UNDERSTANDING AND POLITICS
381
the other hand, the scholar wants to transcend
his
own knowledge-–
and there is no other way to make knowledge meaningful except by
transcending it-he must become very humble again and listen closely
to the popular language, in which words like
totalitarianism
are
daily used as political cliches and misused as catchwords, in order to
re-establish contact between knowledge and understanding.
The popular use of the word totalitarianism for the purpose
of
denouncing some supreme political evil is not much more than about
five years old. Up to the end of World War II, and even during the
first postwar years, the catchword for political evil was imperialism.
As
such, it was generally used to denote aggressiveness in foreign
politics; this identification was so thorough that the two words could
easily be exchanged one for the other. Similarly, totalitarianism
is
used today to denote lust for power, the will to dominate, terror, and
a so-called monolithic state structure. The change itself is noteworthy.
Imperialism remained a popular catchwQrd long after the rise of
Bolshevism, Fascism and Nazism; obviously people had not yet
caught up with events or did not believe that these new movements
would eventually dominate the whole historical period. Not even a
war with a totalitarian power, but only the actual downfall of
~
perialism (which was accepted after the liquidation of the British
Empire and the reception of India into the British Commonwealth)
could admit that the new phenomenon, totalitarianism, had taken the
place of imperialism as the central political issue of the era.
Yet while popular language thus recognizes a new event by
accepting a new word,
it
invariably uses such concepts as synonyms
for others signifying old and familiar evi1s--aggressiveness and lust
for conquest in the case of imperialism, terror and lust for power
in
the case of totalitarianism. The choice of the new word indicates that
everybody knows that something new and decisive has happened,
while its ensuing use, the identification of the new and specific
phenomenon with something familiar and rather general, indicates
unwillingness to admit that anything out of the ordinary has hap–
pened at all. It
is
as though with the first step, finding a new name
for a new force which will determine the course of our political
destinies, we orient ourselves toward new and specific conditions,
whereas with the second step (and, as it were, on second thought)
we regret our boldness and console ourselves that nothing worse or
less familiar will take place than general human sinfulness.
