The ideal subject of totalitarian rule [which claims that “it goes to the sources of authority from which positive laws receive their ultimate legitimation” (p. 461)] is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist. (p. 474)

Arendt, H. (1958). The origins of totalitarianism. Cleveland and New York: Meridian Book.

Voir aussi Popper (1969/1979), Valéry (1946).