Totalitarian power makes systematic lying possible because everyday reality is already fictitious

Evidence

Systematic lying to the whole world can be safely carried out only under the conditions of totalitarian rule, where the fictitious quality of everyday reality makes propaganda largely superfluous. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 930

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how manufactured consent and propaganda become unnecessary once reality itself is controlled — parallels the construction of the ‘Other’ in later Islamophobia readings. — connects to: The capitalist world’s essence is abomination yet its lying appearance stands in for truth. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 142; Fake news harming democracy is about indistinguishability, not volume. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 46; Modern propaganda works despite disbelief because it justifies itself in action — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 417 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies the counterintuitive point that totalitarian propaganda and totalitarian rule are inversely related.