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Totalitarianism and Philosophy When Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin first came to power in the 1930s, their regimes were considered by many to represent a new and perplexing phenomenon. They were labelled ‘totalitarian’. But is ‘totalitarianism’ genuinely new, or is the word just another name for something old and familiar, namely tyranny? T his is the first question to be addressed by Alan Haworth in this book, which explores the relevance of philosophy to the understanding of totalitarianism. In the course of the discussion, definitions are tested. Is it coherent to think of totalitarianism as the imposition of a ‘total state’, or of ‘total control’? Could it even be that the idea of totalitarianism is a ‘non-concept’? E xamining the work of the totalitarian philosophers Giovanni Gentile and Carl Schmitt, the idea of ‘totalitarianism by other means’ as represented in dystopian fiction, and the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, T otalitarianism and Philosophy is essential reading for all students and scholars of political philosophy. Alan Haworth is a specialist in political philosophy. He has taught the subject at all levels, from undergraduate to doctoral. He is the author of numerous articles and the books U nderstanding the Political Philosophers (Second Edition 2012), F ree Speech (1998) and A nti-Libertarianism (1994), all published by Routledge. Routledge Focus on Philosophy Routledge Focus on Philosophy is an exciting and innovative new series, capturing and disseminating some of the best and most exciting new research in philosophy in short book form. Peer reviewed and at a maxi- mum of fifty thousand words shorter than the typical research monograph, Routledge Focus on Philosophy titles are available in both ebook and print on demand format. Tackling big topics in a digestible format the series opens up important philosophical research for a wider audience, and as such is invaluable reading for the scholar, researcher and student seeking to keep their finger on the pulse of the discipline. The series also reflects the grow- ing interdisciplinarity within philosophy and will be of interest to those in related disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. Extended Consciousness and Predictive Processing A Third Wave View Michael D. Kirchhoff and Julian Kiverstein W hat We Ought and What We Can Alex King The Ethics of Whistleblowing Eric R. Boot Totalitarianism and Philosophy Alan Haworth The Repugnant Conclusion A Philosophical Inquiry Christopher Cowie For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Focus-on-Philosophy/book-series/RFP Totalitarianism and Philosophy Alan Haworth First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Alan Haworth The right of Alan Haworth to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Haworth, Alan, 1944– author. Title: Totalitarianism and Philosophy / Alan Haworth. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge Focus on Philosophy | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019039652 (print) | LCCN 2019039653 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367438258 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367438265 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Totalitarianism. | Political science—Philosophy. Classification: LCC JC481 .H363 2020 (print) | LCC JC481 (ebook) | DDC 320.53—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039652 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039653 ISBN: 978-0-367-43825-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-43826-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC FOR ROWAN para siempre Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 ‘Totalitarianism’ or plain tyranny? 4 3 The total state 17 4 Total control 34 5 Dystopia 46 6 Interim 57 7 Arendt: the elements of totalitarianism 60 8 Arendt: from public realm to ‘worldlessness’ 78 9 Conclusion 96 References 98 Index 103 The man who tastes a single piece of human flesh, mixed in with the rest of the sacrifice, is fated to become a wolf. Plato If you are afraid of wolves, keep out of the woods. Stalin 1 Introduction As the title states, this book’s twin subjects are totalitarianism and philosophy. Its guiding theme is the ability of the latter to illuminate our understanding of the former. I will begin with the word itself. It is a relative newcomer to the vocabu- lary. The earliest recorded references to the ‘ethical’ or ‘total’ state occurred in the 1920s in the work of apologists for Italian fascism such as Giovanni Gentile, and the dictator Mussolini. The term ‘totalitarianism’ soon acquired a wider currency, however, and especially in the work of critics whose atti- tude towards the ideas, the ambitions and, ultimately, the regimes of Musso- lini and Hitler was far less enthusiastic. The rise of those regimes had been startling. Hitler, especially, was guilty of extreme brutality, as was Stalin – also routinely categorised as a ‘totalitarian’ dictator. It is hardly surprising that a new term should have been coined in order to accommodate these appar- ently unprecedented manifestations of oppression and cruelty. Even so, it is important to recognise that the existence of a new word does not necessarily signify the presence of a new entity, something for which the word stands. There is, at least, a possibility that ‘totalitarianism’ is just a new word for something old and familiar – dictatorship or tyranny. Accord- ingly, one question to which arguments contained in the following pages are addressed is that of whether totalitarianism – or ‘so-called’ totalitarianism – is genuinely distinct from the latter phenomena. With that in mind, the subject of the next chapter – Chapter 2 – is the suitability of totalitarianism as a subject for what I shall call ‘political taxonomy’; the latter being a way of categorising political formations that has its roots in the work of Plato and Aristotle, but that is still assumed in the structure of many an introductory textbook to political theory. C hapter 3 is devoted to totalitarian philosophy, mainly as it appears in the work of fascist philosophers such as Gentile and Carl Schmitt. In Chapter 4 we consider whether the definition of totalitarianism as total control of the individual by the state is sufficient to dis- tinguish it from ‘mere’ dictatorship or tyranny, and in Chapter 5 whether