Totalitarian movements subordinate the nation’s institutions to the movement itself

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: Totalitarian movements are propelled by direction rather than structure; Totalitarian rule substitutes insight into the law of movement for principles of action — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1057; Totalitarian rule operates as perpetual movement, not as settled government (+6 more)

Related

• Totalitarian movements are propelled by direction rather than structure (similarity 0.95)
• Totalitarian rule substitutes insight into the law of movement for principles of action (similarity 0.90)
• Totalitarian ideology transforms stabilizing law into law as motion (similarity 0.90)
• Totalitarian rule obeys suprapositive laws of Nature or History while defying all positive laws. (similarity 0.87)
• Totalitarian movements require permanent motion and cannot survive stabilization. (similarity 0.85)
• Totalitarian movements pursue permanent motion rather than any final political goal (similarity 0.83)
• Totalitarian movements reject all structure as a handicap to directional propulsion (similarity 0.82)
• Totalitarianism concentrates state powers in ways traditional despotism could not (similarity 0.82)
• Totalitarianism transforms classes into masses and creates entirely new political institutions (similarity 0.82)
• Tyranny is dissolved by predictability or by independent overriding power (similarity 0.81)
• Totalitarian government differs categorically from dictatorship and tyranny (similarity 0.81)
• Total domination functionally requires permanent instability rather than material strength. (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian parties absorb the Crown’s arbitrating function. (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian movements, unlike Fascism, must never achieve definite goals (similarity 0.80)
• Totalitarian rule requires destroying all autonomous activity, not merely equalizing conditions (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarian rule operates as perpetual movement, not as settled government #expands (0.85)
• Totalitarian movements are propelled by direction rather than structure #expands (0.80)
• Totalitarian rule substitutes insight into the law of movement for principles of action #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1057
• Totalitarianism concentrates state powers in ways traditional despotism could not #expands (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 31
• Totalitarian movements evade debate over concrete forms of government #expands (0.70)