While Listening to an Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin....

I heard the following quote from Hannah Arendt:

“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 (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

It took me a couple of listens to truly understand what she was saying (I misinterpreted the use of the word "subject" the first time).

Go back and read it again, I will wait...

I then went on an internet search to learn more about Hannah Arendt and her work. Other quotes from her book The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951):

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”

The interview with Ursula. More writings about UKL can be found here and here.

Upon learning of her death yesterday I just sat, stunned, for some time. Then I went home and gathered up all the books I own by her (a stack well over a foot tall) and contemplated their importance to me. I have been a fan of her writing for nearly 40 years, rereading one or another of her books when the times push me to need a particular bit of her wisdom.

Listening to her interview, and the response to the Hannah Arendt quote... it is what we need, now, in this time!