Die Totalitarismustheorie Eric Voegelins

Abstract

In this dissertation I intend to lay out and summarize Eric Voegelin´s theory of totalitarianism. The totalitarian ideologies of Communism and National Socialism, Voegelin argues, are very similar to the ancient religious-intellectual movement of gnosticism. Both modern and ancient intellectual movements claim to explain history as a whole, and a concept similar to the Christian one of „parousia“ plays a very important role in them. The totalitarian movements rose to power, Voegelin further argues, because the anti-totalitarian influences in the contemporary societies were weak: These influences were (1) the „knowledge of order“, a specifically Voegelinian concept of religious and philosophical knowledge that refers to social and political order and which Voegelin connects to the ancient Greek concept of „nous“, (2) the „common sense“, which was especially weak in the German society of the 1930s and (3) the failure of institutions, which, according to Voegelin, are supposed to be a corrective against totalitarianism. According to Voegelin, the weakness and failure of these anti-totalitarian influences led to the rise of the totalitarian movements. An evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of Voegelin´s theory is undertaken in dialogue with Hannah Arendt´s theory of totalitarianism, which is also outlined in this dissertation.