The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere … - Hannah Arendt

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Sometimes I have parties at my house in Nashville and it's clothing-optional, and we just body-paint each other and run around, and I have a giant bed. I'm very much in touch with that side of myself.

Hannah Arendt

The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them. And one can debate long and profitably on the rule of Nobody, which is what the political form known as bureau-cracy truly is…. we have become very much accustomed by modern psychology and sociology, not to speak of modern bureaucracy, to explaining away the responsibility of the doer for his deed in terms of this or that kind of determinism.

Administrative, Away, Debate, Essence, Men, Responsibility

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.

Fiction, People, Rule, True, True And False

the greater the bureaucratization of public life, the greater will be the attraction of violence. In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can represent grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless we have a tyranny without a tyrant.

Act, Bureaucratization, Government, Political, Tyrants

Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by 'a world of enemies' - 'one against all' - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.

Common, Differences, Fundamental, Individual, Men, Unique

When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse.

Appeal, Good, Peace, War, Winning, Wins

Politically, the weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.

Argument, Chose, Evil, Lesser, Quickly, Weakness