Individual identity resists destruction because it depends on nature beyond the will

Evidence

Once the moral person has been killed, the one thing that still prevents men from being made into living corpses is the differentiation of the individual, his unique identity. In a sterile form such individuality can be preserved through a persistent stoicism, and it is certain that many men under totalitarian rule have taken and are each day still taking refuge in this absolute isolation of a personality without rights or conscience. There is no doubt that this part of the human person, precisely because it depends so essentially on nature and on forces that cannot be controlled by the will, is the hardest to destroy (and when destroyed is most easily repaired). — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1016

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s torture/body literature and A Very Minor Prophet’s interrogation themes about undamaged inner selves.

Related

• Unique identity is the last defense against being reduced to a living corpse (similarity 0.89)
• Destroying individual uniqueness is the deepest horror, beyond legal or moral outrage (similarity 0.81)
• Purely self-interested individuals collapse when organization and terror arrive (similarity 0.79)
• Destroying individuality destroys spontaneity, the capacity to begin something new. (similarity 0.79)