The Wisdom Letter #219

4 quotes from Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

✹ For today’s Wisdom Letter, we have carefully curated three bite-sized quotes from the historian and philosopher, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), each paired with a philosophical question meant to provoke deep reflection:

Quote № 01:

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. […] And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

— Hannah Arendt

~ Follow-up Question:

If a people who can no longer trust information become incapable of meaningful action or resistance, does this suggest that controlling the flow of truth is more powerful than direct coercion in maintaining authoritarian rule?

---

Quote № 02:

“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

— Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”

~ Follow-up Question:

How does the willingness to believe contradictory or absurd claims reflect a deeper psychological or social need, and does this suggest that propaganda succeeds not by imposing falsehoods, but by offering a form of emotional or ideological reassurance?

✱✱✱
Support Philosophors:
buymeacoffee.com/philosophors

Quote № 03:

“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”

— Hannah Arendt, “Eichmann in Jerusalem”

~ Follow-up Question:

If ordinary individuals, rather than overtly evil figures, are capable of committing great atrocities, what does this suggest about the nature of moral responsibility in bureaucratic and hierarchical systems?

---

Quote № 04:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

— Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”

~ Follow-up Question:

If totalitarianism thrives when people lose the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood, how can societies defend against political systems that deliberately blur these lines?

✽ Thank you for reading today’s Wisdom Letter.

---

✺ Support Philosophors!

Philosophors is a one-person labor of love, born out of my deep passion for wisdom. I’ve been fortunate enough to sustain this project through the generous donations of my audience, for which I’m incredibly grateful. If you would also like to support and help Philosophors thrive while remaining completely ad-free, please consider making a small donation and joining me on a mission to make wisdom more accessible.

✦ Donate Here → buymeacoffee.com/philosophors