Mass man’s defining trait is isolation, not brutality or backwardness

Evidence

That totalitarian movements depended less on the structurelessness of a mass society than on the specific conditions of an atomized and individualized mass, can best be seen in a comparison of Nazism and Bolshevism which began in their respective countries under very different circumstances. To change Lenin’s revolutionary dictatorship into full totalitarian rule, Stalin had first to create artificially that atomized society which had been prepared for the Nazis in Germany by historical circumstances. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 761 (#expands, via linked claim)

Survivors are reluctant to admit that anorexia, which in the end leads to invalidity and death, is along the way a path of pleasure and power: it is the power that confers pleasure, however freakish and fragile the gratification may seem. When you are isolated, your back to the social wall, control over your own ingestion and excretion is all you have left; this is why professional torturers make sure to remove it. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 214 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Hostile society alienates the colonized subject from his own body; Mass-psychology predictions missed mass man’s radical loss of self-interest; Totalitarian rule requires an atomized and individualized mass, not mere social structurelessness — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 761 (+2 more)

Related

• Totalitarian rule requires an atomized and individualized mass, not mere social structurelessness (similarity 0.82)
• Control over one’s own body is the last power of the isolated (similarity 0.82)
• Mass movements recruit isolated individuals, not brutal backward masses (similarity 0.79)
• Rule over laborers produces totalitarian loneliness rather than mere isolation (similarity 0.78)
• Mass man loses self-interest and becomes expendable once class bonds dissolve (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarian rule requires an atomized and individualized mass, not mere social structurelessness #expands (0.82) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 761
• Mass-psychology predictions missed mass man’s radical loss of self-interest #expands (0.80)
• Control over one’s own body is the last power of the isolated #complicates (0.80) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 214
• Hostile society alienates the colonized subject from his own body #qualifies (0.78)
• Slave isolation and dependence on masters slowed mass movement formation #exemplifies (0.78)