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Alternative title:

The man without qualities or the man with universal qualities? The anthropological paradoxes of totalitarian utopias

Subject and Keywords:

subjectivity   identity   ideology   Nazism   Communism   identity politics   violence   childhood   upbringing   education   deindividuation   cultivation of virtue

Abstract:

The subject of the analyses presented here in is the anthropological utopias of totalitarianism: Nazism and communism, with particular attention paid to the modes of conceptualising the human being that are present within them. In the latter area, I notice a clear tension between the articulations of the sublimity of the human being, inscribed in the universalist discourse of subjectivity developed on the basis of the philosophical Enlightenment, and the denigration of the ‘empirical human’, which was accompanied by systemically organised practices of totalitarian regimes, leading to alienation of human beings from specifically human properties. In particularly, I am interested in the nature of identity politics implemented under totalitarian regimes. As part of this research, I identify the mechanisms that hinder the development of personal identities and, at the same time, shape individuals manque: susceptible to the influence of power and committed to the political interests of totalitarian regimes. These mechanisms include: deprivation of needs and the induction of a sense of inferiority; the internalisation of the idea of the chosen people and the induction of an appeal mechanism; the dumbing down of people and indoctrination as a substitute for education; the severing of social bonds; the spread of total care as a function of paternalistic power; the promotion of virtues as a metonymy of education; gender identity politics; deindividuation and the erosion of the faculty of judgement.

Place of publishing:

Wrocław

Publisher:

Instytut Pedagogiki Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego

Date issued:

2022

Resource Type:

text

Detailed Type:

chapter

Identifier:

doi:10.34616/146556   ISBN 978-83-62618-75-0

Language:

pol

Access rights:

Attribution, ShareAlike

License:

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Location of original object:

Biblioteka Instytutu Pedagogiki UWr

Autor opisu:

h.w.