Totalitarian rule explodes the lawful versus lawless distinction central to all political philosophy.

Evidence

Instead of saying that totalitarian government is unprecedented, we could also say that it has exploded the very alternative on which all definitions of the essence of governments have been based in political philosophy, that is the alternative between lawful and lawless government, between arbitrary and legitimate power. That lawful government and legitimate power, on one side, lawlessness and arbitrary power on the other, belonged together and were inseparable has never been questioned. Yet, totalitarian rule confronts us with a totally different kind of government. It defies, it is true, all positive laws, even to the extreme of defying those which it has itself established (as in the case of the Soviet Constitution of 1936, to quote only the most outstanding example) or which it did not care to abolish (as in the case of the Weimar Constitution which the Nazi government never revoked). But it operates neither without guidance of law nor is it arbitrary, for it claims to obey strictly and unequivocally those laws of Nature or of History from which all positive laws always have been supposed to spring. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1039

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the novel form of government by showing it collapses the lawful-lawless dichotomy rather than fitting into it.
• XREF: Connects to the scaffolding toolkit’s need for a definition of totalitarianism that transcends classical tyranny; pairs with the later biopolitics/necropolitics readings on law and exception.