Writing after World War II, Hannah Arendt, in her text, The Origins of Totalitarianism, moves from a discussion of fate (danger) national “minorities”. and “stateless persons” in the interwar period of European history, to a fundamental critique of the notion of “human rights”. Who are these “minorities” and “stateless people” and why does their situation imply, for Arendt, a 19th-century “decline of the nation-state”? Why does this imply the “end of human rights”? What is the danger, for Arendt, of presuming that there are “universal human rights”? Why does she view the emphasis on these rights more as a sign and symptom of dehumanization rather than as a solution to prevent dehumanization? Do you find Arendt's critique of the idea of ​​"human rights" convincing? Although at first I didn't completely understand the reading, after our class discussion things made a little more sense and were actually very interesting. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, was written by Hannah Arendt, who was actually part of the Jewish minority and a stateless person herself. Fortunately, she was able to escape the terror of the concentration camps and start a new life in the United States, far from the hatred. So how did this all happen? How did she find herself in a situation where she had to flee to save her own life – a basic human right? Why was she so critical of the idea of ​​universal human rights? Crucially, the belief in universal human rights was tested after the First World War. During this period, many people ended up living in different EU countries, without actually being citizens of any of them. These countries/empires were mostly located in the eastern and southern part of Europe. As these nations were made up of a population made up of very diverse people and different cultures who could not form a nation for all existing cultures, the existence of "minority groups" and "stateless groups" emerged. Even though Hannah categorizes these people into two distinct groups, we can see throughout the book that they still have a lot of overlap. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, Hannah, as a Jew, has lived and been a part of both groups. Since many people at this time were considered part of a minority group in a country, Hannah considers this era to be a "decline of a nation-state." Even if these “different” people were, in principle, citizens of the country in which they ended up living, they could not, as a minority within the dominant national culture, depend on the protection of their government. People who were left stateless were not recognized as citizens under the laws of their state and were unable to “enjoy” their citizenship rights through government acts of denationalization. These groups could not enjoy political rights and were not part of a political community, they were considered “human and nothing but human”. However, minority treaties were established with the aim of giving and attempting to give these minorities some sense of protection. However, the problem is that granting special human rights to a minority and not treating them as individuals of the state under which they should be protected leads to dehumanization. Hannah.