Ideological clichés serve the masses’ need for explanation, not the elites

Evidence

The elite formations are distinguished from the ordinary party membership in that they do not need such demonstrations and are not even supposed to believe in the literal truth of ideological clichés. These are fabricated to answer a quest for truth among the masses which in its insistence on explanation and demonstration still has much in common with the normal world. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 886

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what makes this mass ‘quest for truth’ (which Arendt says still has much in common with the normal world) a vulnerability totalitarian movements exploit?
• XREF: Echoes the reader’s prior note on ‘quest for truth among the masses’ in the context of ideological exploitation — connects to Gramscian hegemony vocabulary.