Totalitarismo morbido in Günther Anders

Abstract

According to G. Anders totalitarianism arises from the age of technology: political totalitarianism, though terrible, is only an effect of the technological one. The terrorism of technology world is not represented by the violence but rather by the entertainment. The frightening aspect of the entertainment is represented by its harmless seductive and disarming lacking, by its lack of seriousness which captures us unprepared and defenseless. The human being in front of the new media becomes a “mass hermit”, a passive world consumer, pleasantly deprived of his freedom of choice. Fully involved in a conformist society, the individual is robbed of the awareness of his condition of non freedom. In that social environment totalitarianism evolves, becomes soft and leads to an absolutely superior capacity of control compared to that achieved by the classical totalitarianism since it isn’t personified by a political institutional actor any longer, it does not use the terror but the lure, making individuals prey to their illusory false consciousness of freedom.