Totalitarianism

Hannah Arendt, in her book, "Origins of Totalitarianism," attributes the formation of a mass society in Europe in the first decades of the 20th century to "grassroots eruptions" from a number of collective groups. These were the Mob, the masses, the tribes and the starving multitude - all "mobilized for action" and powerful (Arendt 1973).

The first of these groups, the Mob, Arendt perceives to have proceeded from the anti-Semitic riots that flared during the Dreyfus events in France. This Mob, according to her, was recruited from all classes of society, the "residue" or the "refuse of all classes" that accumulated from those left behind by the economic cycles of capitalism. They were displaced by the class structure and resented ordered society, and quickly mobilized for violence by instigators. Arendt distinguishes the Mob from the People in that the Mob was outside the class structure and always attuned to...
[ View Full Essay]