5. The Naive Jews: Arendt’s Prehistory of European Jewry The Origins of Totalitarianism: How Total Domination Works and What It Leaves Behind

The Origins of Totalitarianism: How Total Domination Works and What It Leaves Behind | Citizenship Course, Season 9

Yang Zhao

Accumulated Hatred: The Most Popular Historical Explanation

Hello, I’m Yang Zhao. Arendt begins her discussion of totalitarianism with Jewish history. Having personally lived through the Holocaust, a horror almost impossible to comprehend in detail, she could only begin by asking how it reached such a scale.

The easiest explanation was accumulation: hatred had always existed in European history, Jews had always been discriminated against, and Europeans simply hated them. The Holocaust then became an incomprehensible increase in degree.

Many could accept an explanation by degree because hostility had accumulated over a long history.

The Fate Binding Jews and Europe: Beginning in the Twelfth Century

Around the twelfth century Jews began living among other Europeans. As medieval guild structures loosened, Jews acquired a special position as lenders, establishing a social role that remains associated with them today: finance.

Lending required living among non-Jews—whom they called gentiles, predominantly Christians in Europe—without merging completely and losing Jewish identity. Christian churches forbade Christians to charge interest, but Jews were outside church authority and could lend at interest.

Without interest there was no professional lending, only informal help among family or friends. As guilds broke down, expansion and demand for credit grew beyond what interest-free personal loans could meet. Jewish lending made commercial transactions increasingly active.

This produced a peculiar, almost fated condition.

Christians and Jews needed one another. Christians could not expel Jews entirely because they needed credit when family and friends could not provide it. Yet Jews remained outsiders, visibly different and apparently prosperous, provoking resentment.

Borrowers might feel grateful when receiving money but resentful when paying interest. Dissatisfaction and hatred deepened.

By the twentieth century, this emotion had accumulated for centuries and supposedly exploded in Germany into horror beyond historical imagination. This was the explanation Arendt confronted.

When she wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism, this simple account of the Holocaust was widely accepted. Arendt rejected it as inadequate.

The common view, including among Jews, was that accumulated Jew hatred across Europe finally erupted into absolute violence.

Episode editor: dy

2026.08.22

Audio in Chinese

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Featured comments

3 comments

k

kdypkd

2026-08-23 02:39:28

阿伦特可以这样自由地谈论、质疑甚至批评自己民族的“敏感话题”而不用担心被打击报复，正说明犹太制度文化的“先进性”。

十安：同感。最近在看《王冠》S2，其中一集主题是英国的媒体在批评讽刺女王和王室，女王比较生气，召见了报纸编辑，想知道他为什么有这么大的恶意。结果编辑说他完全没有恶意，而且恰恰相反是因为爱戴女王和这个国家，希望TA越来越好，所以才希望女王能看到他提的意见和建议。这位编辑没有收到王室和政府的任何刁难，他提的一些建议女王和王室都采纳了。当时看到这集就觉得文明的国家能持续下去不是没原因的。
K

Kate Zhang

2026-10-22 18:58:27

这篇认认真真看了好多遍，非常有启发，对当代很多问题都有了新理解。尤其我们现在移民到欧洲，在欧洲反移民情绪日益高涨的背景下，如何理解自身处境非常有参考性
🍊0

2026-08-22 10:36:58

大屠杀是现代性内部矛盾的极端爆发大屠杀是德国特殊国家建构路径、威斯特伐利亚体系造成的民族焦虑、经济危机引发的社会崩溃、极权主义权力意志与现代技术理性共同作用的结果。它发生在欧洲文明的核心，而不是边缘；它利用的是现代国家的组织能力，而不是原始野蛮；它依赖的是理性化的官僚制度，而不是非理性仇恨的偶然爆发。周林刚与许小亮老师的课现代的冲突：战争与国际秩序 ……