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Christianity, Mass Society, and Cold War, 1945–72

Robert Tobin

in The Minority Voice: Hubert Butler and Southern Irish Protestantism, 1900-1991

This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most ... More

This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most prominent post‐war writings, and in the process, introduces his preoccupation with exposing the compulsory conversion campaign waged against Orthodox Serbs in Croatia during the war. It accounts for how this concern led to the most traumatic experience of his public life, the so‐called ‘Papal Nuncio Incident’ of 1952. It explores his concern with the creeping anonymity of modern life, exploited by totalitarian regimes before and during the war but also evident after the war in the capitalist West. His travels in China in the fifties, as well as in Europe and the USA in the sixties, confirmed for him this assessment.Less

Beyond the Blues: The Racial Unconscious and Collective Memory

Eli Zaretsky

in Political Freud: A History

This chapter examines the radical African American and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals who drew on the Freudian critique of the father complex, in the form of the master-slave relationship, in order to ... More

This chapter examines the radical African American and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals who drew on the Freudian critique of the father complex, in the form of the master-slave relationship, in order to build a collective memory in the Black community. Psychoanalytic thought was central to three great episodes of African American and Afro-Caribbean radicalism that preceded the civil rights movement: the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, the Popular Front of the 1930s, and the existentialist-inflected anticolonial and postcolonial paradigm that emerged after World War II. In each case, political Freudianism aimed less at a theory of racism than at uncovering the memory of the slave experience and its aftermath. In each case an African American or Afro-Caribbean intellectual was drawing on Freud not just to probe the damage to the inner world left behind by slavery and colonialism but to turn that reconstructed memory toward politics.Less

In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Rereading Freud’s Moses

Eli Zaretsky

in Political Freud: A History

The third chapter, on Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (1938), interrogatesan idea crucial to the Freudian approach to history, the idea of regression. Against the standard approach, which contrasts ... More

The third chapter, on Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (1938), interrogatesan idea crucial to the Freudian approach to history, the idea of regression. Against the standard approach, which contrasts progress with decline or decadence, political Freudians posited that history unfolds at different levels and at different timescales, that there are points in the past to which we regress, predispositions, stages, or conflicts to which we “return.” Written on the eve of World War II, and in the shadow of the Nazi terror, Moses and Monotheism used the idea that there are unconscious processes in history to analyze the founding of monotheism in ancient Egypt, the accompanying creation of the Jewish people, and the subsequent rise of anti-Semitism. It was the question of progress or, more starkly, survival that animated Freud’s interest in Jewish identity. Moses and Monotheism is at bottom a reflection on the history of psychoanalysis centered on Freud’s preconscious identification of psychoanalysis with Judaism. Less

The Ego at War: From the Death Instinct to Precarious Life

Eli Zaretsky

in Political Freud: A History

This chapter examines political Freudian thinking concerning war during World War I, World War II, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Freud believed that aggression was a normal and healthy part of ... More

This chapter examines political Freudian thinking concerning war during World War I, World War II, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Freud believed that aggression was a normal and healthy part of civilization, but only insofar as its roots in vulnerability, dependence, and in the continued presence of infantile states in the adult mind were recognized. The century’s earliest approach to war rested on the warrior ethic associated with such ideals as glory, honor, and self-sacrifice. The shell shock incident of World War I led Freud to formulate his theory of the ego, which challenged those ideals. Hence the political Freudian tradition reflects a shift from the classical Cartesian or Kantian view of the rational, independent, “bounded” ego to the view that the ego is formed through recognition, object relations, and language. While this shift deepened the Freudian interrogation of vulnerability, it also threatened to lose the focus on ego autonomy that gave psychoanalysis its critical force.Less

Afterword—Freud in the Twenty-First Century

Eli Zaretsky

in Political Freud: A History

Written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Freud’s birth, the afterword asks whether psychoanalytic thought is relevant in today’s world or is merely of historical interest. In its heyday, ... More

Written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Freud’s birth, the afterword asks whether psychoanalytic thought is relevant in today’s world or is merely of historical interest. In its heyday, it argues, Freudianism was a synthesis, combining a theory of the mind, a new paradigm for interpreting culture, and an ethical commitment to self-reflection. During the 1970s, with the waning of the traditional, family-centered culture of restraint, the three currents came apart. The theory of the mind gave way to neuroscience. The approach to culture found a home in the university, especially in cultural studies, women’s studies, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and film studies. But the fate of the ethical commitment to self-reflection, like the fate of political Freudianism as such, remains in doubt.Less

Elements for a Public Critique of the Catholic Discourse of Anti-Relativism

Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

in Relativism and Religion: Why Democratic Societies Do Not Need Moral Absolutes

This chapter provides an analytical discussion of some of the salient elements of the contemporary religious discourse of anti-relativism, focusing in particular on the use made of five key terms: ... More

This chapter provides an analytical discussion of some of the salient elements of the contemporary religious discourse of anti-relativism, focusing in particular on the use made of five key terms: relativism, truth, authority, freedom and totalitarianism.Less

Why Community?

George Rupp

in Beyond Individualism: The Challenge of Inclusive Communities

To address the dimension of the resistance to individualism that is warranted, its values can and should be integrated into an affirmation of community.

Totalitarian Millennialism: The Bolshevik Apocalypse (1917–1935 ce)

Richard Landes

in Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience

This chapter traces how the dynamics of apocalyptic disappointment, led millennial ideologues (Bakùnin, Lenin, and Trotsky) to turn the politique du pire into coercive purity, setting the stage for a ... More

This chapter traces how the dynamics of apocalyptic disappointment, led millennial ideologues (Bakùnin, Lenin, and Trotsky) to turn the politique du pire into coercive purity, setting the stage for a shift from the revolution occurring in the industrial West to the agrarian East. Totalitarianism, in this context, arises from the unintended consequence of an apocalyptic movement that took power, and, with the failure of its expectations of a spontaneous millennium, carved out the “perfect” society from the body politic. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Hannah Arendt's analysis of totalitarianism, the phenomenon of “fellow travelers” as a (post-)apocalyptic phenomenon, and the contribution of apocalyptic paranoia to the spread of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, setting the stage for Hitler's emergence after WWI.Less

A Lying World Order: Political Deception and The Threat of Totalitarianism

Peg Birmingham

in Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics

This chapter addresses the question whether totalitarianism is a threat today. It considers one element of totalitarianism that Hannah Arendt was herself very concerned ... More

This chapter addresses the question whether totalitarianism is a threat today. It considers one element of totalitarianism that Hannah Arendt was herself very concerned about—a “lying world order.” At the outset of Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt raises the issue of political deception, considering the difference between the ancient and modern sophists and their relation to truth and reality. She argues that while the ancient sophists were satisfied with “a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth”, modern sophists want a great deal more, namely, “a lasting victory at the expense of reality itself”. Arendt claims that the characteristic that sets totalitarianism apart from tyrannical and dictatorial regimes is precisely the modern sophistic victory at the expense of reality, a victory that, she argues, institutes a lying world order. Indeed, her discussion of radical evil in the Origins of Totalitarianism cannot be understood apart from her continuing preoccupation with the problem of this particular kind of political deception.Less

‘We Refugees’: Hannah Arendt and the Perplexities of Human Rights

Lyndsey Stonebridge

in The Judicial Imagination: Writing After Nuremberg

Hannah Arendt later adopted Arthur Koestler's uncompromising title in her description of Europe's refugee population in The Origins of Totalitarianism. In Origins, she developed one of the most ... More

Hannah Arendt later adopted Arthur Koestler's uncompromising title in her description of Europe's refugee population in The Origins of Totalitarianism. In Origins, she developed one of the most subtle and complex critiques of how the twentieth century ruptured historical fantasies about the inalienable sanctity of rights to emerge out of the war. Arendt's irony in ‘We Refugees’ both gives vent to the rage of a ‘we’ torn brutally from its language, occupation and memory and, through a subtle ventriloquism, protests against attempts to normalise the position of the refugee. The problem of the refugee for political life, Arendt later argued in Origins, is that her very non-political existence illuminates ‘the dark background of mere givenness’: that is, a life before rights, a non-political existence – the ‘background formed by our unchangeable and unique nature’, which is governed not by law, but by difference.Less

“The Odium of Doubtfulness”: Or the Vicissitudes of Arendt’s Metaphorical Thinking

Martin Blumenthal-Barby

in Inconceivable Effects: Ethics through Twentieth-Century German Literature, Thought, and Film

This chapter focuses on Hannah Arendt’s study of the question of “style” in historiographical narration. It analyzes Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, and determines her own style, while ... More

This chapter focuses on Hannah Arendt’s study of the question of “style” in historiographical narration. It analyzes Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, and determines her own style, while questioning how its efficacy relates to the problem of understanding totalitarianism. In response to political philosopher Eric Voegelin, a reviewer of Origins, Arendt elaborates on her decision to allocate more historiographical legitimacy to metaphorical thinking than to statistical science. She treats the merits of metaphorical thinking on the basis of a metaphor employed in Origins—that of the Nazi concentration camp as a place of “Hell.” Arendt feels that a heavy reliance on the explanatory power of quantitative material means prolonging the logic of Nazism or, more generally, the biopolitical logic of totalitarian politics.Less

On ideology and totalitarianism

Christopher Adair-Toteff

in Raymond Aron's Philosophy of Political Responsibility: Freedom, Democracy and National Identity

This chapter has two parts: one on ideology and the other on totalitarianism. In the first part, it explores Aron’s adaption of the notion of ideology through Karl Mannheim and Edward Shils and ... More

This chapter has two parts: one on ideology and the other on totalitarianism. In the first part, it explores Aron’s adaption of the notion of ideology through Karl Mannheim and Edward Shils and concludes with a discussion of the “End of Ideology?” debate. In the second part, it clarifies the similarities and differences between Aron’s conception of totalitarianism and that of Hannah Arendt.Less

Explaining Krokodil Magazine and the Soviet Media System

John Etty

in Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: Krokodil's Political Cartoons

This chapter offers an analysis of the Soviet media environment in which Krokodil functioned, as well as the dominant "propaganda paradigm" and totalitarian interpretations of it. It outlines two ... More

This chapter offers an analysis of the Soviet media environment in which Krokodil functioned, as well as the dominant "propaganda paradigm" and totalitarian interpretations of it. It outlines two tendencies-selectivity with material from the journal and structuralist approaches-that developed in scholarly criticism of Krokodil magazine between the 1930s and the present, and especially since 1945. These trends, as well as humor theories, have influenced interpretations and limited our understanding of Krokodil.Less

The Thinking Singer

Christoph Irmscher

in Max Eastman: A Life

After his return to the United States in 1927, Max Eastman finds himself isolated from his former radical friends. A controversy with Sidney Hook over his interpretation of Marxism increases his ... More

After his return to the United States in 1927, Max Eastman finds himself isolated from his former radical friends. A controversy with Sidney Hook over his interpretation of Marxism increases his depression, as does the lackluster response to his novel, Venture. Crystal Eastman’s untimely death in 1928 nearly ends Max’s career as a professional lecturer, but Eliena’s devotion to their marriage sustains him. Max’s translation of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution reinvigorates his friendship with the exiled leader, although during Max’s visit to Prinkipo Island the men nearly come to blows over their different interpretations of dialectic materialism. Max publishes more poetry, a book on literature and science, an edition of Marx’s writings, and Artists in Uniform, a critique of the totalitarian takeover of literature in the Soviet Union. He collaborates on the innovative documentary Tsar to Lenin, while Enjoyment of Laughter, his second book on humor, becomes a best-seller. Max’s scathing review of Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon leads to a well-publicized fistfight between the two men. Worried about the Soviet infiltration of American life, Max is keeping lists of suspected communists in the U.S. and acts as the host of the popular radio show Word Game.Less

Nazism and Us

in Terms of the Political: Community, Immunity, Biopolitics

Chapter 7 argues that our contemporary political language is haunted not, as some would have it, by Soviet communism in the wake of the Cold War, but by Nazism. Whereas Soviet communism belongs to ... More

Chapter 7 argues that our contemporary political language is haunted not, as some would have it, by Soviet communism in the wake of the Cold War, but by Nazism. Whereas Soviet communism belongs to modern the political lexicon, Nazism invents an entirely new conceptual language, and operates entirely outside of the parameters of the previous lexicon. The language of Nazism is located decidedly after modernity, and thus is part of our experience as postmoderns. Whereas the conceptual lexicon of communism may be worn out, never before has bíos, if not zoé, been the point of intersection for all political, social, economic, and technological practices. From mass migrations, biotechnology, psychopharmacology, and ecological crises, to the reopening of concentration camps throughout the world and preventative wars, the twenty-first century continues to be shaped by questions of life, death, and politics that Nazism brought to the fore.Less

Totalitarianism or Biopolitics: Toward a Philosophical Interpretation of the Twentieth Century

in Terms of the Political: Community, Immunity, Biopolitics

Chapter 9 argues that the two reigning hermeneutic paradigms of the twentieth century–totalitarianism (Stalinist communism and Nazism) and biopolitics–are often superimposed upon one another, or ... More

Chapter 9 argues that the two reigning hermeneutic paradigms of the twentieth century–totalitarianism (Stalinist communism and Nazism) and biopolitics–are often superimposed upon one another, or placed along a continuum according to which one leads necessarily to the other. Yet totalitarianism and biopolitics differ first and foremost on how they formulate the relationship between philosophy and history, and the way they consider how history is thought by and in philosophy. When considered from a biopolitical point of view, the twentieth century, and indeed the entire course of modernity, is determined not by the superficial and contradictory antithesis between totalitarianism and democracy but instead by the much deeper antithesis (because it has to do with the preservation of life) between history and nature, between the historicization of nature and the naturalization of history.Less

Exile – The Heart of the Secret World

Phyllis Lassner

in Espionage and Exile: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Spy Fiction and Film

The introduction situates the book in its different frames of reference, and historical and theoretical contexts to show how exile is a persistent political and narrative concern in spy fiction and ... More

The introduction situates the book in its different frames of reference, and historical and theoretical contexts to show how exile is a persistent political and narrative concern in spy fiction and extends to other current interest in citizenship and belonging. This includes experiential and philosophical definitions of exile and their relation to the genre of spy thriller, twentieth century political crises, and propaganda in relation to political art. It reviews various scholarly studies of spy fiction to show how fictional representations of espionage as tied to states of exile demonstrates historical, narrative, and analytical complexity. The introduction then outlines each of the following chapters and how they relate thematically to each other.Less