The call of our time is unambiguous: protect our democracy, show solidarity with democratic states worldwide, take a stand in today’s conflicts, and fight for a more just tomorrow.

No wonder so many of us feel as though we are being pulled into a whirlpool of inevitable defeats: How is one individual supposed to make a difference when the United States demonstrate how quickly even robust democracies can crack? How should we hope when Russia’s course seems set on escalation rather than reconciliation? As individuals, we often feel trapped in a maelstrom of daily horrors, growing polarization, and paralyzing helplessness.

So how do we resist being dragged down by the current and instead preserve our agency? What lessons do we need to learn not merely to endure but to confront the tide with courage? The answer begins not with panic but with insight: literature offers exactly the perspectives that show us where the system’s fracture lines run and how we can actively counter them.

When Literature Teaches Politics: Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon exposes the psychological eclipse in which ideology suffocates conscience and language, while his depictions in The Gladiators demonstrate how utopian promises of salvation collapse into blind violence and self-destruction. The Gladiators narrates the Spartacus uprising and shows how power, ideals, and opportunism shape political movements; in Darkness at Noon, Koestler follows the former commissar Rubaschow, imprisoned for crimes he never committed and ultimately executed. Edgar Allan Poe adds to this ensemble with images of inner darkness and obsessive isolation that render psychological borderlands all the more vivid.

Taken together, these works offer a model: the maelstrom as an external pull, the eclipse as an inner obscuration, the slave war as the collapse of moral bonds. They reveal where currents destabilize, where trust erodes, and where agency is lost.

From Ends-Justify-Means to a Crisis of Credibility – The Law of Detours

Movements are currents, not straight lines. They gain momentum through hope, solidarity, and collective energy, but that very speed harbors the risk of outpacing themselves. Totalitarian movements thus carry within them the seed of their own failure; their promise of salvation makes the goal absolute and the means sacred. What begins as a quiet current soon transforms into an ever-strengthening maelstrom, sucking in everything around it and dragging people along against their will. Revolutions and movements do not exist in a vacuum; wherever goal and virtue merge into an untouchable unity, whirlpools form that lead astray.

Thus Spartacus’ sun-state turns into a power-hungry center, devouring nearby cities at a pace beyond its own capacity. Violence and humiliation become normalized as instruments of power: “Several died there every day in the interest of common welfare, with fractured limbs and black tongues; and in their last tremors they cursed the tent with the purple velum and the Sun State.” (Gs, p. 205)

Whoever reduces individuals to test subjects for the course of history undermines every moral foundation; how can a movement claim to save humanity while sacrificing humans in agony?

When People Become Mere Means: Dehumanization as a Systemic Flaw

Totalitarian worldviews demand the systematic sidelining of the individual in favour of an absolute collective goal. In Darkness at Noon, the inverse accusation is formulated as a condemnation: the “Humanistische Nebelphilosophie” (DaN, p. ...) contemptuously labels the stance of placing the individual before the end goal. This is not praise but an indictment: those who protect human dignity are seen by the regime as a dangerous obstacle.

That is the crux of dehumanization: totalitarian logic requires followers to abandon empathy and personal responsibility. The doctrine demands that people shed their humanity so that the abstract goal can be carried out without question. Yet no morally acting person can condone killing another in the name of an intangible common good; the demand to suspend compassion makes a movement internally fragile and morally implausible.

Koestler’s Rubaschow embodies this dynamic. In prison, he wrestles with himself, questions the necessity of the sacrifices he demanded, and begins to doubt the supposed infallibility of the historical mission. Totalitarianism strives to “den Irrtum im Keim aus[zu]rotten” (DaN, p. ...); even the faintest doubt thus becomes a crime. In this way, the system dehumanizes on two levels: it targets dissenters while simultaneously corrupting the conscience of its servants.

The consequence is practical: when a movement declares individuals expendable, it forfeits moral capital, trust, and legitimacy.

Power Without Consent Cannot Last

No totalitarianism functions without repression. Complete consent cannot be manufactured, so violence becomes the instrument of maintaining power. Koestler shows vividly how this violence operates not only physically but psychologically. Rubaschow is driven to confession through a series of nocturnal interrogations; the methods aim at breaking his spirit: constant alertness, abrupt awakenings, interrogation under blinding lights, systematic sleep deprivation. A former friend is executed outside his cell days earlier as a deliberate act of emotional manipulation. Such practices may produce short-term fear and conformity, but in the long term they destroy trust, moral integrity, and organisational knowledge and thus become the regime’s own weakness.

Rubaschow’s story shows how repression fuels not only suspicion toward outsiders but deepens mistrust within the ranks themselves. He takes stock of the fates of those whose suffering he had once enforced in the name of the party. This inner conflict is not without consequence: anyone who has witnessed the pain inflicted by doctrine loses part of their unconditional loyalty. One may tell oneself that history is unmoral by nature, but no one is shielded from the psychic scars of having seen others suffer.

When Loyalty Erodes: Why Power Collapses from Within

Totalitarian systems stand in direct contradiction to the foundations of free democracies. At the centre of the totalitarian whirlpool always remains the human being: one may rationalise the given doctrines, but one remains human, capable of empathy, guilt, and moral conflict in the face of inflicted suffering. More decisive than external opposition is the erosion of loyalty within.

Rubaschow’s story illustrates how party comrades betray one another to secure reputation and survival. A permanent climate of fear and suspicion fractures movements, undermines cooperation, and weakens their political influence. Repression can simulate stability in the short term, but in the long run it corrodes the social and moral capital on which every durable community rests.

Steadfast and United: Democracy Lives by Principles

Moral integrity is both an end in itself and strategic capital within political movements. There is no obligation to absolute partisanship; acknowledging the fallibility of an organization is not disloyalty but foresight and resilience.

From this follows how democrats should face today’s crises: the greatest danger is indifference. Opportunism must find no foothold; we must anchor decisions in shared, inviolable values. It is not about an abstract “democracy” but about our democracy. That is our strongest resource in times of powerlessness. Democratic means do not divide; they unite. Distance from authoritarian actors and a clear democratic program are necessary and signal conviction.

For citizens, this translates into a shift in posture: overcoming a culture of indifference, choosing active commitment over passive waiting. Calm alone is no hallmark of good politics. We must remind ourselves daily that political shaping requires responsibility and endurance. Indifference may function as a temporary coping mechanism, but the real strength already lies within us.

Integrity Is the Answer

Anti-democratic developments and the fears they provoke are real; the maelstrom pulling us down is a tangible threat. Yet hope remains: amorality makes political systems vulnerable and creates entry points for resistance.

Democrats can withstand differences in opinion as long as they agree on shared rules of engagement. Democracy does not only mean representing positions but preserving moral capacity to act.

That is why protecting this consensus is crucial. The way forward does not lie in opportunism or adaptation to destructive currents, but in clear positioning, a common profile, and inner-party cohesion to defend values and organize lasting resistance.

On this foundation, resistance remains effective: systems may crumble, apparatuses may rust; what endures is the irreplaceable: the human.

Fenna Reus