Madness and the Human Condition

Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Erich Fromm, and Timothy Snyder all alert us to the seductive and pernicious appeal of totalitarianism, as historically manifested in the 20th century by the political right (Nazism) or left (Stalinism). Their writings serve as cautionary tales of the vulnerabilities of the modern mind to political extremism and the vulnerabilities of democracy. The human predicament is the recognition of the finiteness of life, the fact that we will all die, and are aware of that fact. Nationalism and even passive submission to authoritarianism are correlates of that terrifying reality, unconscious strategies for mitigating the finiteness of mortality. This chapter looks more closely at what is meant by “modernism” and its legacy for what might be understood as “postmodernism” and the risks of erosion of democracy. Interlude: Richard III: A horse! A horse! Never enough