Loneliness

I have come to the end of Arendt’s ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, a long and not particularly cheery read, but lots of food for thought about the politics of the USA, Russia and the UK.

In the final chapter, she talked about the totalitarian state – in this case Nazism and Bolshevism – and how the terror it unleashed generated loneliness as a method to isolate and control its citizens. She distinguishes it from solitude which she describes as allowing for the possibility to generate creative thought. As a writer herself, she valued time on her own to write her books.

But the production of loneliness is the destruction of all human contact, including that of friendship and family, and the possibilities of spontaneous action in order to create the cadres to carry out the orders of the elites, however irrational and bizarre these orders are. There are shades of totalitarianism in both Russia and the US.

Putin is an old fashioned authoritarian leader in the Bolshevic mode, claiming the states of the West are decadent and corrupt. He is carrying on the idea of the communist state as the final solution to the nation state. His attack on Ukraine is an attempt to bring the totalitarian idea of history into a greater reality. It may be one of the many reasons why Russian soldiers kill so indiscriminately as they may believe that they are ridding Ukraine of decadence. This murder spree echoes that of the purges in the earlier Soviet Union under Stalin. Putin’s actions have served to isolate his country and citizens, frozen out from the Western World by sanctions and lied to by state media. It is heartening to hear of soldiers leaving their posts and running back to their mothers – their links with their families are not completely broken. At the same time, Ukraine has stepped up to protect its nation, and its wider community. By defending its nation, it is resisting the notion of empire and world government. It was moving to see the newly liberated residents of towns around Kharkiv hugging and touching their liberators – banishing the loneliness of sheltering underground.

In the US, things are at a earlier stage. I read a disturbing story today in the Guardian about a strategy document written by the Proud Boys, a violent right wing sect implicated in the 6 January attack on the Capitol. I read these articles and am struck by the ridiculously inept attempts at challenging democracy. But they seem to be successful at turning the police against demonstrators, marching for racial and women’s rights. This movement is less based on final solutions to the nation state and much more on ideas of ‘the survival of the fittest’ and missions to eradicate races considered inferior – not far from Nazism in their targeting of black people. And to force the right kind of woman to have babies. Of course, the police state is a marker of both totalitarian leaders and the autocratic state. Our own leaders are keen to restrict demonstrations and labour organising. But it is the demonstrators that remind us of democracy and through their collective action keep isolation and loneliness at bay.

I suffer from loneliness – and suffer is the right word. I am sometimes overwhelmed by it. But I also recognise my need for solitude and probably seek aloneness out too often. I have managed to avoid Covid so far and I wonder if those unfortunates who became ill thought that community and relationships were more important than safety. It appears that community and relationships bring us a different kind of safety.