Total Domination

Previous forms of despotism ruled through fear and interest — they might destroy enemies and coerce subjects, but they preserved the basic structure of human plurality. Totalitarian movements seek something more radical: the abolition of individuality itself. They do not want loyal subjects; they want people whose very capacity to think, judge, and act spontaneously has been extinguished.

The twin instruments of totalitarian rule are ideology and terror. Ideology offers a pseudo-scientific law of history — racial struggle or class struggle — that claims to explain everything and justify any action. Terror then enforces this law, not merely against enemies but against the entire population, making every person both potential victim and potential instrument of destruction.

Totalitarianism destroys the public realm — the space of appearance where human beings reveal who they are through speech and action. By atomising individuals, severing the bonds of solidarity, and replacing political judgment with ideological obedience, it eliminates the very conditions under which genuine political life is possible.

The concept of total domination is developed in Part Three of The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), "Totalitarianism."