The last two non-fiction works I have recently read (Sophie Scholl & The White Rose by A.
Dumbach and J. Newborn, and Simone Weil--Waiting on Truth by J. P. Little) show how both the young German pamphleteers of
The White Rose and French philosopher, Simone Weil, turned to classical Greek models in their
writings in response to, and against, the Nazi oppression of their respective
societies.
In the third of six pamphlets written and distributed by The
White Rose before Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and several other members of
their inner circle were arrested, tried, and executed by the Nazis in 1943, Aristotle’s Politics, is thus quoted:
“Further…[a tyrant] should also endeavor to know what each
of his subjects says or does, and should employ spies everywhere…and further,
to create disunity and division in the population to set friend against friend,
the common people against the notables, and the wealthy among themselves. Also
he should impoverish his subjects; the maintenance of guards and soldiers is
thus paid for by the people, who are forced to work hard and have neither the
time nor the opportunity to conspire against him…Another practice of tyrants is
to increase taxes, after the manner of Dionysius at Syracuse, who contrived
that his subjects paid all their wealth into the treasury within five years.
The tyrant is also inclined to engage in constant warfare in order to occupy
and distract his subjects.”
In his study of the life and thought of Simone Weil, J.P.
Little shows how Weil used the writings of Plato to describe the workings of a
totalitarian regime:
“[…] Simone Weil turns…to the Greek world, to Plato’s image
of society as ‘the Great Beast’…whom his masters (society’s leaders) try to
tame by studying his moods and habits.
“[…] The Beast represents for her the elevation of society
into an absolute, which is then judged without reference to anything exterior, so that in a very real sense nothing but the collective exists. This is the characteristic of what
Simone Weil calls totalitarianism, and here of course her usage is in line with
what we have become accustomed to designate by that term. The Beast represents
the totality of collective values and the destruction of the individual. Its
main concern is existence, and since the existence of anything else is
intolerable to it, its own existence involves infinite expansion, a total hold
over the lives of its subjects.”
As it was in ancient Greece ,
so it was in World War II-era Europe ; and as it is again (or
still) now.
