Camp totalitarianism is an all-or-nothing form of radical evil.

Evidence

There is only one thing that seems to be discernible: we may say that radical evil has emerged in connection with a system in which all men have become equally superfluous. The manipulators of this system believe in their own superfluousness as much as in that of all others, and the totalitarian murderers arc all the more dangerous because they do not care if they themselves are alive or dead, if they ever lived or never were born. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1034 (#expands, via linked claim)

Propaganda is indeed part and parcel of “psychological warfare”; but terror is more. Terror continues to be used by totalitarian regimes even when its psychological aims are achieved: its real horror is that it reigns over a completely subdued population. Where the rule of terror is brought to perfection, as in concentration camps, propaganda disappears entirely; it was even expressly prohibited in Nazi Germany. Propaganda, in other words, is one, and possibly the most important, instrument of totalitarianism for dealing with the nontotalitarian world; terror, on the contrary, is the very essence of its form of government. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 808 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Radical evil arises where all people become equally superfluous — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1034; Terror is the essence of totalitarian government, not a means to an end — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 808

Related

• Terror is the essence of totalitarian government, not a means to an end (similarity 0.88)
• Radical evil arises where all people become equally superfluous (similarity 0.88)
• Absolute evil exceeds the categories of punishable and forgivable crime (similarity 0.83)
• Concentration camps are essential power instruments, not pointless atrocities. (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian regimes require global rule to fully dominate even one individual. (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian rule requires destroying all autonomous activity, not merely equalizing conditions (similarity 0.80)
• Camps serve as laboratories verifying totalitarianism’s core belief that everything is possible (similarity 0.80)
• Modern totalitarian terror rules the obedient rather than punishing rebels. (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarianism aims to transform human nature itself, using camps as laboratories (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian terror requires propaganda to coerce from within (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian domination aims to make all people equally superfluous (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian propaganda organizes masses through existing ideas, not new doctrine (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian domination exceeds utilitarian rule into the realm where everything is possible (similarity 0.79)
• Totalitarian regimes own reality by manufacturing a malignant normality people must inhabit. (similarity 0.79)
• Absolute evil is evil detached from any humanly comprehensible motive (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Radical evil arises where all people become equally superfluous #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1034
• Terror is the essence of totalitarian government, not a means to an end #contradicts (0.70) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 808