. The ideal citizen is not a human being at all, but a doer of functions, an endless laborer, who will follow orders and believe what is told to them despite the fantastical unreality, and increasing cruelty under which they live. The people we put in power put despise our humanity. It is the only barrier we have to becoming their slaves. They ARE the people, becoming the embodiment of a broken and terrified population, who can only spread their terror in order to cure themselves.
They make death anonymous and therefore deprive it of meaning, they make love irrelevant, compassion obsolete, and kindness unknown. They can only rule over a population entirely subdued, by either terror or propoganda until the propoganda fades away and you are left only with terror. In the concentration camps and the gulags, there was no need to proclaim the infallibility and righteousness of the Leader. Humiliation and dehumanization are how they always start and they always end with their own destruction.
This book terrified, this book was cold, this book was dense and difficult, but I believe especially with the future that seems to be unfolding I will be forever thankful I read it. Humanity is the only thing that can undo and destroy totalitarian regimes, never lose your own. Care for others, and when people start disappearing, don't forget them, or you will find eventually where they went. So much has been lost because of the failures of lonely men.
This was quite possibly one of the least fun books I have ever read. If one end of the spectrum is a beach read, this book has escaped that spectrum in a daring escape, cut itself off entirely from it, and no longer answers that spectrums frantic texts. Yes, this book ghosted fun long ago, to go off into it's own world of endless and hard hitting truths.
The book covers unsurprisingly the origins of totalitarian regimes, especially focusing on the regimes of Stalin and Hitler and the systematic destruction of the Jews. It details how these regimes gain power and appeal to lonely men, how they bend truth to their own means, and how they rule through prophecies and proclamations and the establishment of the eternal and unwavering criminal, the group that will always be the cause to obliterate others and flirt with societal suicide.
Totalitarian regimes eliminate relality, they destroy personhood and trust. The ideal citizen is not a human being at all, but a doer of functions, an endless laborer, who will follow orders and believe what is told to them despite the fantastical unreality, and increasing cruelty under which they live. The people we put in power put despise our humanity. It is the only barrier we have to becoming their slaves. They ARE the people, becoming the embodiment of a broken and terrified population, who can only spread their terror in order to cure themselves.
They make death anonymous and therefore deprive it of meaning, they make love irrelevant, compassion obsolete, and kindness unknown. They can only rule over a population entirely subdued, by either terror or propoganda until the propoganda fades away and you are left only with terror. In the concentration camps and the gulags, there was no need to proclaim the infallibility and righteousness of the Leader. Humiliation and dehumanization are how they always start and they always end with their own destruction.
This book terrified, this book was cold, this book was dense and difficult, but I believe especially with the future that seems to be unfolding I will be forever thankful I read it. Humanity is the only thing that can undo and destroy totalitarian regimes, never lose your own. Care for others, and when people start disappearing, don't forget them, or you will find eventually where they went. So much has been lost because of the failures of lonely men.