18.09.2025 ESSAY 2 The Foundation of Totalitarian Power: From Masses to Digital Hybrids Introduction: Reimagining Power Through the Lens of Totalitarianism Rahul Ramya 18.09.2025 Theoretical Anchoring in Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt’s analysis in The Origins of Totalitarianism offers indispensable theoretical grounding to this discussion. For Arendt, totalitarianism thrived not merely because of propaganda or coercion, but because modern societies had produced “atomized” individuals stripped of stable class or civic identities. These lonely and disconnected individuals were fertile soil for mass movements that promised belonging and destiny. In this sense, demographic scale was not just a matter of numbers but of availability—millions who felt alienated enough to surrender individuality to collective myths. This insight resonates strongly with the digital age: social media platforms, designed to fragment and isolate users into algorithmic bubbles, create new forms of...
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