Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism sheds light on today’s socially isolated world.
Can we understand the extensive range of draconian measures designed to contain the Covid-19 pandemic as being, in some way, totalitarian?
By any historical standard, these measures were certainly hugely repressive. Although they varied from region to region, and nation to nation, in many cases they amounted to a system of mass house arrest. People were often forbidden to leave their homes, except under the most stringent conditions. And when they were allowed out, there were often strict limits on how far they could travel, what they could do and when they had to return.
