Totalitarian movements are propelled by direction rather than structure

Evidence

No guiding principle of behavior, taken itself from the realm of human action, such as virtue, honor, fear, is necessary or can be useful to set into motion a body politic which no longer uses terror as a means of intimidation, but whose essence is terror. In its stead, it has introduced an entirely new principle into public affairs that dispenses with human will to action altogether and appeals to the craving need for some insight into the law of movement according to which the terror functions and upon which, therefore, all private destinies depend. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1057 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pan-movements placed themselves above the state to identify directly with the people; Totalitarian movements subordinate the nation’s institutions to the movement itself; Totalitarian movements pursue permanent motion rather than any final political goal (+7 more)

Related

• Totalitarian movements subordinate the nation’s institutions to the movement itself (similarity 0.95)
• Totalitarian ideology transforms stabilizing law into law as motion (similarity 0.92)
• Totalitarian rule substitutes insight into the law of movement for principles of action (similarity 0.90)
• Totalitarian rule obeys suprapositive laws of Nature or History while defying all positive laws. (similarity 0.87)
• Totalitarian movements reject all structure as a handicap to directional propulsion (similarity 0.86)
• Totalitarian movements require permanent motion and cannot survive stabilization. (similarity 0.85)
• Totalitarian movements pursue permanent motion rather than any final political goal (similarity 0.84)
• Movements outlast parties because perpetual motion replaces fixed goals and programs (similarity 0.81)
• Totalitarian belief vanishes with the movement that sustained it. (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian movements, unlike Fascism, must never achieve definite goals (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian movements rise above both state and people for ideology (similarity 0.79)
• Totalitarianism’s defining destruction is of the space that makes motion and freedom possible. (similarity 0.79)
• Totalitarian domination aims at perpetual individual control, never completion (similarity 0.79)
• Totalitarian movements organize masses by sheer numbers rather than classes or citizen-opinion. (similarity 0.79)
• Totalitarianism transforms classes into masses and creates entirely new political institutions (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarian rule operates as perpetual movement, not as settled government #expands (0.90)
• Totalitarian rule substitutes insight into the law of movement for principles of action #expands (0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1057
• Totalitarian ideology transforms stabilizing law into law as motion #expands (0.85)