This week in tutorials, we discussed the features of totalitarianism and how we can identify and distinguish a totalitarian regime from a non-totalitarian regime. A fascinating distinction that was raised was the role that violence plays in totalitarianism. While most totalitarian governments across time have used violence to impose their absolute power, I wonder whether this is a coincidence or a requirement of totalitarianism?
Hannah Arendt, in her analysis of totalitarian regimes, argued that violence is a critical component of totalitarianism. However, rather than seeing violence as an individual feature of totalitarian regimes to act as an identifier, Arendt suggests that violence is merely the mechanism relied upon to enforce propaganda, suppress dissent, and control the populace.
While overt physical violence is the most common and has been seen in countless historical examples, modern totalitarian regimes are seeing more psychological violence, where state interference is used to break down individual sense of self and social bonds. Psychological violence is, therefore, also used as a mechanism to create a climate of fear and distrust, which is essential to maintaining the regime's absolute power.
Perhaps these more 'hidden' forms of violence make it harder for modern regimes to confidently be classified as totalitarian. An example that comes to mind is Vatican City, which some scholars argue is a totalitarian state where the Church holds supreme authority over all aspects of governance despite its lack of overt physical violence.
These grey area states with totalitarian tendencies make me question whether violence is a theoretical requirement of totalitarianism or an easy mechanism/tool that is used by totalitarian regimes to enforce absolute power and their ideologies. My initial thinking is that theoretically, totalitarianism does not require violence, however practically and implicitly, violence will always emerge due to the way states act to maximise their retention of absolute power.
It would be interesting to hear if anyone has thoughts on this distinction?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40972131?seq=7
https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/ppsr-2020-0008
Thanks Eleesha! I think Hannah Arendt's point about violence in totalitarian states is slightly different; what I tried to emphasize in lecture is that violence in totalitarianism isn't directed to actual opponents of the regime (though they would be attacked to) but to categories of people that the regime identifies as objective enemies (regardless of whether they oppose the regime).
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