Hannah Arendt’s warnings on truth and political fragmentation

Drawing on a 1973 interview with Roger Errera, the text explores Hannah Arendt’s warning that constant lying leads not to belief in falsehoods, but to a state where nobody believes in anything at all. This phenomenon is increasingly relevant in the modern era, where algorithms create individual information bubbles that reinforce existing biases and allow users to discard contradictory facts.

This fragmentation prevents the sharing of a common reality, which is essential for public debate. The text notes that extreme politics thrives on this division, utilizing absolute adversaries and a “us versus them” mentality. While moderation may be favored in polls, extreme political movements often dominate public conversation due to their intensity, identity, and active militancy, potentially weakening the collective capacity to think, judge, and decide.