The origins of totalitarianism5/22/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() It became clear, Arendt writes, that you only had human rights if you belonged to a state - the League of Nations could not help you. “The first great damage done to the nation-states as a result of the arrival of hundreds of thousands of stateless people was that the right of asylum, the only right that had ever figured as a symbol of the Rights of Man in the sphere of international relationships, was being abolished.” See for yourself if any of Arendt’s warnings sound familiar: 1 - It begins with a refugee crisis…Īmong the ‘ origins’ of ‘ totalitarianism’, Arendt argues, is the fact that human rights became unenforceable when people without a state - usually persecuted minorities - became rightless: forced to leave their own state, no other community was willing to guarantee them any rights whatsoever.Īrendt traces the first cracks of a free state to the failure to help refugees: ![]() Here are some of the scariest parts of the book, that are basically a warning to future societies that racism can destroy a free state. ![]() Most articles have focused on the totalitarianism - the book’s eerily familiar description of demagoguery, propaganda and eventually, dictatorship - but not the origins - the trends, or early stages, that evolved into the darkest moments of human history. ![]()
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