File:The Human Condition - Hannah Arendt.jpg: Difference between revisions

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: The year 1974 is a period during my 20s when I was working during the day as a book editor/exec in New York City and at night studying at the Graduate Faculty of the New School and fortunate to have Hannah Arendt as one of our professors. Hannah's books, especially [The Human Condition, were centers of my History of Ideas curriculum and her thoughts on authoritarianism, and how it takes hold of a nation, were memorable and powerful ideas as she spoke of the conditions in Germany leading to World War II.

Today in the United States a wave of authoritarianism is bringing threats to democracy and the republic that should recall the conditions Hannah Arendt spoke of for years in her work and focused in on shortly before her death.

• https://www.pdcnet.org/arendtstudies

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVSRJC4KAiE

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE-07vAVTFEuiDvqli1y8f0U

• https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hannaharendt4/546518770

Hannah Arendt made the comments that follow in 1974 during an interview with the French writer Roger Errera.

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism begins in contempt for what you have. The second step is the notion: “Things must change—no matter how, Anything is better than what we have.” Totalitarian rulers organize this kind of mass sentiment, and by organizing it articulate it, and by articulating it make the people somehow love it. They were told before, thou shalt not kill; and they didn’t kill. Now they are told, thou shalt kill; and although they think it’s very difficult to kill, they do it because it’s now part of the code of behavior. They learn whom to kill and how to kill and how to do it together. This is the much talked about Gleichschaltung—the coordination process. You are coordinated not with the powers that be, but with your neighbor—coordinated with the majority. But instead of communicating with the other you are now glued to him. And you feel of course marvelous. Totalitarianism appeals to the very dangerous emotional needs of people who live in complete isolation and in fear of one another.

Hannah Arendt - If, everybody lies to you, if everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer…And a people that can no longer believe anything, cannot make up its mind. It is deprived, not only of its capacity to act, but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people, you can then do what you please.

Lies

The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.

• https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/10/26/hannah-arendt-from-an-interview/

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Disinformation_-_Online_-_Dangerous

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Fact_Checking

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Good_science_needs_good_data_.png

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Stats_-_Green_Research_%26_Science

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• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Planet_Citizen_Action

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• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Climate_Problems,_Climate_Solutions

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