Ideology converts abstract theories into comprehensive factual lies believed as sacred truths
Evidence
These ideological elements in which the masses had come to believe anyhow, albeit rather vaguely and abstractly, were turned into factual lies of an all-comprehensive nature (the domination of the world by the Jews instead of a general theory about races, the conspiracy of Wall Street instead of a general theory about classes) and integrated into a general scheme of action in which only the “dying”—the dying classes of capitalist countries or the decadent nations—are supposed to stand in the way of the movement. In contrast to the movements’ tactical lies which change literally from day to day, these ideological lies are supposed to be believed like sacred untouchable truths. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 885
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Distinguishes tactical lies (changing, disbelieved) from ideological lies (fixed, sacred) — a key concept for the reader’s vocabulary.
- XREF: The conversion of abstract theories into concrete enemy-claims maps directly onto Orientalism’s fabrication of a totalized ‘East’.
Related
- Legends explain concrete facts while ideologies claim universal hidden truths (similarity 0.81)
- Totalitarian propaganda wins because ideology becomes lived reality, not opinion. (similarity 0.80)
- Totalitarian propaganda organizes masses through existing ideas, not new doctrine (similarity 0.80)
- The concept of ideology was born torn between historical relativism and universal truth. (similarity 0.79)
- Debunking old illusions becomes a new ideology that destroys their truth. (similarity 0.79)
- Ideologies apply the logic of an idea to history as an unfolding process. (similarity 0.79)
- Ideologies claim total explanatory keys to history or nature (similarity 0.79)
- Explanatory ideologies that deduce everything from a single premise are a recent historical phenomenon. (similarity 0.79)
- Ideologies are crafted as political weapons, not theories (similarity 0.79)
- Ideological scientificality overrides factual reality in totalitarian action (similarity 0.78)
- Ideologies claim total explanation of past, present, and future. (similarity 0.78)