According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a Mass of people is a large body of persons in a group. In Chapter 10 of Hannah Arendt’s novel, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt broadly defines the term masses, as well as the mass individual. Before doing this, Arendt clearly distinguishes masses from classes and citizens. As Arendt notes, classes and citizens are part of a nation-state, which essentially represent themselves. Arendt claims that Totalitarianism movements are mass organizations of atomized isolated individuals. In this claim, there are many key features that define Totalitarianism as a political system. First, she claims that people want to be a part of something that is changing, and always striving for something …show more content…
new, thus, leaders of Totalitarian regimes constantly set goals that keep changing. Therefore, one can conclude that Totalitarianism is a movement never has an end, which keeps people interested in the changes it strives to make; essentially, a mobilized movement. Second, Arendt states that these movements are mass organizations. In order to understand this, Arendt distinguishes between classes and citizens, and masses. Classes are groups of people that are formed around one common goal or idea, which is determined by their place in the world. Being a part of a class gives people the social ability to be a part of a group and movement, and allow people to fulfill their want to be included. Typical political parties represent these classes based on multiple common ideas. However, “the totalitarian movements”, she says, “aim at and succeed in organizing masses—not classes.” Contrarily, Arendt believes masses are present in societies in which classes have dissolved into masses.
In this way, party politics are not cared about, and the responsibility of a citizen are not followed or present. As noted above, masses are something quite different from classes and citizens. According to Arendt, there are two different forms that masses are found in. First, they compose individuals who live on the periphery of all social and political involvements. These people exist within the interstices of class society and party politic. The working class, who only care about their own personal lives, and not what’s happening around them, usually represents the masses. “The term masses applies only where we deal with people who either because of sheer numbers, or indifference, or a combination of both, cannot be integrated into any organization based on common interest, into political parties or municipal governments or professional organizations or trade unions. Potentially they exist in every country and form the majority of those large numbers of neutral, politically indifferent people who never join a party and hardly ever go to the polls” (Arendt, 311). More often than not, the people that have been dislocated or eliminated from political, social, and economic opinions form masses. Thirdly, Arendt makes a distinction between the mob and the mass, where the mob focuses on an orientation of individualism, whereas the mass does
not. In conclusion, Arendt defines the mass as individuals of different social and intellectual standing, who do not have a common goal or interest, nor any opinions on any type of political matter. They are represented as the workers who are just merely trying to get by and survive.
Elie wiesel born sep 30 1928 in sighet , Transylvania. Elie wiesel overcame many things in his life . But one of the things are fear that he will die also there was starvation that took place and that is the most terriblest thing that can happen. Also there was death of the many jews and his mother and sisters. These adversities made Wiesel become the man he is today; he is truly a humanitarian.
She alludes to the idea that as people we must look deeper into our lives and see were we may have been given unearned privilege whether is be from race, gender, or sexuality.
1. In her book “Total Domination”, Hannah Arendt strongly believed that Totalitarianism is trying to achieve the idea of Total domination. She studied and analyzed how totalitarianism had always falls into the idea of total domination in which she explained how total domination works in her point of view and her own description of Totalitarian. Her purpose is to show how the leaders treated humans lesser than animals in a way of how they torture people with their cruelty. She seems to have a great ideas of her comparison that gives justice to really make me believe that totalitarian has the same idea of total dominion.
In the excerpt from The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert this was shown to us by the Alma, Henry Whitaker's daughter. She observed something that was more thrilling than anything she has ever seen and because she asked to be apart of, she was allowed to be a part of something meaningful to her. An individuals has the power to create a meaningful life if they strive for what they value in life, because if they don’t try as hard as they could they will not be able to live a purposeful life.
The antithesis would come with the unification of the proletariats, forming the trading unions. The role of synthesis is given to the emergence of political democracy and mass political parties. The time period from 1860 to 1914 is defined by the surfacing of the "mass societies." The social order practically ignored the industrial proletariat and the foundation for a reform was laid. The industrial proletariat refers to all the workers who desperately depended on their wages.
Polletta, Francesca and James Jasper. “Collective Identity and Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 (2001): 283–305. Print.
Totalitarian regimes take over control of every aspect of an individual's life in which the state holds total authority. The only thing Totalitarian regimes do for its community is cause the basic rights of humans to be destroyed by brutality and terror. The Totalitarian society of any regime is constantly moving toward some end goal, even though the totalitarian state never reaches it. It instead creates the illusion of doing so. As soon as one goal was reached, it was replaced by another and such was the case in Stalin's Russia.
A dictatorship, in this case Hitler, and a party (Nazi Party: National Socialist Germans’ Workers Party NSDAP) need to control the law courts, the media, police and of course, the government. There is basically no freedom of choice and the individual who created this totalitarian government has total control over its people. In any government, there are many different aspects that it controls, and these are especially significant for totalitarian governments. First of all, totalitarian governments control the political aspect of their state, in the sense that the leader basically symbolizes the government and is able to unite its people, the government is also solely controlled by one single political party, and the state is always considered more important than the individuals. A second aspect is the social aspect, in which the totalitarian government controls all features of daily life, meaning citizens are denied their basic rights and liberties, and there is a secret police that uses terror and violence to enforce governmental policies. Finally, the economic aspect of totalitarian governments basically represents the fact that they direct the national economy and control businesses, which means that these businesses and labor in general are used to fulfill the objectives of the state.
The Consequences of a Totalitarian Society Americans today tend to believe that one of the world’s biggest fears is totalitarianism. The thought of a government that has complete and utter control continues to bring fear to people today. According to an article titled “Totalitarianism,” the author states, “Totalitarian governments use propaganda to spread ideas in order to control every aspect of life, including economic, social, political, and intellectual. This control was meant to serve a purpose; to unite the people in the achievement of common goals.” In other words, the author believes that individuals are not allowed any freedoms unless the leader of the state allowed it.
Many social and political philosophers extensively study and attempt to identify the ways by which people make judgments. Prior to interpreting and further analyzing conclusions of judgment as noted by any significant philosopher, one must first obtain an understanding of the background and culture said philosopher was surrounded by. Our minds are malleable; opinions and values are most often shaped by societal norms, political structures, and retrospective assessment of past experiences. This paper will examine judgment as studied by Hannah Arendt while delving into the political afflictions that likely shaped her conclusions.
... life as she knows what she is going to do. This signifies that the desire to belong is driven by one’s motivation to forge ties outside of her.
The people in a society are often a product of the presiding government’s policy. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, many of the citizens are artificially made and act like robots. However, in a reservation next to the new world, there exists a boy named John who was born and raised like a human. John is excited to go the new world because he believes that life will be better there. When John enters the new world, he sees many abnormalities that go against his beliefs, and the citizens call him a savage because he is not one of them. By juxtaposing John, the so-called savage, against the “refined” society, Huxley demonstrates the extreme extent of humankind 's atypical actions under the subjugation of a totalitarian government.
For a historian, the 20th century and all the historic events that it encompasses represents a utopia with endless sources of inspiration for the analysis of political figures, events and their consequences. Political figures such as Benito Mussolini of Italy, Adolf Hitler of Germany, Mao Zedong of China and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union are all names we are familiar with due to the time period that they influenced; this time period after the trauma and atrocities of World War I and the Great Depression led to completely new forms of government in Europe and beyond. These “manifestations of political evil”, commonly known as totalitarian states, should not be considered as mere extensions of already existing political systems, but rather as completely new forms of government built upon terror and ideological fiction. Therefore, this was also a time in which political philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, the author of the standard work on totalitarianism, “Origins of Totalitarianism”, could thrive. When looking at totalitarianism as a political philosophy, two initial questions have to be dealt with: what is totalitarianism and what kind of effect it had on countries ruled by totalitarian regimes. The reasons for its occurrence have briefly been mentioned above, although there are much deeper ideological, social and economic reasons including imperialism and anti-Semitism. In order to fully understand it, we must also contrast it to other political systems like authoritarianism and dictatorship, which are similar to a certain extent, but lack crucial elements that are in the core of totalitarian ideology. Out of the many examples of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, Nazi Germany, Communist China and the Soviet Union stan...
Paul Hawken, in the chapter “Blessed Unrest,” records the people of a new social movement, as well as their ideals, goals, and principles. He writes how they are connected, along with the diversity and differences they bring to make the social movement unique. Hawken communicates to the readers the various social, environmental, and political problems they will encounter in today’s world as well as similar problems of the past. Problems that these groups of organizations are planning to undertake with the perseverance of humanity.
In modern history, there have been some governments, which have successfully, and others unsuccessfully carried out a totalitarian state. A totalitarian state is one in which a single ideology is existent and addresses all aspects of life and outlines means to attain the final goal, government is ran by a single mass party through which the people are mobilized to muster energy and support. In a totalitarian state, the party leadership maintains monopoly control over the governmental system, which includes the police, military,