Ep. 269: Arendt on Totalitarianism (Part One)

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Mark Linsenmayer

Casey, Paskin, Philosophy, Linsenmayer, Society & Culture, Alwan

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On "On the Nature of Totalitarianism" and On the Origins of Totalitarianism ch. 13 (both from 1953).

Is totalitarianism just an especially virulent form of tyranny, or something unique to the modern age? Arendt says that unlike other forms of government, totalitarianism is not animated by an active psychological principle that motivates its participants. Instead terror is designed to make citizens incapable of agency altogether.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the partially examined life, a podcast by some guys who read one
0:11.5	point said undoing philosophy for living but then thought better of it.
0:14.8	Our question for episode 269 is something like, what is totalitarianism and how is it different
0:20.3	from tyranny?
0:21.3	And we read Hana Arrenz's essay on the nature of totalitarianism from 1953 and chapter
0:26.6	13 of her book on the origins of totalitarianism that book was published in 1949 but this chapter
0:32.2	was a later addition, possibly is later 1955.
0:35.2	For more information please visit partiallyexaminedlife.com.
0:39.4	This is Mark Linsonweyer, not just a product of history but a vehicle for its enactment
0:43.8	in Madison, Wisconsin.
0:45.3	This is Seth Paskin erasing the distinction between foreign and domestic through global
0:50.8	domination in Austin, Texas.
0:53.4	This is Wes Aulon wondering the desert of tranquility and Cambridge Massachusetts.
0:59.0	This is Dylan Casey sitting squarely in the discrepancy between public and personal
1:03.2	life in Madison, Wisconsin.
1:05.6	More of rent.
1:06.6	You're the man who suggested this Seth, start us off.
1:09.5	What is this for reading?
1:10.9	Hana Arrenz had obviously totalitarianism and its effects on global civilization were important
1:17.8	topics to her.
1:19.1	We had previously read for one of our, I think when we were at the University of Pittsburgh,
1:24.1	we'd read the life of the mind.
	...

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