Interview of Ariane Bilheran for the "Cahiers de Psychologie Politique" on the psychopathology of totalitarianism

Source

No. 45 / 2024

Standards and norms - July 2024

Coordinated by Pierre-Antoine Pontoizeau

Interview on

the psychopathology of totalitarianism

Ariane Bilheran is former student of École Normale Supérieure (Ulm, Paris), philosopher, psychologist, Dr in psychopathology (PhD). She wrote many books, in particular:

La maladie, critère des valeurs chez Nietzsche, 2005 Editions L’Harmattan

Le harcèlement moral, 2007, Editions Armand Colin

Les souffrances psychologiques des malades du cancer, 2008, Editions Springer Verlag

L’autorité, 2009, Editions Armand Colin

Harcèlement en entreprise, 2010, Editions Armand Colin

Manipulation, la repérer, s’en protéger, 2013, Editions Armand Colin

Psychopathologie de la paranoïa, 2016, Editions Armand Colin

Psychopathologie de l’autorité, 2020, Editions Dunod

Psychopathologie de la pédophilie, 2021, Editions Dunod

She wrote Psychopathologie du totalitarisme (Paris, Trédaniel, 2023).

Q.1. You refer to a relatively unknown work, The Atomization of Man by Terror by sociologist Leo Löwenthal to explain the six functions of terror. Why this reference, and how do you explain the low profile of this analysis?

Reference to pages 53 to 55.

This work is masterful, because in a few pages, Leo Löwenthal manages to paint the finest psychological portrait I know, especially for his time, of atomization in a totalitarian period, that is to say, of the role played by terror in transforming the individual into an isolated and desperate cell at the heart of a large mass. This German sociologist and philosopher, linked to the Frankfurt School, who emigrated to the United States to flee Nazism, was aware of the cancellation of culture by its massification as well as the cynicism contained in capitalism.

I have often found that the best-known works are not often the most cutting-edge or the most original. You have to look in the gaps to find quality. Quality and quantity rarely go well together, because with quantity also lies the same risk of massification and misunderstanding of a work. Quality is earned and is often reserved for initiates who devote themselves to a journey of investigation, introspection, and familiarization with a work, which generally takes a lot of time and calls for a solid contemplative life.

The key point of totalitarianism is the transformation of peoples into a homogeneous mass governed by the emotions induced and the acts that result from them. To carry out this transformation, the atomization by terror that Löwenthal describes is essential. I took up Hannah Arendt and Zinoviev's conceptualization of totalitarianism as a system, a specific architecture whose decor is irrelevant. This system subjects individuals to harassment, by repeated terrorization, and the latter seek reassurance in a mass collage. I was thus able to indicate that totalitarianism is a real " factory of harassers".

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