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against the idea that it is simply a distorted extension of Western culture:
"Nazism owes nothing to any part of the Western tradition, be it German
or not, Catholic or Protestant, Christian, Greek or Roman....On the con–
trary, Nazism is actually the breakdown of all German and European
traditions, the good as well as the bad."
Arendt, rather than view genocide as a special property of Germans or
Austrians (or any other people), considered it as nihilism in action, "bas–
ing itself on the intoxication of destruction as an actual experience,
dreaming the stupid dream of producing the void." Not a few of Arendt's
critics consider this formulation as apologetics, a way to reconcile person–
al relationships with politically conservative mentors and lovers like Martin
Heidegger with a larger series of liberal, and sometimes radical, claims. But,
whatever the truth of such biographical analyses, her views on national
types are well within the mainstream of twentieth-century social theory.
The single most important element in
The Origins of Totalitarianism
as
it pertains to genocide is that prospects for mass murder and selective may–
hem are embodied in the structure of totalitarianism as a system rather
than in the national characteristics of any particular people. The forms of
totalitarianism may vary, but the content allows for genocidal acts regard–
less of the ideological proclivities of the extremist regimes.
The ground for such genocidal actions is prepared by the denial of cit–
izenship, of political and legal rights of the victim class.
In
a brilliant
examination and support of Edmund Burke's critique of abstract argu–
ments of human rights that are divested of concrete sentiments of those
natural rights that spring from being part of a nation, Arendt notes: "The
survivors of the extermination camps, the inmates of concentration and
internment camps, and even the comparatively contented people could see
without Burke's arguments that the abstract nakedness of being nothing
but human was their greatest danger. Because of it they were regarded as
savages and, afraid that they might end by being considered beasts, they
insisted on their nationality, the last sign of their former citizenship, as
their only remaining and recognized tie with humanity." And, in a stun–
ning conclusion to the segment on imperialism, Arendt points out: "[A]
man who is nothing but a man has lost the very qualities which make it
possible for other people to treat him as a fellow man." And this stripping
the Jews of legal rights through deprivation of the rights of citizens per se
is the essential and necessary (if not sufficient) condition for genocide.
There is an ambiguity in her formulation in that, at times, it is the size
and power of government that provide the seeds for totalitarian rule, while
at other times, it is the cultural and psychological conditions that define
prospects for totalitarian domination. Thus totalitarianism depends on the
assumption of power by the extremists at a time when state machinery is
