The Origins of Totalitarianism Part I – Anti-Semitism (Hannah Arendt)

Origins of Totalitarianism I – Anti-Semitism

Summary:

Arendt claims that Anti-Semitism emerged primarily in the 19th century as part of the transformation of monarchies into nation-states. Monarchies had leaned upon wealthy Jewish creditors (In Austria – the Rothschilds) who were external to their rule and were therefore in the precarious position of being vulnerable to extortion by royalty in order to bankroll shortfalls in revenue. The relationship was predicated on the purchase of rights (often business related) and protections (to inheritance, etc.). As these domains transitioned into states, nationalities were identified along class/professional lines. This transformation relied upon a creditor/new government relationship in its earliest stages and because of the tumultuous changes in everyday life, the populace was skeptical and wary of the benefits of the new state. This suspicion coupled with the mutually beneficial relationship between the state and Jewish creditors was then  in some cases generalized to support claims of conspiratorial interests of Jews (seen as external) and Rulers (as oppressors) whose mutually beneficial arrangement was perceived as disadvantageous to a burgeoning bourgeoisie citizenry, who distrusted both. Political parties utilized anti-state and suspicion to bolster their popularity towards the end of the century in Europe. In France, Louis Ferdinand Celine expanded this idea as he saw the utility in positioning Jews as the historical antagonists to European development in his extremist political campaigns that further extended into demanding the murder of all Jews. This is the primary process that eventually led to the Nazis further irrational scapegoating Jews for all societal ills – a simplistic and impossible claim fueled by suspicion, conspiratorial beliefs, and preference for emotionally motivated action.

Within the middle of this transition around the end of the 19th century, at a time that Arendt calls the Golden Age of Security there is a moment of calm before the more rabid Antisemitism of the political movements of the early 20th century take hold. This period is one in which an increasing number of opportunities open up for Jews as they approach equal rights in Germany and Austria. Rights and protections that were previously held in reserve for the wealthiest of the Jewish community to purchase. It created a group of people that were wealthy but without function or power in the society that would later breed resentment among the struggling masses and now a competing group that were heretofore considered outsiders – Jews who now joined the masses and wanted to take advantage of the new opportunities for social climbing that were not available before. Many of the newly situated pursued fame, but not via the spotlight, but through the organization of the spotlight – as critics, reviewers, collectors, etc. The popular pursuit of intellectual notoriety allowed for Jews to enter into a transnational/international intellectual society where they would be recognized as citizens abroad, but often not at home. And so it seemed that the places in society in Europe were twofold – as Jews had to choose in what degree they would assimilate – as pariah (outside society) or a parvenu (celebrity hiding their origins). To choose the regret of acquiescing identity to reap the advantages of citizenship, or to choose to feel cut off from one’s roots by leaving behind or hiding that part of themselves in order to enjoy advantages of society proper.

And yet, there was an exception – what Arendt calls the exceptional Jew, who was able to straddle both worlds. In England, Benjamin Desraeli was a careerist – though he probably didn’t consider himself such, but he was one who dressed the part of the stereotype and yet rose to power and fame because he aligned himself with the elite. In this way, he became the parvenu (celebrity among the elites) by typifying or using the images for the masses to identify him as Jewish (the pariah). He found his niche by being both imaginative with an air of innocence and by being unabashed by his origins as he performed his otherness to meet their expectations and prejudices. The platform where he found his acceptance was in the conservative party, where he even won a seat in Parliament and eventually the post of Prime Minister while befriending the queen. As a writer, he gave credence to the conspiracy of bankers who ruled governments (i.e the ‘civilized’ world) and connected these secret forces at work with the prominent Jewish families – seeing himself as one who was one of the masses while also supporting his own narrative of exception. He became a conduit for the conservative stereotypes and prejudices that further legitimated conspiratorial suspicions and would lead to the climactic crisis of the Dreyfus Affair.

The Dreyfus affair was a watershed moment for the politicization of Antisemitism in Europe, prepared for in part by the Panama Scandal that had seen one of the biggest investment scams purported and further covered up by the French Government. In particular, two Jewish middlemen passed along the bribes to hush the politicians at the behest of the investment firms. The bribes were hush money, but nevertheless when the story broke, these two middlemen became the focus of animosity that fueled Antisemitism in France.  As assimilation eroded the sense of and knowledge of Jewish origins among the populace, the concept of the culture was replaced in the popular mind as a lurid, criminal “Jewishness” – as if it was a psychological attribute someone possessed – primarily through its association with Disreali (the exception confirming stereotype), his writings of conspiratorial conjecture and their confirmation through the publicity of the Panama scandal. This set the stage for one of the most infamous trials of false accusation and imprisonment that Arendt argues politicized Antisemitism in France. The affair focused on a Jewish officer who had been falsely accused and imprisoned for treason for trading information to the Germans, but when the real culprit was found, he was pardoned after a two day trial and new falsified documents were made against Dreyfus and he was condemned to spend another 10 years imprisoned, but as this came to light, he was set free.

Arendt makes the distinction between the mob and the people understood as the former is a slice across all social strata, very vocal and carries a deep hatred for the political society from which it is excluded. The misconception that the mob was the people led to drastic vast generalizations that propelled the idea of a growing cleft between those for and against Dreyfus among the French people. The Catholic parties and papers purported the generalization based on the Dreyfus case that there was an international conspiracy that linked colonialism with their Anti-Semitic perceptions of Jews as foreign actors. After all of the fervor surrounding the affair, It was only after a boycott was threatened that a pardon was forthcoming. The effects is that it had polarized parties in France and had characterized and defined a binary as those who were the nationalists being associated with Anti-Semitic views (herunder Catholic organizations) and the other as internationalists with Jewish interests (hereunder a growing Zionist movement).          

Critique:

The argument has to place itself within a specific definition of Anti-Semitism as a modern outgrowth of the transformation of monarchical reliance on wealthy jews into a state that at first has needs for these loans and later rejects them as the state becomes more advantageous to its middle class denizens in the form of a corporate colonial endeavor. This narrows the focus of the European Jewish population to its liminal status (as pariah or parvenu) during the modern era, but is relatively dismissive of the medieval makeup of the social group as minority outsider that had made Jews a target of hatred (due to a belief in myths of blood libel, Sorcery, etc., economic despair and other ills heaped upon the vulnerable). It also reduces much of the complexity of the situation most European Jews faced to the context in France and ignores the most volatile areas of Austria, Poland, Russia, etc. Evenso, it makes for an insightful first chapter on the ways in which societal pressures from right and left galvanize upon the expediency of using minorities to champion and demonize national and international identities in terms of broader cultural, economic and political identities.