Fragmented modern lives make people vulnerable to totalitarian demagoguery.

Evidence

Hannah Arendt would argue, in her 1951 study The Origins of Totalitarianism, that totalitarian movements thrived at least partly because of this fragmentation in modern lives, which made people more vulnerable to being swept away by demagogues. Elsewhere, she coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ to describe the most extreme failures of personal moral awareness. The phrase attracted criticism, mainly because she applied it to the actively genocidal Adolf Eichmann, organiser of the Holocaust, who was guilty of a lot more than a failure to take responsibility. Yet she stuck by her analysis: for Arendt, if you do not respond adequately when the times demand it, you show a lack of imagination and attention that is as dangerous as deliberately committing an abuse. It amounts to disobeying the one command she had absorbed from Heidegger in those Marburg days: Think! — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 261

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies exactly what Arendt meant by ‘the banality of evil’: a failure of imagination and attention, not mere mediocrity - and that she applied it deliberately to Eichmann despite criticism.
• XREF: The ‘Think!’ command from Heidegger connects directly to the das Man passage that follows in [264]. — connects to: Totalitarianism is inherently, not just contingently, connected to modernity — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 401; Loneliness, rooted in uprootedness and superfluousness, grounds both totalitarian terror and ideology — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1079; Modern society weakens morality through distance, technical responsibility, and segregation — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 567 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarianism is inherently, not just contingently, connected to modernity #expands (0.82) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 401
• Modern society weakens morality through distance, technical responsibility, and segregation #expands (0.78) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 567
• Loneliness, rooted in uprootedness and superfluousness, grounds both totalitarian terror and ideology #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1079