Totalitarianism

[Phil Wise]

Dear Jeremy

I tend toward Hannah Arendt's view that totalitarianism is a form of
Government unique to the 20th century and different from dictatorships,
religious states, and other tyrannies (as they have so far existed).  Arendt
argues that it was only in the 20th century that a genuine mass society was
possible, and that a mass, as opposed to a mob, is necessary for
totalitarian rule.  She also suggests that only a country with an extremely
large population would be capable of sustaining the huge population losses
this form of rule necessitates.  For this reason, she doesn't regard Germany
as a bona fide totalitarian regime until it had extended its borders well
into Eastern Europe

Once in power, totalitarian regimes do more than merely rule over their
population by dominating all of political life; as Claude Lefort puts it,
they extend the ruling party's apparatus through all of social life as well.
Stalin, Lefort writes, was the first leader in history who could proclaim "I
am society"; other dictators and absolute rulers were able only to proclaim
"I am the state".

While many bloody regimes (such as Pinochet's Chile) took a terrible toll on
their political opponents, only a totalitarian regime arbitrarily makes
every member of society potentially its victim.  Expressing the right
opinions and thinking the right thoughts are not necessarily any protection.

Cheers
Phil

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeremy Osner" <jeremy at xyris.com>
To: "p-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2001 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: Totalitarianism


> Phil:
>
> > differences between the totalitarian regimes (these, in my opinion,
should
> > be confined to Stalin, Hitler and Mao, although there are several,
notably
> > Pol Pot's, that were totalitarian movements in power)
>
> Just curious, how are you distinguishing between "totalitarian regimes"
and
> garden-variety dictatorships, of which there have certainly been plenty? I
can
> see that there is some kind of qualitative difference between say, Batista
or
> Peron, and Hitler, but I'm not sure what it is or how you would define it.
Is it
> the mass murder factor? -- In which case it would seem to be a difference
of
> degree rather than specie -- or something else?
>
> Jeremy
>