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Comment by howaboutnope | Hacker News Reader

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Have you got a precise source for your quote of Hannah Arendt? I am interested in reading the context but I couldn't find the quote you wrote

It's my translation from the first German edition of "Origins of Totalitarianism". It's on page 683.

> Wir kennen keinen vollkommenen totalitären Herrschaftsapparat, denn er würde die Beherrschung der gesamten Erde vorraussetzen. Wir wissen aber genug von den immer noch vorläufigen Experimenten totaler Organisation, um zu erkennen, daß die durchaus mögliche Vervollkommnung dieses Apparats menschliches Handeln in dem uns bekannten Sinne abschaffen würde. Handeln würde sich als überflüssig erweisen im Zusammenleben der Menschen, wenn alle Menschen zu einem Menschen, alle Individuen zu Exemplaren der Gattung, alles Tun zu Beschleunigungsgriffen in der gesetzmäßigen Bewegungsapparatur der Geschichte oder der Natur und alle Taten zu Vollstreckungen der Todesurteile geworden sind, die Geschichte und Natur ohnehin verhängt haben.

-- Hannah Arendt, "Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft"

In what sense can 'totalitarianism' be measured as a moral wrong besides the amount of violence and oppression it inflicts? By that measure there's infinitely more reason to need to look inward at America's domestic and foreign policy than there is to enable the cold warrior type's fantasies of war with china.

Even if the US was perfectly saintly, that wouldn't change the nature of the totalitarianism of the CCP, and the ambitions that are inherent in it by necessity (since you cannot control and rewrite history without controlling the globe in some way or another).

It's also not a binary choice. The same values that require resisting oppression and violence perpetrated by US administrations, would also lead a person resist the CCP, and doing either helps with doing the other. If you have two types of cancer, you don't treat the bigger one and completely ignore the other... if there is good reason to do A, having "even more reason" to do B doesn't mean you shouldn't still do A.

> cold warrior type's fantasies of war with china

That's a straw man. My fantasy would be the Chinese people successfully fighting for change, like they tried once before they got brutally slaughtered for it. Like the people in Hong Kong are fighting. If you're going to get personal in this manner, also consider the cowardice and spinelessness of those who would rather prolong their life a little (or even just increase their bank account) by not speaking out and standing up.

So my original comment was flagged. Why? What rules did it violate?

To be clear Noam Chomsky would never agree with people ruling over each other with violence; he’s an anarchist, the whole point of his philosophy is that power should always be questioned. His critique of imperialism is that it’s another form of rule by violence.

I don't take issue with the criticism of American imperialism, but with the straw man that it's all just another Yellow Peril Cold War US thing, seeking issues where there is none to distract from domestic issues. Leica and Mercedes Benz are German companies, and they and others already kissed the ring. That won't do.

And then there is this:

> The future of the United States, and the world, rests on American-Chinese co-operation in a global society of genuine internationalism. But that is too obvious to require discussion.

But it does require discussion, it should be questioned, because the "Chinese" in that sentence isn't Chinese, it's the CCP. Another Orwell quote comes to mind:

> Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.

-- George Orwell, letter to Noel Willmett (1944)

There is something that is actually worse than war. Humanity survived countless wars, it would not survive global totalitarianism, be that in one bloc or several.

So given that all states are based on coercive violence, how does that lead you to act?

Nice try, but I see the huge difference between something like "don't rape people, or we all agreed you should be locked up" and "don't mention the Tiananmen square massacre, or the unaccountable rulers will lock you up for endangering their power, or hurt your family if they can't punish you directly"

And somewhere in between those two is "don't be in the wrong place when we are rounding up people we don't like in a country we just invaded, else you might just spend 15 years in an island prison without charge, representation, or compensation."

Perhaps you would prefer to retry this by writing down your inalienable principles.

And "retry" what? That "all states are based on coercive violence" doesn't mean Nazi Germany and modern Sweden or Finland are essentially the same, and when someone pretends that's a good argument, that even needs rebuttal, anything I reply to that will get some further sophistry in response. Might as well say considering the heat death of the universe, the outcome of all actions is the same. Technically true, but realistically not worth my time.

> And somewhere in between those two is "don't be in the wrong place when we are rounding up people we don't like in a country we just invaded, else you might just spend 15 years in an island prison without charge, representation, or compensation."

What actually matters is that "coercive violence" ALSO applies to locking up rapists. So instead of avoiding that, tell me how there is an issue with that, as if all coercion was the same, no matter the reason or context or outcome. You can bring countless examples for violent coercion in bad faith with bad outcomes in Western democracies, but I still only need that one example to refute the idea that all coercion is the same, and equally bad. This is so trivial that it shouldn't even need mentioning, and that comment I replied to doesn't even pass the smell test.

Ok, so maybe the original position you presented need to be qualified somehow, because as it was written, it sounds like you would be opposed to all coercion and feel personally responsible for stopping it, somehow. I was curious about that somehow part, that’s all.

I oppose ruling via violence and murder. And generally, I think coercion needs to be justified, and often can be. When a child runs into a busy street, and yelling "stop" doesn't suffice, then you grab that child to keep it from run over. That's coercion, and perfectly fine in my books. As are taxes (as a general idea, of course the corrupt ways they're often spent aren't), and many other things.

And I know I am personally responsible, feeling doesn't enter into it. I'm not religious, and nobody can take the responsibility of judging and acting from me. There is nobody to hide behind, nobody to take orders from. The buck stops with me just like it stops with you.

American elites love to hate their country. Goes back to Protestant self-loathing.

It’s amusing to see this article juxtaposed with the review of Koestler’s Darkness At Noon on the front page.

Cannot take seriously anyone who cites Origins of Totalitarianism, inarguably the most popular and overwrought political screed ever written.

Nothing of this hinges on taking me as a person seriously, at all, and that the stuff I didn't quote is hundreds of pages, and not always super exciting, is hardly an argument against what I did quote. It's just an excuse. "I could argue, but for $silly_reason I won't". Yeah no, you couldn't even if you wanted to. Prove me wrong.

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