Hannah Arendt and the Totalitarian Threat

Hannah Arendt

One of the most important "Public Intellectuals" of the Twentieth century was Hannah Arendt who was born in 1906 and died in 1975.

During the 1920's and early 30's she had been a student of the German Philosopher Martin Heidegger, until he supported Nazism. After the war Hannah Arendt renewed her academic relationship with Heidegger.

Hannah Arendt is best known for two books The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951, and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, 1963. I will briefly discuss Origins here.

Origins, is easily the more complex and intellectual. It attempts to describe both the origins of the totalitarian mentality and movements. It is divided into three sections. The first is Anti-Semitism, the second Imperialism, the third Totalitarianism.

The first section is about the links between Totalitarian movements and Anti-Semitism. Of course this is because of the links between such thinking and Nazism. It has rightly been characterized has less than useful for helping to explaining Stalinism. Although Arendt's analysis on the use of a scapegoat for a Totalitarian movement are useful.

Regarding the second section the links between Totalitarianism and Imperialism have until recently not been explored, but are useful in in establishing the links between colonial conquest and genocide / genocidal policies and the emergence of Totalitarian movements in Europe and elsewhere. It is also one of the first books to establish a link between colonialism and genocide. For example Arendt establishes a relationship between colonialism and racism and between various colonial policies and genocide, for example the Congo horrors and Hereo genocide in South West Africa.

Regarding the last section on Totalitarianism proper. Arendt's discussion of the need for Totalitarian movements to isolate humans into "atoms" and then reintegrate them into a "Total", structure subject to basically unlimited power and intrusion still have things to tell us.

Arendt's comments about "totalitarian" movements in power rest on the notion that "Totalitarian" governments are inherently unstable, that they require virtually continual terror and once that lets up the system begins to unravel. A "totalitarian" government must show itself to be unlimited once it lets up it begins to acquire limits that put a end to its totalitarian nature. Thus both Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany were only intermittently "Totalitarian", although this intermittent horror killed vast numbers of humans. Arendt further argued that such systems had a built in tendency to decay because of their extreme instability.

Its interesting that Arendt's "Totalitarian" model was popular in the Cold War period but people tended to forget her comments about both the intermittent nature of the "totalitarianism" and the very unstable nature of such regimes. In other words they don't last and can't last. This was definitely NOT what many Cold Warriors wanted to read. That along with her belief that the post-Stalin Soviet Union, although unpleasantly authoritarian, was NOT "Totalitarian".

All in all rather useful reading, although quite chilling in her section that "Totalitarian" regimes practice terror because they can and for no other purpose is chilling.

Pierre Cloutier

In Memory of Linda Schele

Linda Schele

This year will mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Linda Schele renowned decipher of Mayan Hieroglyphs.

In 1998 she died of pancreatic cancer which at the time was virtually untreatable and pretty close to 100% fatal.

During her later years she was perhaps the foremost reader of Mayan Hieroglyphs and her very untimely death was a great loss to the field.

It is interesting to note that her background was not Anthropology, Archaeology, linguistics or languages. In fact it was in Fine Arts.

Linda fell in love with the site of Palenque when she and her husband when on Christmas vacation in 1970. Within a few years Linda was writing and publishing papers on the Mayan Hieroglyphic system. Eventually getting a PhD with a paper on Mayan verbs.

Because of her Fine Arts background her understanding of the Hieroglyphic system has a "Fine Art" aesthetic cast to it.

Her Masterpiece is the Art Catalogue book The Blood of Kings, which was written to accommodate an exhibit of the same name. Many of her books are co-written with other people.

Beginning in the late 1980's Linda and others conducted workshops teaching Maya how to read the Glyphs and therefore restoring to the Maya part of their past.

Among her books are the following:

The Code of Kings, Linda Schele, Peter Mathews, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998. (A posthumous publication of Linda Schele)

Maya Cosmos, Linda Schele, Joy Parker, David Freidel, William Morrow and Co., New York, 1993.

A Forest of Kings, Linda Schele, David Freidel, William Morrow and Co., New York, 1990.

The Blood of Kings, Linda Schele, Mary Ellen Miller, George Braziller Inc., New York, 1986.

Pierre Cloutier

Noam Chomsky: Prophet

Noam Chomsky

One of the most important public intellectuals of the last generation has been Prof. Noam Chomsky of MIT.

The fact he gets so many out there, their blood boiling is proof that what he says hits home.

Basically Noam Chomsky is a Old Testament Prophet castigating the wickedness of his society. What makes him worth reading is his disconcerting ability to resurrect, find, the "forgotten" fact.

Like a Old Testament Prophet Chomsky is not interested in whether or not others are worst but in the wickedness of his own society which he castigates for its sins.

What is interesting is the truly hysterical responses he gets from so many.

The society that Chomsky condemns is the United States of America, ignoring patriotic shibboleths he castigates and condemns .

If much of what Chomsky says can be castigated as unfair: a prophet is not in the business of being "fair".

But then given Chomsky's precept that you try to change things that you can change not go on endlessly about the atrocities of "official enemies" that you can do very little about while doing nothing about atrocities you can do something about. "Unfairness" is built into how Chomsky looks at the world.

The classic example for Chomsky is Cambodia and East Timor. In the case of Cambodia their was much hand wringing and detailed accounts in the media about the (truly spectacular) atrocities. Of course virtually nothing could have been done at the time too stop the atrocities by the west. But then that was not the purpose of the massive hand wringing. The purpose was to score points in the battle against the enemy.

Regarding East Timor, not only could action by the west have done something to stop the atrocities, but western action allowed the invasion to happen. (Indonesia invaded in 1975) And then relative silence descended over the truly vast atrocities that happenned at least in much of the West.

Chomsky is far from perfect and definitely not the last word but he has a truly different perspective and definitely not "politically correct". Thoughtful, less than hysterical "PC" critiques of Chomsky are virtually non-existent.

Some of Chomsky's Books.

Deterring Democracy, 1992
The Chomsky Reader, 1987
Year 501: The Conquest Continues, 1993
At War With Asia, 1970
Necessary Illusions, 1989
Manufacturing Consent, (With Edward S. Herman), 1988
Towards a New cold War, 1982

Pierre Cloutier

"Sunshine for Napoleon"

One of the most annoying phenomena in scholarship is the worship of certain historical figures to such an extent that it amounts to idolatry.

Such figures are worshiped to such an extent that they become omnipotent figures who can do no wrong and if they fail its always someone else's fault.

A particularly striking example of this idol worship is the slavish Stalinist suck up involved in Napoleon worship.

Portrait of Napoleon by David

Now Napoleon was indeed a very great man just has many others have been great. What is perplexing is the refusal to recognize the hubristic, brutal features of his life and reign. It is all too easy to find suck ups concerning as for example collected in Geyl's Napoleon For and Against. Which stands has a monument against Hero worshiping "scholarship". Stalin was subjected to a truly repellent amount of sycophantic "journalism". Everything he did was subject to praise. His considerable atrocities, denied, excused dressed up has "right". And like Napoleon he was characterized has surrounded by evil enemies who betray the infallible "leader". Of course these "traitors" are responsible for any mistakes made by the great Leader.

Another aspect is that such sycophancy is the identification of the Leader with the nation and any attack or disagreement, in fact anything less than full, unhesitating support of the infallible leader is "treason". It never seems to occur to such people that opposition to the leader is in fact in the interest of the nation and that the leader may be sacrificing the nation to his selfish ambitions.

A related aspect is the notion that the interest of other peoples don't matter and can be dismissed as unimportant. Thus we learn that Alexander I, growing opposition to the Continental System, which was royally screwing up the Russian economy and Government revenues, is characterized has a "betrayal". The idea that Alexander I or in fact any leader or state in Europe was in any sense duty bound to sacrifice all his interests and the interests of his people to the "infallible", Napoleon and any hesitation in not obeying Napoleon in everything was "betrayal" is a very interesting vision of leaders responsibilities to their various peoples.

And it goes hand in hand with hypersensitive reactions to any criticism of the great man for whom the only "fair" criticism is sycophantic hero worship and suck up.

I was recently reminded of this when I reading a edition of Chandler's The Campaigns of Napoleon. In which someone had written comments practically all of them of the suck up variety. There was for example a few complaints about the authors occasional negative comments about Napoleon. (The comments which concerned Napoleon's ambition, ruthlessness, cruelty etc., are in my opinion entirely fair.) There were also occasional comments about "English Gold" by our writer in the margins. This indicates that the author has read the common literature concerning Napoleon that alleges that opposition to Napoleon in Europe was the result of the English government bribing other governments. That these other governments might have legitimate grievances / interests against France and or Napoleon is of course unthinkable. And the various English government's have by definition no legitimate interests against France / Napoleon and are a force for evil; thwarting the good, virtuous Napoleon in a contest between the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. Thus any opposition to Napoleon is the result of wicked base motives, and not from either "Good" principles and / or reason that can be deemed "legitimate".

It is my opinion that the Hero worship of Napoleon was and is one of the firm foundations for the support and adulation of Dictators, Dictatorial regimes and the crimes committed in their names.

Pierre Cloutier

The Age of Justinian Part I
Justinian and his Court

Theodora and her Court

The above pictures are of mosaics from St. Vitale at Ravenna. They show the public image that the great Emperor and his equally great Empress wished to convoy. Even though many of the mosaics were usurped from mosaics designed to glorify the Gothic King of Italy Theodoric the Great, these ones seem to have been designed to glorify Justinian and Theodora. For all the glory of Justinian and Theodora's reign, like those mosaics, it seems half baked and borrowed. The appearance seems more dazzling than the prosaic reality of exhaustion and futility.

Interestingly the foremost historian, Procopius, of Justinian and Theodora's reign produced also, in secret, the salacious and libelous Secret History, which is brim full of viciousness and venomous invective. He also produced the remarkable Wars, and the classic example of suck-up brown nosing The Buildings.

Historians faced with the above productions have responded in various ways. One is to deny that Procopius wrote the Secret History, a point of view now very much out of favour and extremely unlikely anyway. The other is to explain away the Secret History. This as led and still leads to remarkable convolutions.

A typical example of a refusal to take the Secret History, seriously is the following,

We do not know why Procopius wrote the Secret History, which is so offensive that it can never have been publicly circulated. It is useless as a source of information about 'what really happened', but the the Secret History, is a goldmine of information about mid-sixth-century Byzantine social systems and is particularly informative about appropriate gender roles.

The Age of Justinian Gender and Society, Leslie Brubaker, Age of Justinian, Ed. Michael Maas, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005, pp. 427-447, at. 432-433.

The above statement is typical of the mind set that refuses to accept that behind the invective of the Secret History, are actual facts, and it is false. For example does anyone seriously doubt that the picture of Theodora's upbringing is true or that she had in fact been a courtesan (polite term for prostitute) before she met Justinian or that she had been a actress? So much for being "useless".

Its obvious that the possibility that Procopius' Secret History, might contain reliable history is intolerable to many who prefer to mistake illusion for reality. So the rhetorical strategies to avoid this unacceptable result.

The statement that we do not know why the Secret History, was written rather conveniently ignores that in the preface to the Secret History, Procopius gives reasons. So what the author of the above means has reasons means is reasons "I",the author, can accept.

Procopius says:

As long has those responsible for what happened were still alive, it was out of the question to tell the story in the way it deserved. For it was impossible to either to avoid detection by swarms of spies, or if caught to escape death in its most agonizing form. Indeed, even in the company of my nearest relations I felt far from safe.

....

So in this part of my work I feel it my duty to reveal both the events hitherto passed over in silence and the reasons for the events already described.

Procopius The Secret History, Procopius, Trans. G. A. Williamsom, Penguin Books, London, 1966, p. 37.

I can't leave this topic without quoting two quotes from the Secret History, which demonstrate its awful salaciousness and give a good indication of why its so hard for some historians to take it seriously.

And though she brought three openings into service, she often found fault with nature, grumbling because nature had not made the openings in her nipples wider than is normal, so that she could devise another variety of intercourse in that region.

....

With such lasciviousness did she misuse her own body that she appeared to have her private parts not like other women in the place intended by nature, but in her face!

Procopius The Secret History, p. 84 & 85.

Rather remarkable examples of vicious useless invective. As a side note it is of interest that the Loeb Classical library translation translated the above passages not into English but Latin!! Thus indicating that the audience, perhaps thought of has impressible children, had to be protected from such corruption. Its probably one of the most ridiculous example of censorship in classical literature.

The Secret History complete with a very good Introduction can be located at Here

Pierre Cloutier