Mass atomization makes interest-based appeal impossible and enables self-sacrifice.
Evidence
The success of totalitarian propaganda, however, does not rest so much on its demagoguery as on the knowledge that interest as a collective force can be felt only where stable social bodies provide the necessary transmission belts between the individual and the group; no effective propaganda based on mere interest can be carried on among masses whose chief characteristic is that they belong to no social or political body, and who therefore present a veritable chaos of individual interests. The fanaticism of members of totalitarian movements, so clearly different in quality from the greatest loyalty of members of ordinary parties, is produced by the lack of self-interest of masses who are quite prepared to sacrifice themselves. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 815
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- CANDY: A sharp, quotable mechanism — ‘interest needs stable social bodies as transmission belts’ — worth sharing with anyone teaching social theory.
- XREF: The ‘transmission belts’ idea resonates with Coleman’s social-capital account of how embedded social structure enables action.
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that fanaticism is produced by lack of self-interest, not its opposite, overturns commonsense and connects to all later readings on how exclusion and atomization enable extremes.
Related
- Mass atomization blocks interest-based appeals and produces self-sacrificing fanaticism (similarity 0.95)
- Totalitarian rule requires an atomized and individualized mass, not mere social structurelessness (similarity 0.81)
- Totalitarian propaganda organizes masses through existing ideas, not new doctrine (similarity 0.79)
- Totalitarian indifference to mass interest shattered utilitarian assumptions in politics. (similarity 0.78)