WWHS? (What Would Hannah Say?)

Hannah Arendt, the noted historian and philosopher, died 50 years ago, on December 4, 1975. Since totalitarianism was one of the main themes of her academic work, I am considering what Arendt might say about current U.S. political leaders, and especially about the Secretary of Defense.  

Hannah Arendt (c. 1951)

Hannah Arendt was born in Germany in 1906, the only child of secular Jews. She was exiled from Nazi Germany in 1933, came to the U.S. in 1941, and became a U.S. citizen ten years later. Although she did not like to be called a philosopher, she is widely considered to be one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20^th century.

Arendt analyzed the political catastrophes that occurred in the first half of the 1900s, especially totalitarianism, state violence, and the collapse of political responsibility. Her ideas remain influential because they examine the conditions that allow political evil to arise, not just the outcomes of such evil.

Of her eight published books, her most influential one is The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), which is a study of how propaganda, ideology, and mass resentment can destroy the shared world needed for democratic life. (I have previously written about her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which she discussed “the banality of evil.”)*

Arendt warned that democracies can erode gradually: through defactualization, misuses of power, and the replacement of judgment by ideology. Fifty years after her death, her work remains a powerful lens for examining political actions—especially those involving state violence and the degradation of human dignity.

I am not projecting what Arendt might say to Pete Hegseth (Trump’s Secretary of Defense, whom he now calls the Secretary of War), but drawing on what she wrote in her 1951 book (mentioned above), I am suggesting how what she said then elucidates problems with what Hegseth has done and said in recent months.**

Many of Secretary Hegseth’s ideas/actions seem to align with what Arendt wrote in her book on totalitarianism. For example, “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Regarding Hegseth, I am not calling him a crackpot or fool, but he seems to exemplify the kind of attitude Arendt described. It can be argued that he was elevated to his Cabinet position chiefly because of demonstrable loyalty to Trump’s ideas and opposition to his (Trump’s) enemies.​

Trump’s choice of Hegseth also fits a broader pattern of the President appointing figures whose public role is to advance a polarizing ideological position to attack critics, even when they lack the conventional qualifications for the post they hold.​

Arendt also wrote in her 1951 book, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction … and the distinction between true and false … no longer exist.”

What Hegseth has said regarding the killing of two unarmed men clinging to the wreckage of a boat illegally struck by a U.S. missile on September 2 certainly seems to be an example of what Arendt was articulating.

Hegseth minimized/denied the documented elements of the strike. He reframed unarmed survivors as legitimate targets, and he treated legal and moral distinctions (combatants vs. shipwrecked survivors) as irrelevant or expendable. This is a deplorable stance for a Secretary of Defense/War.

What Hegseth has said and done may well lead to his removal from office. As an opponent of totalitarianism, as all Americans should be, I think if Hannah Arendt were still alive, she would say, “the sooner, the better!”

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  * My 12/5/2014 blog post was titled “The Banality of Evil.”

** I also wrote about Hegseth in my blog article posted on November 20 (see here). That was in connection with his emphasis on “the warrior ethos.” I don’t intend to be unduly hard on Hegseth, but when he was first nominated for a Cabinet position by the current POTUS, he struck me as the weakest of several already questionable choices, and I assumed he would not be confirmed. However, the Senate confirmed him as Secretary of Defense on January 24 by a 51-50 vote, with Vice President Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. (Three Republicans joined all the Democrats in opposition.)

Note: I was assisted by ChatGPT and Perplexity AI in the research for and writing of this piece.