Totalitarianism

In our most recent lecture in week 9 we looked at how Totalitarianism originated and Arendt’s theories and opinions concerning it. To start off, we must first understand what Totalitarianism is.

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state in control believes that “everything is possible” as well as striving for limitless power through the control of both the public and private sectors within it.

For these societies to work successfully, a policy of Terror needs to be implemented within them. This policy sees mass, senseless and reasonless slaughter. This aims to drive fear into the heart of the public so nobody can undermine its progression against the government from the inside as well as destroying anybody’s sense of individuality. Destroying people’s individuality was especially important as it makes human beings difficult to control and gather up into a collective movement.

The ideologies are necessary in order to eliminate the capacity for individual thought and experience among the executioners themselves complimenting the policy of Terror perfectly. Changing a cultures ideology frees the mind from the constraints of common sense and reality and ultimately abolishes general standards of morality and humane human behaviour. This breakdown of the stable humane human world means a loss of institutional and psychological barriers which normally set limits to what is possible.

For example, the Nazi’s “final solution” denies Jews citizenship, making them stateless and removing their human rights. These rights were not their natural rights and only applied within a nation, therefore by removing these rights, Jews became superfluous and prefect victims of the Nazi regime.

These tactics were evident in both Stalin’s dictatorship over Russia after the formation of the Soviet Union as well as the widely known Nazi party regime which took control of Germany. Both dictatorships led to mass genocides which is essential in any Totalitarian society. Totalitarianism needs to be constantly attacking and has no other purpose than to destroy. There is no end to a totalitarian society’s destructive actions because it needs them to keep control. If the Nazi’s had completed their final solution, they would most probably not of stopped but simply targeted another social/religious group and begun eradicating them as well.

“The essence of totalitarian government is ‘total terror’.”

The idea behind these radical and seemingly irrational methods of control is to speed up Charles Darwin’s idea of the law of nature, whereby the strongest race will wipe out all opposing races. It seemed logical to bypass the slow progression towards this final communistic state and just implement it within a number of years not decades or even centuries of cultural progression.

Hannah Arendt wrote a series of articles for the New Yorker as well as writing about a court case against Adolf Eichmann who was a key member of the Nazi party. Eichmann was in charge of organising the transportation of all the Jews to concentration camps with terrifying efficiency.

Hannah Arendt believed in the utter individuality and spontaneity of people. She highlights the fragility of civilisation when looking at the change throughout the heart of Europe during the Second World War. She mentioned that even in a sophisticated, intellectually and culturally elite country of Germany. Whole, free minded and morally correct whole people can fall through cracks and act in a way which they would never normally even consider. By taking away man-made structures implemented in society a civilised human being can be corrupted, for example Imperialism, which are disrupted structures.

When writing about the court case in Jerusalem involving Adolf Eichmann, she believed that he should definitely be considered guilty however not for the reasons proposed by that of the court. She believed his only crime was not thinking about his actions and serving whoever was in control with blind obedience. She believed that no thinking person could be responsible for genocide and that it was not necessary to possess wickedness in order to commit great crimes.

When Eichmann was asked why he aided the final solution he replied with a number of clichés explaining how he was only following orders and there was nothing he could do but follow the law of the land. He stated; ‘one should act in a way that the Fuhrer himself would do the same’. Kant’s idea of a Categorical Imperative, by definition means; Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. Eichmann was well aware of Immanuel Kant and used this in his defence.

Arendt said that people should think for themselves even in disrupted structures where everyone around them isn’t. Arendt’s definition of thinking is the judgement made from the interaction with a person’s internal plurity. This is something you should follow even before the law of the land. She believed that people consider freedom as a social enactment and not an individually free opinion of how to act and that people will exercise freedom in groups or in concerts opposed to following their own individualistic beliefs and opinions.

This has been highlighted by a man named Stanley Milgram who undertook a study to see how destructive people could be if they are following orders and simply being obedient. This study involved electric shocks supposedly being delivered to someone in another room every time they answered a question incorrectly. These electric shocks increased in voltage each time until they had the power of 450 volts which was enough to kill the participant. Of course the participant was an actor and was only pretending to be shocked and a staggering 2 thirds of all people undertaking this study gave participant a shock which could essentially kill them.

http://www.youtube.com/XpIzju84v24

Sigmund Freud

In lecture 2 we looked at the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. He was born in 1850 and died in 1939. He undertook recreational drug use, mainly cocaine and attacked the previous concept of the ‘noble human’, or in other words humans being thought of as generally ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ beings at the base of their personality. This was evident in the enlightenment period. He was very pessimistic, ambitious and was said to be a ‘sexual renegade’. The reason he was like this may have been down to living through a world war as well as the severe economic depression of 1929, (the wall street crash). 

As far as his theories go, they were a dark vision of humanity, he believed that humans were not unconsciously ‘good’ as well as believing that the basic and fundamental human needs are aggression, violence, sex and aim towards self destruction. He came to the conclusion that human being were ultimately nasty and pleasure orientated.

The Freudien personality consisted of three processes which were constantly conflicting with each other. The first and most dominant process is the ID. This ID, Freud said, was the unconscious. It was the basic human instincts aimed at gaining pleasure and avoiding pain.

“A cauldron of seething excitations” – Always bubbling away, demanding expression.

The second process mentioned was the EGO or SELF. This he referred to as the reality principle or the voice of reason. This process of the mind is supposed to be constantly besieged by the stronger processes of the mind. It is the least powerful part of the personality.

The third and final process is the SUPEREGO. The superego was meant to of developed through socialisation and has impossible standards of unattainable perfection. It can be described as the policeman in your head, which is completely irrational, always telling you what you should be doing which then punishes you with guilt if the standards have not been achieved.

He also derived a theory on how humans are inflicted with three different types of pain. The first being our own decaying body and natural decline over our lifetime. (Freud died from mouth cancer so was very aware of this aspect of pain).  The second was the general misfortune we go through throughout our lives, for example getting parking tickets, losing your keys or falling over and breaking a bone. The last theoretical infliction of pain on humankind he proposed was strangely the everyday interaction with people. He believed that people were out to get us as we are all irrational beings who are inclined to hurt each other.

He believed that to remedy these problems the answer would be self analysis. However none of these methods would actually free you from this conviction of being part of this destructive, irrational and sexual humankind as all of this is built into our general nature and underlying unconscious. The aggression will never be eliminated.

Intoxication, however this only lasted for as long as you were intoxicated and made coming back to reality a lot harder in the long run.

Isolation, this freed you from the constrains of the everyday socialisation which people have to endure

Sublimation, undertaking a sporting activity or working, however this was generally mild and unfulfilling and what humans really want to do is be violent and have sex which will attain REAL satisfaction.

Displacement, turn your shameful thoughts into other thoughts

Projection, send your bad feelings onto someone else

Regression, return to an earlier stage of development

Hypnosis, free association, talk about things, mindlessly talk until the ID begins to show itself. Dreams are 

also a way for the ID to show itself.

Freud believed that hypnosis was the best way to reveal the unconscious ID in order to show that you are hiding something from yourself.

He believed that civilisation was a collective SUPEREGO, and that men are not gentle creatures, but instead aggressive forces.

“man is like wolf to man”

Freuds theories were widely discussed and debated throughout the 19^th century. They were widely scrutinised by other theorists such as Reich, who believed the opposite of Freud.

Reich believed that the unconscious forces within us are good however it was society which was to blame for our irrational behaviour. Society distorted our unconscious to make us dangerous. He followed the path of sexuality more than aggression unlike Freud and believed that sexuality was the cornerstone to our personalities. He believed that if sexuality was released then humans would flourish.

He criticised Freud for focusing too much on the mind and completely ignoring the body. He was a sexual radicalist and emphasised the significance of sex.

Economy

Gold was thought to be valuable by the ancient Egyptians as it did not decay and because of this it was considered to be immortal and ultimately valuable by societies throughout the world. Our coins and bank notes today are representations of this gold. 

These coins and bank notes are now part of an incredibly clever and successful illusion which is used today in order to keep people working. Money is worthless, merely paper which has been marked by the government indicating that it is worth something when in fact in contemporary society it is simply an ‘I owe you’ and represents only a promise. British notes are inscribed with; ‘I promise to pay the bearer the sum of £10’.

Prior to the 1840s printed money was worth actual gold and governments needed the gold in order to buy or pay for anything, loans were not an option. This led to a destructive recession. Governments were unable to pay wages resulting in thousands of people starving to death. The African/American Gold Rush helped to pump money back into the system and end the starvation however.

In order to prevent anything like this happening again governments decided to simply print more money and circulate it even though they didn’t have the value of what was printed. This essentially led to a build up of debt. It was thought necessary to create this debt however so that people didn’t starve in the short term.

This debt has become so extensive today in England that even our taxes which are supposed to go to government services instead just go towards paying off the interest of government bonds. Government Bonds are again a promise to pay someone however they generate high interest which means the debt will never be paid off, instead just postponed to be paid at a later date.  

Karl Marx widely criticised the economic system used in capitalism predicting it’s penultimate collapse. He viewed it as unstable, a system which doesn’t work and should be changed. For example, if banks decide to stop accepting the government bonds and lose faith that they are ever going to be paid back, the entire system would collapse.

Thomas Malthus proposed something known as ‘the iron law of population.’ This theory suggested that over population would lead to mass consumption and limited production. Therefore he suggested an inevitable breakdown of the economy resulting in famine and a general failure of human wants being fulfilled.

A Keynesian economist would say getting into debt is the best method towards keeping the economy going, although the debts will never be paid off entirely, we should always be able to pay for the stuff we want in the short term. We will never be rich but at least we won’t starve to death. And workers will always be happy because they are always receiving their pay checks.

A classical economist would insist however that these debts need to be paid for one way or another. And a cut in the publics wages are necessary in order to do so.

Money circulates in society because of human wants, not needs. The theory of utilitarianism expresses how people left to their own devices will trade with one another. They will use their skills or assets in order to buy what they want.

How do we associate how much gold labour and objects are worth though?

Utility – utility is the fundamental, measurable, verifiable phenomena, it is the reference point of human wants. The values of objects are generally worked out into labour and part costs. A biro would be worth £1 however a grand piano would b worth £5000. Why is this? Why would the piano be exactly 5000 times more expensive than a biro?

It is how much people are willing to pay for something. In other words, how much time people are willing to work for in order to attain something.

Seminar paper on ‘Tabloid Nation’

Chris Horrie’s ‘Tabloid Nation’ studies the birth of the Daily Mirror right up to the death of the tabloid. The first two parts of the book cover the creation of the Daily Mirror up to the redundancy of the company’s director, Harry Guy Bartholomew, in the final chapter.

The first chapter begins by explaining how the Daily Mirror was created. Alfred Harmsworth, later to be known as Lord Northcliffe, created ‘Answers’, a successful magazine popular for it’s bizarre stories and enticingly difficult competitions. His next venture was the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail offered a broadsheet newspaper at half the price of any other broadsheet newspaper. The Mail saw a sharp increase in readers after introducing a section for women. The success with this section inspired Northcliffe to produce a newspaper by women, for women, known as the Daily Mirror.

After a huge launch campaign the newspaper was a flop as the number of readers dropped drastically following its release. John McCannon acknowledges that ‘in most times and places, women have occupied a secondary status in society, whether because of general division of labor, cultural and religious bias, or simple sexism.’ This derogative stereotype suggests that the lack of confidence men had in women thereby halted the progression of the newspaper further in the hands of women. Northcliffe reaffirms this contemporary belief by saying, ‘women cant write and don’t want to read.’

Hannen Swaffer, otherwise known as ‘The Pope of Fleet Street’ transformed the Daily Mirror into what can be considered today as the beginning of photo journalism. It was picture based news. Fyfe who was head of the Advertiser newspaper at the time explained how, ‘everything in the Daily Mirror was calculated to be easy absorption by the most ordinary intelligence’. Extraordinary pictures filled the pages which people in 1900’s England would never have been able to see without the Mirror. Pictures ranged from the coronation of the King Siam to the funeral of the Emperor of Japan.

Despite attaining astronomical profits and sales figures, the Daily Mirror became an embarrassment and its lack of intellectual news stories started to take a toll on the papers reputation. Shocking pictures of a dead king’s face as well as the boxing match which sparked riots in England were flaunted to the public on the front page. Lord Northcliffe branded it ‘a good newspaper for cab drivers’ and ‘beyond redemption’ and began cutting links with the Mirror in 1910. Photographers working for the Mirror were labelled as ghouls or creeps due to their heartlessness approach of capitalising on anything out of the ordinary no matter how morally wrong it may be.

Lord Rothermere was handed down ownership of the papers after Lord Northcliffe passed away. Newspapers such as the Herald and the Express began giving away free gifts because of low sales figures leading up to the recession of 1929. This led to an all out free gift war. The various papers would give away an increasingly expensive variety of gifts for free. Horrie explained how; ‘the canvassers were dispatched to offer cameras, tea sets, laundry mangles, encyclopaedias, tea kettles, overcoats, children’s shoes and boots to all comers.’ This ultimately resulted in the collapse of any kind of financial stability throughout the industry.

Rothermere became obsessed with nationalism and fascism and led the Daily Mirror into a right wing political stance. His political agenda supported that of Adolf Hitler’s and he even wrote to him on the 1^st of October praising his leadership qualities;

‘My dear Fuhrer, everyone in England is profoundly moved by the bloodless solution to the Czechoslovakian problem. People are not so much concerned with territorial readjustment as with dread of another war with its accompanying bloodbath. Frederick the great was a great popular figure. I salute your Excellency’s star which rises higher and higher.’

Because of this obsession both papers, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror have had their reputation trampled upon by competing newspapers. The independent in October 2003 attacked the paper for its previous right wing stance and drew attention to the fact that; ‘The paper was burned on the streets after running the headline “hurrah for the blackshirts” and backing Oswald Mosley’s plan to make himself Britain’s equivalent of Adolf Hitler”.

Harry Guy Bartholomew, Bart, was one of the most influential directors in the Daily Mirrors history. He started off in the Daily Mirror in 1904 as a photographic technician which led to his creation of the Bartlane. The Bartlane was a technical system which meant English papers could receive American pictures in a matter of minutes or hours. This created the first link between the Daily Mirror and American newspapers, namely the New York Daily. Bart now aimed at making the Daily Mirror into a very Americanised newspaper. Introducing features such as cartoon strips, he brought sensationalism into the Mirror.

With the arrival of Hugh Cudlipp the American idea of sensationalism took off in the Daily Mirror newspaper. Nudity was introduced and stories of disaster and scandals filled the paper. It was the first newspaper to show boobs. Horrie explains that ‘the photos illustrated a supposedly anthropological pictorial study of ‘native life’ in Africa, featuring two nude African girls washing in a stream.’ The mirror now displayed the vulgarity and suggestiveness which could only be found elsewhere in England in Blackpool’s ‘golden mile.’ Further down the line page three was introduced and curiously named; ‘a study of springtime’ which featured naked women standing in gardens.

The Daily Mirror had such great influence at the time of the war in promoting propaganda against the Nazis that their offices were targeted during the war by German bombings. However, much of the mirrors staff discussed their most significant ideas in a bar nearby called El Vinos. Horrie wrote that, ‘if the Germans had wanted to knock the mirror out of the war they should have dropped a bomb on El Vino’s wine-bar’. At this point the Daily Mirror was the most successful newspaper in England as it had the ability to feel the public’s mood at the time. Horrie explained that, ‘the paper’s skill in judging the mood of times seemed to sweep it along on the crest of a tidal wave of generational and political change.’

Overall, the first two parts of ‘Tabloid Nation’ effectively explain the Daily Mirror’s history and influence from the early 1900’s to just after the Second World War. The newspaper pioneered photo journalism and becoming incredibly rich and influential by doing so. Losing all of it’s self-respect and moral backbone it had in the early stages of it’s production was a small price to pay for it’s widespread commercial success.