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felinejumperThe first of many long, quote-happy, and cut-happy notes/study-guide-esque post on The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt. Is this too long? Definitely! Is it helpful for future me? Also definitely! Is it helpful for current you? I have *no idea*, but here we go.
Essentially, equating Nazis with nationalists is deeply inaccurate to their idealogy, which was a pan-European one: "the first antisemitic parties in the last decade of the 19th century were also among the first that banded together internationally."
As we all know, the general trends of history are difficult to explain with a single factor, but one helpful rule comes from Tocqueville, on the French revolution:
Arendt's Judeo-European examples of the rise of antisemitism coinciding with Jewish loss of power:
This decline, says Arendt, of the power of the Jewry is merely atmosphere & does not explain the subsequent events, but is…
I originally thought this was a 1950s concern (i.e. pre-empting claims of 'the Jews had it coming' due to widespread & acceptable antisemitism, vs. now when it's…slightly less widespread?), but in fact I think it is a critical underpinning for her whole notion of responsibility. With this in mind, she can make the argument that Jews were specifically targeted without also implying it was deserved, i.e. antisemitism is not (necessarily) grounded/induced by active past oppression by Jews, even if it is grounded in Jewish/Gentile relations. (whew! Did we make it through that?)
Moving to the current explanations of antisemitism (the above, re: power and oppression, having been the first and least compelling):
Arendt traces the extension of this argument: one finds many groups contribute to making history, [x] group included, which then makes the scapegoat group just as culpable as anyone else does—not a very good innocence claim. Previously, this internal inconsistency was enough to sink it as a major theory, but in present-day terror tactics, innocence gains new traction as an explanatory identity.
This brings up...so many thoughts about the U.S.: the border with Mexico, police brutality.
Back to Arendt: This victim of modern terror is absolutely innocent, and thus this looks like a confirmation of the scapegoat theory. Such an explanation is adequate to a reality in which an utterly and objectively innocent individual is "caught in the horror machine", with a complete inability to change their fate.
Arendt, summarized: in counterpoint to the scapegoat fallacy, there is the argument that the Jews have always been the target of oppression, and therefore the 'outburst' of the Holocaust is just part of the ever-present trend. This is very functional for antisemites—we've always done it, we'll continue to do it (and dangerous because it is functional). However, it has also been adopted by Jewish groups & their Christian supports and:
(She's very witty with words, and I cannot believe I'm giggling slightly at Hannah Arendt?!) In any case, as history has shown, virulent hatred can in fact present an existential threat to a religion, even if in the past it has wielded some assumed cohesive power.
So far, we have: the Nazis didn't pick antisemitism by accident; it's not a question of nationalism; violent hatred arises from wealth without power. Explanatory notions of scapegoats don't make sense, even in a landscape of government terror, and eternal antisemitism provides a soothing answer to protect antisemites. So.
On to the even more controversial bits!
(wow, even typing that cut text summary gave me minor hives!!)
This next is actually, for me, the meat of...applicability, I suppose. I tend to agree with her, but find myself concerned with how agreeing with it might force me to reconsider certain formerly-fundamental ideas. (Would critical race theory, for example, fall into this category?)
The second half clearly echoes, um, modern media in frightening ways re: fact manipulation & opinion-proving. I also doubt her assertion that a system enacted by people can therefore be understood by people, but I'd like it to be true!
outline for the following chapters>
Essentially: if antisemitism was an effective rallying point, then there must be clues to why in the relationship between Jews and society in the past, and between Jews and the hostile mob. And a parsing of the the Dreyfus Affair, a "dress rehearsal for the performance of our own time."
there's a few more modern problems that are springing to mind, although I am not sure to what effect. One, of course, is the state of the U.S.-Mexico border, and the massive human rights abuses there that, seemingly, a great number of Americans feel is justified. (I can only assume. Or they are wilfully ignoring???)
The other is safer sex during the AIDS epidemic, and what or how Arendt might have commented on it given what she's said here about responsibility. I wonder if, though, responsibility isn't the right word, or if there is one that carries different connotations. Less blame, more...participatory? I suppose it seems like responsibility means "responsibility to do differently" and I don't feel like that's viable, or even her argument, so I wonder what I am not able to grasp here, or what English is failing to accomplish.
Relatedly, Larry Kramer, founder of ACT UP, was apparently heavily inspired by Arendt's suggestion that Jews should have done more and said more, and that is part of why ACT UP was as loud as they were. Which I think must lend some weight to whatever Arendt's argument ends up at.
whispering: this took so long to type, and i just looked at the other chapters and they are noticeably longer, i will have to break this up even more, or be less aggressively comprehensive, never!!! , we'll see how this goes
Anti-Semitism as an outrage to common sense
Many still consider it an accident that Nazi ideology centered around anti-Semitism and that Nazi policy, consistently and uncompromisingly, aimed at the persecution and finally the extermination of the Jews...their chief interest—persecution of Jews all over the world—have been regarded by public opinion as a pretext for winning the masses or an interesting device of demagogy...
Compared with the events themselves, all explanations of antisemitism look as if they have been hastily and hazardously contrived, to cover up an issue which so gravely threatens our sense of proportion and our hope for sanity.
nationalism ≠ antisemitism
One of these hasty explanations has been the identification of antisemitism with rampant nationalism and its xenophobic outbursts. Unfortunately, the fact is that modern antisemitism grew in proportion as traditional nationalism declined, and reached its climax at the exact moment when the European system of nation-states and its precarious balance of power crashed.
Essentially, equating Nazis with nationalists is deeply inaccurate to their idealogy, which was a pan-European one: "the first antisemitic parties in the last decade of the 19th century were also among the first that banded together internationally."
background of motives for violent hatred
As we all know, the general trends of history are difficult to explain with a single factor, but one helpful rule comes from Tocqueville, on the French revolution:
"..the French people hated aristocrats about to lose their power more than it had every hated them before, precisely because their rapid loss if real power was not accompanied by any considerable decline in their fortunes…Antisemitism reached its climax when Jews had similarly lost their public functions and their influence, and were left with nothing but their wealth.(p 4)
Arendt's Judeo-European examples of the rise of antisemitism coinciding with Jewish loss of power:
- rise of Hitler—banks already almost judenrein, where formerly Jews had held key positions
- Dreyfus Affair—not under Second Empire, but Third Republic when Jews had all but vanished
- Austria—not under Metternich & Franz Joseph, but post-war when Jews had suffered the loss of influence and prestige through disappearance of the Hapsburgs (as compared to other groups)
Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups may not be a very pleasant spectacle, but it does not spring from human meanness alone…Only wealth without power or aloofness without a policy are felt to be parasitical, revolting, revolting, because such conditions cut all threads which tie men together.
This decline, says Arendt, of the power of the Jewry is merely atmosphere & does not explain the subsequent events, but is…
…important only in order to refute those recommendations of common sense which lead us to believe that violent hatred or sudden rebellion spring necessarily from great power and great abuses, and that consequently organized hatred of the Jews cannot but be a reaction to their importance and power. (p 5)
I originally thought this was a 1950s concern (i.e. pre-empting claims of 'the Jews had it coming' due to widespread & acceptable antisemitism, vs. now when it's…slightly less widespread?), but in fact I think it is a critical underpinning for her whole notion of responsibility. With this in mind, she can make the argument that Jews were specifically targeted without also implying it was deserved, i.e. antisemitism is not (necessarily) grounded/induced by active past oppression by Jews, even if it is grounded in Jewish/Gentile relations. (whew! Did we make it through that?)
scapegoat fallacy
Moving to the current explanations of antisemitism (the above, re: power and oppression, having been the first and least compelling):
More serious, because it appeals to much better people, is another common-sense fallacy: the Jews, because they were an entirely powerless group caught up in the general and insoluble conflicts of the time, could be blamed for them and finally be made to appear the hidden authors of all evil...
The theory that the Jews are always the scapegoat implies that the scapegoat might have been anyone else as well. It upholds the perfect innocence of the victim, an innocence which insinuates no only that no evil was done but that nothing at all was done which might possibly have a connection with the issue at stake. (p. 5)
Arendt traces the extension of this argument: one finds many groups contribute to making history, [x] group included, which then makes the scapegoat group just as culpable as anyone else does—not a very good innocence claim. Previously, this internal inconsistency was enough to sink it as a major theory, but in present-day terror tactics, innocence gains new traction as an explanatory identity.
terror as a major weapon of government
A fundamental difference between modern dictatorships and all other tyrannies of the past is that terror is no longer used as a means to exterminate and frighten opponents, but as an instrument to rule masses of people who are perfectly obedient. Terror as we know it today strikes without any preliminary provocation, its victims are innocent even from the point of view of the persecutor…We are not concerned here with the ultimate consequence of rule by terror—namely, that nobody, not even the executors can ever be free of fear; in our context we are dealing merely with the arbitrariness by which victims are chosen, and for this it is decisive that they are objectively innocent, that they are chosen regardless of what they may or may not have done. (p. 6)
This brings up...so many thoughts about the U.S.: the border with Mexico, police brutality.
Back to Arendt: This victim of modern terror is absolutely innocent, and thus this looks like a confirmation of the scapegoat theory. Such an explanation is adequate to a reality in which an utterly and objectively innocent individual is "caught in the horror machine", with a complete inability to change their fate.
Terror, however, is only in the last instance of its development a mere form of government. In order to establish a totalitarian regime terror must be presented as an instrument for carrying out a specific ideology; and that ideology must have won the adherence of many, and even a majority before terror can be stabilized. The point for the historian is that the Jews, before becoming the main victims of modern terror, were the center of Nazi ideology. And an ideology which has to persuade and mobilize people cannot choose its victim arbitrarily. (p. 6-7)
eternal antisemitism
Arendt, summarized: in counterpoint to the scapegoat fallacy, there is the argument that the Jews have always been the target of oppression, and therefore the 'outburst' of the Holocaust is just part of the ever-present trend. This is very functional for antisemites—we've always done it, we'll continue to do it (and dangerous because it is functional). However, it has also been adopted by Jewish groups & their Christian supports and:
It is this odd coincidence which makes the theory so very dangerous and confusing. Its escapist basis is in both instances the same: just as antisemites understandably desire to escape responsibility for their deeds, so Jews, attacked and on the defensive, even more understandably do not wish under any circumstances to discuss their share of responsibility. In the case of Jewish, and frequently of Christian, adherents of this doctrine, however, the escapist tendencies of official apologetics are based upon more important and less rational motives.
The birth and growth of modern antisemitism has been accompanied by and interconnected with Jewish assimilation, the secularization and withering away of the old religious and spiritual values of Judaism…
…Jews concerned with the survival of their people might…hit on the consoling idea that antisemitism, after all, might be an excellent means to keeping the people together.
…One should also bear in mind that lack of political ability and judgment have been caused by the very nature of Jewish history, the history of a people without a government, without a country, and without a language. Jewish history offers the extraordinary spectacle of a people unique in this respect, which began its history with a well-defined concept of history and an almost conscious resolution to achieve a well-circumscribed plan on earth and then, without giving up this concept, avoided any political action for two thousand years. The result was that the political history of the Jewish people became even more dependent upon unforeseen, accidental factors than the history of other nations, so that the Jews stumbled from one role to the other and accepted responsibility for none.
(She's very witty with words, and I cannot believe I'm giggling slightly at Hannah Arendt?!) In any case, as history has shown, virulent hatred can in fact present an existential threat to a religion, even if in the past it has wielded some assumed cohesive power.
So far, we have: the Nazis didn't pick antisemitism by accident; it's not a question of nationalism; violent hatred arises from wealth without power. Explanatory notions of scapegoats don't make sense, even in a landscape of government terror, and eternal antisemitism provides a soothing answer to protect antisemites. So.
On to the even more controversial bits!
the necessity of jewish responsibility for maintaining of human dignity
(wow, even typing that cut text summary gave me minor hives!!)
It is quite remarkable that the only two doctrines which at least attempt to explain the political significance of the antisemitic movement deny all specific Jewish responsibility and refuse to discuss matters in specific historical terms. In this inherent negation of the significance of human behaviour, they bear a terrible resemblance to those modern practices and forms of government which, by means of arbitrary terror, liquidate the very possibility of human activity. Somehow in the extermination camps Jews were murdered as if in accordance with the explanation these doctrines had given of why they were hated: regardless of what they had done or omitted to do, regardless of vice or virtue. Moreover, the murderers themselves, only obeying orders and proud of their passionless efficiency, uncannily resembled the “innocent” instruments of an inhuman impersonal course of events which the doctrine of eternal antisemitism had considered them to be.
This next is actually, for me, the meat of...applicability, I suppose. I tend to agree with her, but find myself concerned with how agreeing with it might force me to reconsider certain formerly-fundamental ideas. (Would critical race theory, for example, fall into this category?)
Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility…
The most striking difference between ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality. In other words, one destroyed the dignity of human thought whereas the others destroy the dignity of human action. The old manipulators of logic were the concern of the philosopher, whereas the modern manipulators of facts stand in the way of the historian. For history itself is destroyed, and its comprehensibility—based upon the fact that it is enacted by men and therefore can be understood by men—is in danger, whenever facts are no longer held to be part and parcel of the past and present world, and are misused to prove this or that opinion.(emphasis mine)
The second half clearly echoes, um, modern media in frightening ways re: fact manipulation & opinion-proving. I also doubt her assertion that a system enacted by people can therefore be understood by people, but I'd like it to be true!
The simultaneous decline of the European nation-state and growth of antisemitic movements, the coincident downfall of nationally organized Europe and the extermination of Jews, which was prepared for by the victory of antisemitism over all competing isms in the preceding struggle for persuasion of public opinion, have to be taken as a serious indication of the source of antisemitism. Modern antisemitism must be seen in the more general framework of the development of the nation-state, and at the same time its source must be found in certain aspects of Jewish history and specifically Jewish functions during the last centuries.
Essentially: if antisemitism was an effective rallying point, then there must be clues to why in the relationship between Jews and society in the past, and between Jews and the hostile mob. And a parsing of the the Dreyfus Affair, a "dress rehearsal for the performance of our own time."
there's a few more modern problems that are springing to mind, although I am not sure to what effect. One, of course, is the state of the U.S.-Mexico border, and the massive human rights abuses there that, seemingly, a great number of Americans feel is justified. (I can only assume. Or they are wilfully ignoring???)
The other is safer sex during the AIDS epidemic, and what or how Arendt might have commented on it given what she's said here about responsibility. I wonder if, though, responsibility isn't the right word, or if there is one that carries different connotations. Less blame, more...participatory? I suppose it seems like responsibility means "responsibility to do differently" and I don't feel like that's viable, or even her argument, so I wonder what I am not able to grasp here, or what English is failing to accomplish.
Relatedly, Larry Kramer, founder of ACT UP, was apparently heavily inspired by Arendt's suggestion that Jews should have done more and said more, and that is part of why ACT UP was as loud as they were. Which I think must lend some weight to whatever Arendt's argument ends up at.
whispering: this took so long to type, and i just looked at the other chapters and they are noticeably longer, i will have to break this up even more, or be less aggressively comprehensive, never!!! , we'll see how this goes
