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AN ANALYSIS OF HANNAH ARENDT'S CONCEPT OF WORLDLESSNESS

Nicholas Graham Department of Potitical Science

McGiII University, Montreal September 1390

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.

o Nicholas Graham, 1990.

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The thoughts come to me, 1 am no longer a stranger ta them. 1 grow in them as in a place, As in a plowed field.

(Hannah Arendt, 1952)

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores the theme of "worldlessness" in the politieal thought of

Hannah Arendt.

The thesis analyzes "worldlessness" by way of Arendt's reflections on the

sub-themes of "contemporary crisis," the "Western tradition," the "modern age" and

the modern phenomenon of "thoughtlessness." These sub-themes are examined

in ehapters one, two, four and five respectively. Cnapter three examines Arendt's

conception of politics and "the world."

The analysis proceeds on the basis of Arendt's stated conviction that

political thought must take its bearings from "incidents of living experience" if it is

to be adequate to its subject matter. More specifically, it investigates the basis and

significance of Arendt's contention that the modern condition of "worldlessness"

has produced a rupture between thought and experience which has radically

altered the character of contemporary understanding. In general terms, the thesis

examines the origins of modern worldlessness and the implications of this for

contemporary thinking.

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RÉSUMÉ

La présente thèse a pour but cl'elCaminer le thème de "l'absence de relation

au monde" dans la pensée politique de Hannah Arendt.

La thèse procède à l'analyse du concept de "l'absence de relation au

monde" en tenant compte de la réflexion d'Arendt sur les thèmes secondaires

suivants: "la crise contemporaine," "la tradition occidentale," "l'époque moderne"

et le phénomène moderne du "vide au niveau de la pensée. H Ces thèmes

secondaires seront examinés respectivement dans les chapitres un, deux, quatre

et cinq. Pour sa part, le chapitre trois traitera de la conception d'Arendt en ce qui

concerne la politique et "le monde."

Les propos de cette thèse sont fondent sur la conviction déclarée d'Arendt

que la pensée politique doit prendre pour repères "des incidents concrets de

l'existence" si elle veut être adaptée au sujet auquel elle s'applique. Plus

spécifiquement, la thèse examine la base et la signification de l'affirmation d'Arendt

selon laquelle la condition moderne du concept de "l'absence de relation au

monde" a provoqué une rupture entre la pensée et l'expérience, ce qui a modifié

radicalement le caractère de la compréhension contemporaine. En termes plus

général, la thèse examine les origines modernes de "l'absence de relation au

monde" et ses implications pour le mode contemporain de pensée.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: Ihe Crisjs of Understanding ...................... 1

A) Totalitarianism and the 'Break' with Tradition: ................ 1

B) Totalitarianism as an 'Unprecedented' Event: ............... 11

C) Alternative Views: Arendt's Contemporaries: ............... 14

CHAPTER 1WO: The Western Tradition ........................... 24

A) The Hold of Tradition: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24

B) The Advantage of the 'Break' with Tradition: ................ 28

C) The Tradition: ...................................... 32

CHAPTER THREE: Arendt's Alternative to the Tradition ............... 47

A) The ~ ContemplatiY.a and the ~ Activa: ................. 47

B) The Human Condition: .. .................. ,.......... 54

C) The wa Activa: ..................................... 57

i) The Private Realm: .............................. 58

ii) The Public Realm: .............................. 60

iii) Labour: ...................................... 65

iv) Work: ......... ......... ,.................... 68

v) Action: ...................................... 71

CHAPTER FOUR: The Collapse of the Public and private .............. 81

A) The Modern Age: .................................... 81

B) First Narrative -- Events in the Modern Age: ................ 87

C) Modern Society: .................................... 92

D) The Rise of the Animal Laborans: ................. . . . . . .. 95

CHAPTER FIVE: The Decline of the Tradition ..................... 106

A) Second Narrative -- Understanding in the Modern Age: .... . .. 106

B) Knowing as Making: ................................ 110

C) The End of the Tradition: .......................... . .. 122

i) Kierkegaard: .................................. 124

ii) Marx: ....................................... 125

iii) Nietzsche: ................................... 127

CHAPTER SIX: Conclusion .................................. 132

A) Eichmann in Jerusalem: ............................. 132

B) Worldlessness and Thoughtlessness: 141

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 152

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CHAPTER ONE

The Cr;sis of Understanding

A) Totalitarianism and the 'Break' with Tradition:

The political thought of Hannah Arendt is inspired by a profound sense of

crisis. She writes in the conviction that our tradition of thought, political and

moral, lies in ruins. This conviction is not the product of a nihilistic critique; it

arose from her confrontation with the event of totalitarianism. Arendt's first

systematic political treatise, The Origins of Totalitarianismi was written in the

shadows of what she called the "dark times" of the post-Holocaust, post-Gulag

world. By the phrase "dark times," however. Arendt did not mean sirnply times

of horror, but rather t;",es of intellectual and moral confusion; times in which

she insisted (quoting de Tocqueville) "the mind of man wanders in obscurity."2

We live in a time wh en the events of the world seem to threaten the mind with

realities that defy ail sense and meaning. It is a time of paradox, a time of crisis.

The crisis character of our time, according to Arendt, was first revealed to us by

the event of totalitarianism.

Totalitarian domination as an established fact, which in its unpreceder.tedness cannot be comprehended through the usual categories of political thought, and whose 'crimes' cannot be judged by traditional moral standards or punished within the legal framework of our civilization, has broken the continuity of Occidental history. The break in our tradition is now an accomplished fact.:I

The Orlglns of Totalltarlanlsm. Thlrd edttlon wtth new prefaces (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovlch, 1973). Orlglnally publlshed ln 1951. Hereafter ctted 8S Origlns.

2 Arendt dlscusses the Inspiration and meanlng behlnd her use of thls phrase ln the Preface to MIn ln park Times (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovlch, 1968). pp.vlII-Ix.

:1 Between PaS! and Future (Harmondsworth: Penguln Books Ud. 1968). p.26.

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Hannah Arendt, perhaps more th an any other writer, categorically

characterizes totalitarianism as an entirely new political phenomenon. It

constitutes, she insists, an "unprecedented" event in the history of mankind. She

does not conceive of totalitarianism as many writers do, as sim ply a

contemporary if monstrous version of the ancient or modern forms of tyranny;

not even as a technologically advanced military dictatorship or police state. Ali

su ch parallels she claims are inadequate "devices" for capturing this unique

phenomenon. It eludes comprehension. Indeed, much of what Arendt has to

say about totalitarianism is written explicitly against the popular "conviction that

everything that happens on earth must be comprehensible to man."4 ~uch a

conviction, she insists, leads people to interpret history by commonplaces; to

the normalizing use of platitudes which are as pernicious to critical

understanding as they are common in popular discourse.

Comprehension does not mean denying the outrageous, deducing the unprecedented trom precedents, or explaining phenomena by such analogies and generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience are no longer felt. It means, rather, examining and bearing consciously the burden which our century has placed on us -- neither denying its existence nor submitting meekly to its weight. Comprehension in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality -- whatever it may be.1I

Comprehension, for Arendt is a never-ending enterprise which she

distinguishes from correct information and scientific, explanatory knowledge, in

Orlglns. p.vtll. Arendt employa the n18scullne form when referrlng ta 'people ln generaI.' Sinee thls Is an out-dated convention, 1 use gender-neutral terms ln my discussion. exceptions appear onIy where direct or Indirect reference ta Arendt's tmet seems to requlre adherlog ta her usage.

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part, because it never produc6s unequivocal results. Arendt most often referred

to the activity of thinking not as "comprehension" which suggests the completed

goal of cognition, but as understanding; "an unending activity by which, in

constant change and variation, we come to terms with, reconcile ourselves to

reality, that is, try to be at home in the world.,,11

Our virtual inability to understand, categorize or judge totalitarian

phenomena is the peculiar feature of its appearance that Arendt means to

address with her claim that totalitarianism is unprecedented. Although the

totalitarian exercise of power as domination and extermination have parallels in

the political practices of the past, Arendt insists that these parallels, or

similarities, cannat account for those features of totalitarian practice which are

historically unique.

Arendt was convinced that 'crimes' on such a scale as those committed

by the Stalinist and Nazi regimes marked a decisive turning point in history,

breaking down ail the standards we know and signalling the arrivai of a new

age. This new, Hyet unknown age,· as Arendt calls it, is an age for which the

tradition of the past is irrevocably lost. For in face of the mass murders of our

century, tradition can no longer provide us with either the meaning of what was

done or the moral standards by which to judge it. Arendt was convinced that

the "radical" nature of totalitari&n evil clearly revealed that there were Mmatters

concerning men and the possibilities of their organized living together about

Hannah Arendt, ·Understandlng and PoIltlcs,· Partisan Rev!ew (July / August 1953). p.3n. Arendt later reformulated the distinction between understandlng and comprehension as the dlfference between 'hlnklng· and ·knowlng.· See note 21.

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which tradition had nothing to say.,,7

Arendt's appreciation for the absolute novelty of totalitarianism did not

lead her ta argue that it was an historical aberration, a temporary outbreak of

moral insanity. Ratner, she was convinced that the appearance of this event

represented an extreme manifestation of "modernity" as such. In particular, the

appearance of this incomprehensible event signitied more than just the pcrhaps

obvious faet that thought, in relation to this event, is impotent. It signified this

and much more, namely, that thought in general is in a state of crisis. In her

preface ta the tirst edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt summarizes

the crisis character of our times succinctly:

Mie can no longer afford ta take that which was good in the past and simply cali it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come ta the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in whlch we live. And this is why ail efforts ta escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better Mure, are vain.·

Arendt's politieal thought begins with her experience in attempting ta

understand totalitarianism. The formative impact that this event had on her

subsequent interest in and original conception of politics cannot be

overemphasized. ta Arendt's concern with the "break" with tradition and the

Stan Draenos, "Thin king W1thout a Ground," ln Melvyn Hill (ed). Hannah Arendt: Beçoyery of the Public Wodd (New York: St. Martins Press, 1979). p.210 .

QrW, Preface to the Flrst edltlon, p.lx.

The Impact of thls event on Arendt's subsequent thought, partlculady as It relates to the "break" wlth the tradition, however, can and has been underestlmated. 1 am qulte convlnced, for example, that Stephen Whltfleld does not glve enough attention to the break wlth tradition as a recurrlng theme ln Arendt's work. 1 therefore find It dlff/cult to agree with hls position that Arendt 'ost Interest"ln the sUbJect of totalltarlanlsm after completlng The Orlglns of Totalitarlanlsm. See, S. Whitfleld, Into the Park: Hannah Arendt and Totalitarianlsm (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980).

historical uniqueness of the contemporary age informs ail of her writing and

appears as a recurring theme in nearly every one of her major works from The

Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) up to the posthumously published The Life of

the Mind (1978).10

ln her attempt to understand totalitarianism, Arendt confronted the fact

that human understanding had reached an impasse. This diagnosis was not

peculiar to Arendt. It was shared by many of her contemporaries, particularly

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European. What is unusual about Arendt's diagnosis, however, is her conviction

that this impasse, the so-called "crisis of thought" or "crisis of understanding"

(Merleau-Ponty) in the twentieth century, is political, not sim ply in terms of

consequences or potential, but in essence. It is this political essence which

Arendt believes makes the contemporary crisis so completely new and different

from ail situations of confusion and ignorance in the past. For theoretical crises

are nothing new, they are in fact, (as Kant so cruelly 'proved') the very stuff of

thinking.

Of course, thinking is and has always been limited, even in relation to

Simllarty, the recent attempt by G.J. Tolle to demonstrate that ."rendt's poIltlcai theory contalns an Imp/lclt conception of "human nature" Is rendered unconvlnclng l'y hls fallure to conslcler the slgnlflcance of the break wlth tradition. For Arendt, the break wlth tradition renders ail talk of human nature suspect, to say the least. See, G.J Tolle, Hyman Natyre Under Flre: The PoIltlcal Phllosophy of Hannah Arendt (Washington: University Press of America Ine., 1982.) 1 dlseuss Arendt's reJectlon of the concept of human nature ln chapter three.

10 The break wlth the tradition undertles both The Orlglns of Totalltarianlsm and the EpNogue and Postscript to Eichmann ln Jerusalem, and lends unlty to the selections ln Men ln Dari< Times and Between Past and Future. It also serves as the point of departure for her c;tudles On Revolution, Qn Violence. and the posthumously publlshed The Ufe of the Minci. The one major work ln whlch thls theme Is notlceably absent Is The Human Condition. Arendt's discussion of the tradition in the latter work, however, Is not concemed wlth the "break" as such, but wlth an analysls of events and developments that contributed to Its demlse before the actuai "break" occurred. These events and deve!opments will be examined ln chapters four and flve.

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political matters. Or so it seems to us today. For we have ail experienced the

difficulty and often impossibility of trying to make sense of profound change and

upheaval in the modern world. For example, we only have to contemplate the

horrors, past and present, of this century, or the many ways it is now possible

to destroy the earth as we know it, and we become aware of the very real

possibility that human understanding, because of what it is, may ultimately be

unable to come to an understanding of the world.

ln fact, Arendt suggests that "there is nothing in this situation that is

altogether new." The moral and intellectual crisis of the West did not originate

with the event of totalitarianism. Rather, its origins lie deep within the Western

tradition. Late in the last century, however, the situation "became desperate":

when it began to dawn upon modern man that he had come to live in a world in which his mind and his tradition of thought were not even capable of asking adequate, meaningful questions, let alone ot giving answers to its own perplexities.11

To speak of a polttical crisis for thought then, entails more than the tact that we

lack rational answers to ultimate qU6stions. It suggests that we lack even the

ability to form meaningful questions about reality.

Tradition, Arendt argues, Ibound" each new generation to an

lIunderstanding of the world and its own experience." Today, however, we have

no tradition and must find our own way through thinking. This realizatio" is

familiar to us ail. It ought to make us, if not suddenly good thinkers, then at

least prudent. For as Arendt points out, "we seem to be nelther equipped nor

".. Il Betwee" Past and Future, pp.5, 9 . ..

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prepared for this activity of thinking, of settling down in the gap between past

and future. ,,12

Arendt employs the metaphor of what she calls "the gap between past

and future" to indicate "the contemporary conditions of thought." For Arendt, this

gap does not actually represent an historical datum, but rather the timeless,

non-spatial experience of thinking. This experience is the "small track of non­

time which the activity of thought beats within the time-space of mortal man. H

Arendt argues that in previous times this gap, the experience of thinking, was

Hbridged over" by tradition. When tradition was still a living force, experience of

the gap between past and future was confined to the "few," -- to Kant's

"professional thinker ," the philosopher. What makes the contemporary

conditions of thought different from earlier conditions is the dramatic absence of

tradition. Arendt insists that:

When the thread of tradition finally broke, the gap between past and Mure ceased to be a condition peculiar only to the activity of thought and restricted as an experience to those few who made thinking their primary business. It became a tangible reality and perplexity for ail; that is, it became a fact of pOlitical relevance. H13

The "political relevance" of the gap between past and Mure lies in the fact that it

is no longer restricted to the solitary experience of thought. Instead, it has

become part of our commonly shared experience.

Arendt contends that the recent events and developments of the modern

world have destroyed the last remnants of the authority of the tradition. We are

12 lbld. p.13.

13 lbld. p.14.

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th us "confronted anew" with nothing less th an "the elementary problems of

human Iiving-together.,'14 Such problems, she insists, raise anew the oldest and

perennial questions of classical political philosophy. 111 The œG for thinking

therefore is no longer restricted to the philosophers but has become necessary

for ail. As she was to observe some twenty years after first announcing the

break with tradition, "we must be able to 'demand' its exercise from every sane

person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen

to be.",e As intimated, however, to ask such questions has become unusually

difficult.

Arendt maintains that, while the break with tradition has had a liberating

effect on thinking, the origins of this event themselves do not bode weil for the

future. These origins lie in the modern condition of man's alienation from the

world. Although it may be true that, as Arendt assures us, "however seriously

our ways of thinking may be involved in this crisis, our ability to think if'i not at

stake," what § at stake, and what no "anticipated dialogue" and "independent

14 .lbId.. p.141.

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'5 Perhaps the most expllclt statement of what Arendt rneans by the break wlth tradition 18 contalned ln the Introduction to The Lita of the Mlnd, her last work. In reflectlng on the modem awareness that phllosophy, understood as metaphyslcs, has come to an end, Arendt declares that the real dlfflculty Is: "not that the oId questions whlch are coeval wlth the appearanca â man on earth have become 'meanlngless' but that the way they ware framed and answered has lost plauslblllty.·!he lie cl the MlDd. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovlch, 1978. (Iwo volumes, edltad by Mary McCarthy.) vol.l:p.10. Hereafter cltad as -rhlnklng" and "WllUng."

,e IbId. p.13. Although Arendt makes thls staternent wlth reference to thlnklng's relation to moral behavlour, If. remalns consistent wlth her earty understandlng of the break wlth tradition. The clearty phllosophlcal orientation of The Llfe of the Mlnd marks somewhat of a tumlng point ln Arendt's thought, away from the poIltlcal orientation emphaslzad ln thls thesls. We wli ratum to the tension that Arendt's last work Introduce$ Into her thought ln the conclusion of this essay.

thinking" ean rectify, is the world. 17 It is preeisely the relationship between our

"ways" of thinking and the world that take us to the heart of the politieal

dimensions of "this crisis."

ln what is perhaps her most dramatic and iIIuminating depietion of the

modern erisis, Arendt deelares that:

thought and reaUty have parted company ... reality has beeome opaque for the light of thought and ... thought, no longer bound to incident as thE' circle remains bound to its focus, is liable either to beeome altogether meaningless or to rehash old verities which have lost ail concrete relevance. 1

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According to Arendt, the essence of the contemporary crisis of

understanding is nowhere more pronouneed than in the modern IOS3 of the

human capaeity ta reeonstruct and understand human experience. By

"experienee, Il Arendt means primarily politieal experienee; the experienee men

once had of freedom, authority, responsibility and poUties itself. 111 We might want

to ask in this context, however, what it is that our thinking has come to

understand, if not the world of experienee? Before we pursue this and other

matters in Arendt's thought, a word of caution is in order. We are not eoneerned

here with uneovering Arendt's views on the poUtieal relevance of thought, not

even thought whieh has atrophied. Instead, we will be searching for the

17 "Thoughts on lessing,' p.10. Arendt's cfeclaratlon that 'our ~ to thlnk Is not at stake" appears ln The Llfe of the Mlocl, "Thlnklng', p.11. Once agaln Il should be noted that Arendt's reftectloos ln thls work are not generally representatlve of ber 88r1ler, more poIltlcal worka wlth whlch thls theals Is primarUy concemed. The statement, however, actually refers to thlnklng that does not concern Itself wlth the world and, as such, Is both apt and consistent wlth the emphasls of thls thesls.

1. !bkI. p.6-7.

18 !bkI. p.15.

relevance of poUties to thinking; not in order to think better, nor even to aet

better, but sim ply becausa it is thought-provoking.

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Arendt's longtime friend and teacher Martin Heidegger once declared that

what is "most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are

still not thinking.,,20 Most people, Heidegger insisted, are "not thinking" because

they do not know what thinking is. Arendt would agree with this last clause, for

she took pains to point out the difference between thinking and what most of us

believe thinking to be. In this she aetually follows Heidegger closely,ll It is

unUkely, however, that Arendt would have agreed with the first part of

Heidegger's pronouncement. For Arendt what is most thought-provoking in our

time, as in any other time, are not ideas but ~ma.

ao Martin Heidegger, Whot Is Cali'" Thlnklna. trans. J.Glenn Gray. (New York: Harper and Row, 1968). p.e.

21 Throughout her wOrk, Arondt makes a distinction between "thlnklng- and -knowlng- (phlosophyand science) whlch 888ms to be gulded by a concem slmMar to the one tbat Inspires Heldegger's distinction between ·madltatlve· and -calculatlve· thlnklng. This concem InvolY .. a dealre to dlsabuse those who would "thlnk" trom the tamllar notion tbat thlnklng la essentlally • cognitive enterprlse, a seeklng after resUts. The point d the distinction between thlnklng and knowIng for Arendt Is that only knowlng ever bas a point. Arendt argues that thlnklng 18 done for lts own sake, lt has nelther end nor alm outslde Ilself, and lt does not aven produce results. It Is st once both -useless- and the greatest glft of _eh solltary Individus!. Q1uman Condition p.171). Arendt's fullest treatment of the subJeCI appears ln The LIfe of the Minet and ber most succinct formulation of the distinction Is: -rhe need of reason [thlnklng] Is DOt Insplr'" bya quest for truth but by the quest for meanlng. And truth and meanlng are not the sarne.· ("Thlnklng: p.15).

Heidegger dlffera from Arendt ln dlstlngulshlng between two modes of one actlvlty rather than two distinct actlvltles slnce for Heldegger ail thlnldng la concemed wlth knowledge. Also, Heidegger S88ms to have eorne to thls distinction (at l&ast publlcly) many years after the perlod of Belng and Tlme durlng whleh Arendt WBS one of hls students. It la dlfflcUt to aS8888 how much he may have Inftuenced her ln thls matter. For an excellent discussion of the relatlonshlp between Heldegger's phMosophy and Arendt's polllicai thlnklng 888 Lewls P. and Sandra K Hlnchman, -'n Heldegger's Shadow: Hannah Arendt's Phenomenologlcal Humanlsm: Review of j'oIltles 46/2 (April 1984). pp.183-211. MMdred Bakan bas carefUly eonsldered thls relatlonshlp from the opposite perspective, tbat Is, Arendt's Inftuence on Heldegger's thought. See her essay, ·Arendt ar-d Heidegger: The Eplsodlc Intertwlnlng of Ufe and Work, - (phnosQphy and Social CrIt!clsm Sprlng 1987. pp.71-98).

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B) Totalitarianism as an 'Unprecedented' Event:

Arendt is a phenomenologist of the strictest sort. Ali of her thinking "takes

its bearings" from the experience of events. In her writing she never departs

from:

the assumption that thought itself arises out of incidents of living experience and must remain bound to them as the only guideposts by which to take its bearings.22

ln calling totalitarianism "unprecedented" Arendt means more th an simply the

fact that this event is new because it has not happened before. She means that

it is new in a way for which no previous experience has prepared us. Before its

appearance, totalitarianism had no precedents in experience and therefore no

precedents in language. And as language is the medium for thought, this event

was quite literally unthinkable.

According to Arendt's analysis, the most striking and significant

observation to be made with regard to the totalitarian practices of domination

and extermination is that these served no purpose of any practical kind. The

Nazis, for example, had no military or politica: reason for their extermination of

the Jews. Indeed, the totalitarian use of terror, which culminated in the

methodical mass murder of millions, seerned to go far beyond anything required

by the practical exigencies of gaining and holding power. Although Arendt

considered terror to be the most essential feature of totalitarianism, not even its

exercise, she argued, had any practical application once it became total.

The road to totalitarian domination leads through many intermediate stages for which we can find numerous analogies and

22 Betwee" Past and Future, p.14.

. l precedents. The extraordinarily bloody terror d,; .. ing the initial

stage of totalitarian ru le serves indeed the exclusive purpose of defeating the opponent and rendering ail turther opposition impossible; but total terror is launched only after this initial stage has been overcome and the regime no longer has anything to fear from the opposition ... In such a case. . . the category the "end justifies the means" no longer applies . . . terror has lost its "purpose," ... it is no longer a means to trighten people.ft

Totalitarianism distinguishes itself from earlier forms of political

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domination in directing its violence not only against external enemies, but

sgainst its own citizens as weil. The vast majority of these perished not because

they were political enemies and therefore a threat to the state, but merely

because they stood in the way of sorne ideological programme -- of racial

purification in Nazi Germany or of forcible industrialization in Stalinist Russia.

Arendt observes that the sheer "incredibility of the horrors [of totalitarian deeds]

is closely bound up with their economic uselessness." Indeed, the anti-utilitarian

practices of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes revealed a "complete Indifference to

mass interest" and flagrantly contradicted "the utilitarian core of [their respective]

ideologies."24

For Arendt then, the most unusual and disturbing fact about the

totalitarian regimes, and one that clearly distinguishes them from traditional

forms of tyranny and dictatorship, is that they resist any retrospective

assignment of purpose or rationality.211 This is perhaps the single most significant

23 Orlglns, p.440.

24 !b!d. pp.oMS, 347.

25 George Kateb, Hannah Arendt: Po!llles. Conscience, EyII. (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1984). pp.75-76.

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insight contained in the pages of the Orjgins of Totalitarjanjsm for it provides the

only perspective from which the 'insanity' o~ totalitarianism becomes at ail

intelligible. Such a perspective, according to Arendt, is virtually unavailable to

one whose language is informed by "traditional" assumptions regarding politics.

Among the most sacred of these is to regard politics as a means to an end. Il

Such a perspective, however, imputes to totalitarianism a rational purpose that,

according to Arendt, it never had. It is primarily for this reason that attempts to

understand totalitarianism in terms of historical precedents are doomed to

failure.27

It is the sheer 'unthinkability' of this event, according to Arendt, that most

clearly distinguishes it from ail horrors of the past. It is also the one feature of

this event which gives us some clue to its origins. For if totalitarianism really is

unthinkable, then it is futile to look to thought, past, present or future in the

attempt to understand il. On this matter Arendt is adamant. The ·originality" of

totalitarianism:

2fI Throughout her discussion of "ImperlaUsm· ln The Orlglns of Totalltarlanlsm, Arendt stresses that the Instrumental vlew of poIltlcs as a 'means to an end' Is a result of hlstorlcal practlces and has nothlng to do wlth Its ontologlcal status. The Intellectual precursor to these practlees Is Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes, Arendt contends, wes the flrst thlnker to fully Impoverlsh poIltles by reduclng ft to the functlon of poIlclng society. (C.f. Orlglns, pp.417-18). As we wNI see ln the next ehapter, howaver, Arendt Inslsts that the true orlglns of thls understandlng are to be found ln the very beglnnlngs of the Western tradition.

27 Arendt's essay ·Understandlng and PoIltles,· op. elt. (Hereafter clted as "Understandlng"), contalns her most sustalned critique of attempts by social sclentlsts to "explaln" totalltarlanlsm ln terms of hlstorlcal precedents. Her basic argument Is that such attempta are Informed by a 'ramework of preconcelved categories the crudest of whleh la causallty.· The category of causallty assumes that there Is a necessary, and therefore logically deduclble Une of davelopment toward what had oceurred. Wlthln such a framework, Arendt argues, "avents ln the sense of somethlng Irrevocably new can never happen.· Sueh a conception of avents, she Inslsts, destroys thelr phenomenal eharacter by denylng thelr spontaneous orlgln ln human actlcn. It la for thla reason that Arendt states that ·causallty Is an altogether aUen and falslfylng category ln the hlstorlcal sciences.· ("Understandlng,· pp.389, 388). Arendt's conception of action will be examlned ln chapter three.

(

(

Is horrible, not because some new 'idea' came into the world, but because its very actions constitute a break with ail our traditions; they have clearly exploded our categories of political thought and our standards for moral judgment. 21

14

As mentioned, Arendt was not alone in her conviction that the event of

totalitarianism signified that thinking in the modern world is in a profound state

of crisis. Many of her contemporaries thought and wrote about the shattering

impact this event has had on human understanding and attempted to address

its implications for the future. It will help to clarify the originality and significance

of Arendt's contribution to contemporary political thought if we begin by

distinguishing her basic understanding of the cri sis character of our time from

that of her contemporaries. The difference between Arendt's understanding of

this crisis and that of her contemporaries can be seen most clearly in the

different conceptions each has concerning the relationship of this crisis to

politics in general and to political theory in particular.

C) Alternative Views: Arendt's Contemporaries:

Speaking generally, many recent thinkers who have dealt with the theme

of modern crisis, including Arendt, share the conviction that the Western

tradition of philosophy as understood and practised for two and a hait thousand

years has succumbed, in one way or another, to the modern disease of nihilism.

Where most thinkers de part from Arendt is in attributing. the present crisis of

understanding to a more fundamental crisis of metaphysical truth. According to

such a view, any discernable crisis in the politicallife of a people, nation, state

28 l.bId. p.379.

or other community is derivable in one form or another from the tact that

thinking itself is in crisis. Looked at in this way, the crisis of understanding is a

result of a crisis of a specialized type of thinking, namely, philosophieal or

religious-philosophical contemplation.

15

Among Arendt's contemporaries there are essentially twe lines of

argument adhering to this view. The first, exemplified most clearly by the Critical

Theorists of the Frankfurt School, holds that modern cri sis is the result of

inherent limitations in the reasoning capacity itself. The second line of argument,

holds that this crisis is the result of historical distortions within the Western

tradition of thought. The latter is, in general terms, the position taken by both

Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin.

A common theme among the Critical Theorists· is that human reason

has been the source of its own demise. The collapse of reason at its own hands

goes by the name of "instrumental rationality" which, paradoxically, points to the

loss of reason in the modern world. Speaking in general terms. Critical Theory

holds that the understanding of human reason since the Enlightenment, as a

28 The fcllowlng Interpretation of Crltlcal Theory's position on the crlsls of understandlng or 'reason' Is based primarllyon Martin Jay, The PlalactlcaJ Imagination. (Toronto: UttIe, Brown and Cun~pany, 1973) and Stan Draenos' article "The Totalltarlan Theme ln Horkheimer and Arendt," §llmaQundl56 (Sprlng 1982). pp. 155-169. This summary la nOl Intended aa a critique of Crltlcal Theory, but attempts only to dlstlngulsh the general orientation of that approach from Arendt's. 1 have restrlcled my comments to the earller members of the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer, Adomo and Marcuse although they apply to at leaat some aspects cA Jurgen Habermas' work 8S weil. See hls "Hannah Arendt', Communications Concept of PO'Ner," Social Besearch 44\1 (Sprlng 1977). pp. 3-24; and David Luban's critique of thls article, "On Habermas on Arendt on PO'N8r," PhlOSQDhyand Social Crltlclsm 6 (1979). pp.81-95. An excellent defence of Arendt's approach to poIltlcal phenornena agalnst the cial ms of Crltlcal Theory ln general and agalnst the position of Habermas ln partlcular, Is presented by G. Heather and M. Stclz, "Hannah Arendt and the Problem of Crltlcal Theory,"

..... Rev!ew of PoIltlcs 41\1 (February, 1979) pp.2-22

.....

•

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16

calculating. strategic faculty. is an impoverished. 'rationalized' view of reason.

For reason is much more than Just calculation and strategy. According to

Critical Theory, reason consists of at least two aspects -- the sUbjective, formai

aspect just mentioned (Verstand), and an objective, substantive aspect

(Vernunft). It is this second aspect of reason that discovers and sets the ends

or goals of human activity (praxis) in accordance with truly rational standards.30

According to Critical Theory, su ch standards are the transcendent

measures by which human activity and social organization are to be judged. For

Critical Theory, however, transcendent does not mean other-worldly in any

religious or metaphysical sense. The Critical Theorists consciously reject the

identification of substantive reason and metaphysical truth; the identity of

thought and reality. Rather. Critical Theory is devoted to a mediated

reconciliation of the historical (not ontological) opposition of social reality and

truth, praxis and reason, man and nature.31

The point, however. is that Critical Theory postulates as the criteria for

30 Martin Jay, The plalectlcallmaglnatlon, op.clt., p.60. The distinction that the Crltlcal Theorlsts make between two main categories of reason follows the Kantlan distinction between the two mental facultles of Verstand (understandlng) and yernunft (reason). Accordlng to Kant, and the Crltlcal Theorlsts after hlm, the latter faculty was consldered superlor because It alone apprehended substantive, "objective reason" (le. true knowledge). Arendt, who also relies on thls distinction ln her reflectlons on -rhlnklng," translates and Interprets these two mental facultles rather dlfferently from Kant. Arendt argues that Verstand should be translated not as "understandlng," but as "Intellect," thereby emphaslzlng Its cognitive character. Arendt translates Yemunft as reason, but by reason she means the non-cognitive faculty of "thlnklng." For Arendt "'munft, not Verstand, Is the faculty of understandlng. Slgnlflcantly, Arendt clalms that Kant remained "unaware" of the eXlent to whlch he had IIberated thlnklng, the ~ by whlch man reflects on "nearly everythlng that happens to hlm," from Its tradltlonal tles wlth knowledge because he "was still sc strongly bound by the enormous welght of the tradition of metaphyslcs." (See -rhlnklng," pp.13-16). The "welght" of the tradition, Its hold over the human mlnd, will be discussed ln the neXl chapter.

31 Martin Jay, The plalectlcallmaglnatlon. op. clt. pp.47-48. 63, 268, 273. Jay, argues, however, that thls theme of reconcillation ln the work of the Crltlcal Theorlsts Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse "always appeared as a utoplan Ideal." (p.61. C.f. pp.64-65).

r-I

17

reason as weil as for practice, standards that are not themselves subject ta

opinion and rational argument. The acceptance of su ch standards de pends not

on reason but on faith. Vet it is precisely the existence of faith which came

under attack by reason during the Enlightenment. The successful pursuit of

scientific rationality in the name of "truth" has effectively destroyed faith, mythical

and ieligious as irrational superstition or ideology.

The consequence of this attack on faith by formai reason (Verstand) has

been the loss of those ultimate standards which reason, in its substantive

aspect (Vernunft), had once given itself. According to Criticôl Theory, the

present age has witnessed the ri se of "technological rationalization" as an

institutional force and "instrumental rationality" as a cultural imperative to a point

where their so-called progress has so destroyed the faith in ultimate standards

as to place the standard of reason itself in jeopardy. The modelling of social

institutions in accordance with the demands of scientific, instrumental rationality

has turned reason itself into the vehicle of "social rationalization." ln such a

situation praxis lacks both guidance and limits and has become increasingly

irrational. 32

Reason (Verstand), according to Critical Theory, has abandoned itself

and betrays us with vain efforts to rethink (i.e. strategically reason) our way out

of the historical situation to which irrational praxis has brought us. Critical

Theory thus engages in a "self-critique of reason" and caUs praxis back to the

critical norms of substantive philosophical reason. Reason, in other words, must

32 Stan Draenos, .,.he Totalitarlan Theme in Horkheimer and Arendt,· op.clt. pp.159-«l.

J \

" i

18

"be restored to its proper place as the arbitrator of ends and not Just means."33

Critical Theory sees its role in relation to the contemporary crisis as being

both diagnostic and prescriptive. Philosophical truth, arrived at through critique

and reflection, is se en by the Critical Theorists as the basis for Iiberating praxis

through reason. Marcuse, in particular, considered classical reason to be the

"critieal tribunal" of reason.34 Martin Jay, a leading authority on the Frankfurt

Sehool points out that the polarization of praxis and reason in Critical Theory is

not simply dialectical, but also hierarchical. Jay states that:

the interplay and tension between them greatly contributed ta the Theory's dialectieal suggestiveness, although the primaey of reason was never in doubt. As Marcuse wrote in Reason and Revolution speaking for the Frankfurt School, 'The ory will preserve the truth even if revolutionary practice deviates trom the proper path. Practice follows truth and not vice versa.,J5

Arendt was unrelenting in her criticism of this approach to political

theorizing. The precise reasons for this will be examined in the next chapter, but

it is enough to point out here that Arendt rejected the elevation of philosophy

(truth) over polities (opinion) that characterizes this approaeh. For Arendt the

practiee of understanding and evaluating political action aeeording to

philosophieal standards is both destructive of political action and an invitation to

tyranny.-

33 Jay, The Dlalectlca11rnaglnatlon. op. clt. p.63.

34 IbId. pp.60-61.

30 JW. p.64.

38 The essay by G. Heather and M. Stalz wHannah Arendt and the Problem of Crltlcal Theory" (op. clt.) focuses speclflcally on thls aspect of Arendt's poIltlcal thought and defends her approach to poIltlcal phenomena agalnst the phllosophlcal approach of Crltlcal Theory.

19

A second, quite different perspective on the crisis charaeter of our time is

offered by the poUtieal philosophies of Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. Neither of

these two thinkers regards the present crisis as having its source in an inherent

limitation of human reason. Instead, they share the view that "the erisis of our

time,,37 is the result of historieal distortions within the Western tradition of

thought.

Both Strauss and Voegelin are politieal philosophers seeking a

metaphysieal theory of poUties. Although the differenees between the se two

thinkers are pronouneed, their reflections on modern erisis may be considered

together as providing a single position in eomparison to Arendt's. Since the

preceding discussion of Critieal Theory has already emphasized Arendt's

rejection of the attempt to understand polities in terms of philosophy, the

following aecount of Strauss and Voegelin's interpretations of modern crisis will

be restricted te eonsidering their views on the relationship of modern crisis to

the Western tradition.

Although they do not share the same conception of 'tradition.' both

Strauss and VoegeUn hold the view that the aneient Greeks possessed an

understanding of polities based on classieal virtue that we have long sinee lost.

More speeifically. they both believe in the existence of eternal truth and view the

erisis of our time as rooted in a departure from and distortion of that truth. For

'1 37 Both Strauss and Voegelln use thls phrase.

'f

20

Strauss, virtue or truth. is to be found in the classical tradition of "natural right".­

Voegelin's truth is "the truth of the soul" and goes by the name of sophia and

prudentja.-

Leo Strauss regards modern crisis explicitl,' as the consequence of a

crisis in political philosophy. For Strauss, political philosophy is the attempt to

replace mere opinion regarding the nature of "political things" with true

knowledge of these. "Politieal things." according to Strauss. are things such as

peace and war, law and taxes, and other institutions of politieal order.40 Strauss

ho Ids that modern crisis is the result of a deviation from "The Tradition" of

classical Greek philosophy in which the knowledge of "politieal things" is

preserved.

According to Strauss, this deviation from tradition began with Machiavelli

and led to the "politicization of philosophy- in the seventeenth century. This

deviation continued and gathered force in the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries with the relativization of values which accompanied the rise of the

bourgeoisie. Finally, the end of the tradition is to be found with the rise of

31 Lao Strauss, Natu,,' Righi and Hlst0ry. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953). For thls brlef summary of Strauss' position on the relation of tradition and crlsls, 1 have relled prlmarly on thls work and the essay "What Is PoIltlcal PhHosophy,·'n What Is poInlcs! PhHoSQDhY? and other stud!es. (New York, 1959). A helpfullntroductlon to Strauss' poIltlcal phlosophy Is Dante Germlno's elsay on Strauss ln Beyond Ideofogy: The ReyIya! of PoIltlcal Theory. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. pp. 149-160. John Gunnell has wrltten a concise If not partlculariy flatterlng account of Strauss' Interpretation of both "The Tradition· and modem crlsls. Set .,.he Myth d the Tradition,· American poInlcal Science Ray!ew. 72 (March 1978). pp.122-134.

311 The followlng discussion of Eric VoegeIln's thought Is restrlcted to The New Science of PoIllcs. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952; 1966), chapters IV and VI. 1 have also relled on Dante Germlno, Beyond IdeofOQY. op. clt. chapter 8.

40 What 18 PoIltlcal PhllOSQphv?: and other 8tudles. op.clt. pp.11-12.

21

historicism and positivism in the nineteenth century. 41 These developments,

Strauss argues with complex subtlety, have brought about the disorder of

modern political life and the decline of political philosophy. Although Strauss

regrets the loss of this elassieal tradition, it is doubtful whether he holds a return

to the tradition, in the sense of restoration, to be possible. Strauss does,

however, believe that we can and ought to return to ''The Tradition" in the sense

of reconstituting the elassics and retrieving the wisdom of the ancient Greeks.42

Eric Voegelin shares with Leo Strauss the desire and attempt to revive an

image of politics and its study that he finds embodied in the teachings of Plato

and Aristotle. For Voegelin, 'tradition' refers to the classieal tradition of Greek

and Christian transcendence. This transcendence is the experience of the

"noetie structure of existence," which finds its purest articulation in the works of

Plato and Aristotle.43 For Voegelin, the true tradition of the West ended in the

work of Aristotle. He seeks therefore to reestablish the ancient Greek "noetic"

science (philosophy) of polities. Voegelin, unlike Strauss seeks the 'spiritual,' as

opposed to the 'natural,' dimensions of political phenomena. Voegelin eonsiders

political ideas to play a role in history understood as the attempt by men to

symbolically represent (i.e.'order') the unfolding (and unknOwable) mystery of

the process of reality. He regards the modern cri sis as having its origins in a

Christian heresy he calls "Gnosticism," of which liberalism, Marxism, Nazism and

41 Natural Right and History. op. clt. pp.1-6.

42 !b!d. pp.13, 16, 34, 78.

43 Germlno, op.clt. pp.164, 168-170,176-77.

( virtuallyall modern political doctrines and revolutions are variants.""

Gnosticism consists of the "fallacious immanentization of the Christian

22

eschaton"; the attempt to establish secularized versions of the Kingdom of God

on earth. By way of such fallacious immanentization, Voegelin argues, "Gnostic

thinkers, leaders and their followers interpret a concrete society and its order as

an eschaton; and, in so far as they apply their fallacious construction to

concrete social problems they misrepresent immanent reality [and give rise to] a

false picture of reality. Il Voegelin insists that political action taken on the basis of

such "errors" has "practical consequences.·45

Voegelin regards the immanentist attacks on the classical tradition of

Greek and Christian transcendence to be a process of spiritual disease which

he caUs "the growth of gnosticism. Il This process, he argues, has slowly led to

the "corrosion of Western civilizationll over the past thousand years." Voegelin

considers totalitarianism to be sim ply the most recent culmination of this spiritual

disease:"

Voegelin and Strauss each regard the aim of political philosophy to be

both diagnostic and therapeutic. Also, to the extent that each of these thinkers

finds the so-called 'progress' of modern civilization to be a departure from truth,

it could be said that they both hold that the roots of modern crisls lie outside

44 The New Science of poInlcs. op. clt. p.125.

45 lbki. pp.166-167.

48 lb!d.. pp.120-123, 126.

( 47 "Revlew of The Orlalns of Tota!!tarianlsm.- Revtew of PoIbles 15 (January 1953). pp.74-75.

.. . ' 23

and not within 'the tradition', as identified respectively by each of them. Neither

Strauss or Voegelin, however, eonsider totalitarianism to have signified a "break"

with tradition. Rather, they eaeh view the present erisis as the logieal, if horrible

culmination of a more or less continuous process.

Arendt, in eontrast to these contemporaries, finds the source of the

eontemporary erisis of understanding to lie not in any inherent limitation or

historieal distortion of thought, but rather in a crisis of our relationship to "the

world." This crisis, in turn. stems from what Arendt coneeives to be the loss of

polities in the modern world. Arendt, unlike the Critical Theorists, does not hold

that politics follows truth, but rather, views polities as possessing its own

inherent worth. And, in eontrast to both Strauss and Voegelin, Arendt does not

view the tradition as the repository of political wisdom. On the eontrary, as we

will see in the next chapter, her rejection of the who le Western tradition. from

Plato to Marx, is severe and complete.

A) The Hold of Tradition:

CHAPTERTWO

The Western Tradition

24

Arendt's conception of what she caUs "the great tradition" does not appear

in any single work. Her reflections on the tradition, what it was and why it is still

important, are scattered throughout most of her writings. As a result, her

analysis is unsystematic, diffuse and rather sparse. Nevertheless, her views on

the tradition, though fragmentary, are consistently argued and provide an

account which is both coherent and persuasive.

The observation that Arendt is unsystematic in her approach to the

Western tradition parallels an objection many of her readers have made to the

historical approach she adopted in The Orjgins of Totalitarianism. An example of

such an objection appears in a review of Arendt's seminal work on

totalitarianism by Eric Voegelin. In his review, Voegelin criticizes the organization

of the book as "somewhat less strict than it cou Id beN and "marred . . . by

certain theoretical defects.·41 ln her reply to Voegelin's criticisms, Arendt explains

that her rather unconventional historical approach to totalitarianism was

prompted in part by her attempt to write about the history of an event without

"conserving" or "justifying" il. Her discussion of the dilemma this placed her in

and how she dealt with it is instructive and seems to relate to her apparently

unsystematic approach to the Western tradition in her later work.

r 48 E. Voegelln, "Revlew of The Orlglns of Totalltarianlsm,· Revlew of PoIltlcs op. clt. p.72.

."

....

25

Arendt explains that in her attempt to write about the origins of

totalitarianism she was eonfronted with a problem that IIwas simple and baffling

at the same time." namely. the fact that "all historiography is necessarily

salvation and frequently justification. Il ln writing about totalitarianism. Arendt

faeed the dilemma of trying to write the history of something that she "did not

want to conserve but on the eontrary felt engaged to destroy.1I411 Arendt's

solution to this problem entails the approaeh so many of her readers have

found to be laeking in unity.

Arendt elaims that she did not write lia history of totalitarianism" in any

chronologieal or standard sense, but rather lIan analysis in terms of history." She

points out that the third section of The Origins of Totalitarianism tG not so mueh

an historieal analysis as it is a phenomenologieal aeeount of "the elemental

structure of totalitarian movements and domination itself. H!Ia The historical

analysis appears in the first two sections of the book. Arendt insists. however.

that she "did not write a history of antisemitism or of imperialism" as Voegelin

suggests. Instead. these two sections are analyses of H Jew-hatred" and the

expansionist ethic of modern poUties. considered respectively as non-totalitarian

"elements whieh [eventually. though not inevitably] erystallized into

totalitarianism. N111

411 Arendt, -A Reply" (to Eric Voegelln), Revlew of PoIttlcs 15 (January 1953) p.n.

!IO !b!Q. p.78.

51 lbld. .

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26

Her analysis of these phenomena is unsystematic only in the sense that it

does not draw lines of continuity (Ieast of ail causal ones) that would connect

these "elements" to their totalitarian expression. Arendt consciously avoided

presenting totalitarianism as the culmination of underlying totalitarian or even

proto-totalitarian forces or processes in history. To do so would have been

tantamount, in her view, to presenting a deterministic view of history. That is, a

view that regards events as having an "essence" (preceding their existence)

which makes their appearance an historieal or logical inevitability. Since such a

view of history denies the possibility of genuine freedom, it is one that Arendt

emphatically rejects.52

Arendt's apparently unsystematic analysis of and approach ta the Western

tradition is also informed by the determination not to provide "salvation" or

"justification" to her subject matter. Arendt does not attempt to conserve the

tradition by reflecting on what it was and means. Instead, these reflections are

"engaged to destroy," not the tradition gm U, but the lasting hold it has over

people's minds.53 This approach is clearly evident in the collection of essays

Between Past and Future.

ln the preface to this work Arendt explains that her essays are "exercises

52 Arendt's vlews on hlstory and Its proper study are complex and Ile outslde the scope of thls thesls. Her most thorough treatment of the subJect Is "The Concept of History" ln Batwten Past and Future. pp.41-90. For crltlcal discussion of Arendt's approach to the study of hlstory see David Luban MExplalnlng Dark Times: Hannah Arendt's Theory of Theory," Social Research 50/1 (Sprlng 1983). pp.215-248; Judith Shklar "Rethlnklng the Past,· Soçlal Ruearch 44/1 (Sprlng 1977). pp.80-90; and Paul Ricoeur ·Actlon, Story and History: On Re-readlng the HUman Condttlon,- SalmaQundl60 SprlngjSummer 1983). pp.60-71.

53 Arendt argues that the deslre as weil as the attempt to 'destroy' or break frae trom the tradition Itself was an Integral aspect of thls tradition. The ressons for and consequences of such rebellions agalnst the tradition ln the modem age will be dlscussed ln chapter tlve.

, .1

[whose] only aim is to gain experience in how to think." She continues:

they do not contain prescriptions on what to think or what truths to hold. Least of ail do they intend to retie the broken thread of tradition or to invent some newfangled surrogates with which to fill the gap between past and future. lM

Instead, these exercises combine criticism and experiment in an attempt:

to discover the real origins of traditional concepts in order to distil from them anew their original spirit which has so sadly evaporated from the very key words of political language -- such as freedom and justice, authority and reason, responsibility and virtue, power and glory ... l1li

27

Arendt's critical approach to the tradition entails a conscious attempt to

avoid conserving the very thing she wants to destroy, that is, the continuing

hold of traditional ways of thinking on the human mind. It is this concern which

accounts, in part, for her rather eclectic and apparently unsystematic approach

to the tradition as weil as many other topics.1III With this in mind, Arendt's

reflections on and criticisms of the tradition can be readily followed and

understood.

114 Between Past and Future, p.14.

55 IbId, p.15.

118 ln opposition to the charge that Arendt's thought la unaystematlc, Richard Bemsteln pointa out that such a vlew rests on a narrow and typIr.ally mcv:tem conception of ·system· as denotlng a closed deductlve scheme. This vlew, he Inslsts, "Is clearty a caricature.· Instead, phAosophy can be thought of as systernatlc ·In the sense ln whlch what a thlnker has to say concernlng any one central theme or Issue has direct and Indirect loglcal and theoretlcal Implications for other themes and Issues.· Seen from thls perspective, Bemsteln argues, the ·systematlc quallty" of Arendt's thought Is slmllar to that of Artstotle's. He points out that ln ail of Arendt's work there Is ·a systematic web of concepts whlch Is constantly belng elaborated, reflned, and put to the test.· See, Richard Bernstein, ·Hannah Arendt: The Ambigulties of Theory and Practlce,·ln Terence Bali (ed). poInlcsl ThaoN and PraxiS;

...... New persDeCtlves. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 19n. pp.144-145.

B) The Advantage of the 'Break' with Tradition:

For Arendt, tradition, in a generic sense, constitutes an important

structural element of the past which:

puts the past in order, not just chronologically but first of ail systematically in that it separates the positive from the negative, the orthodox from the heretical, that which is obligatory and relevant from the mass of irrelevant or merely interesting opinions and data.1I7

28

ln contrast to both Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, however, Arendt will not

attempt either to reaffirm or to recover anything of the "Iost" tradition. She

believes that it is neither possible nor desirable to do so. "The non-deliberative

character of the break," she insists, "gives it an irrevocability which only events

never thoughts can have. "III

For Arendt, 'he great tradition" refers to the Western tradition of political

thought. According to her interpretation, the outstanding characteristic of this

tradition is that it has not involved political thinking at ail. Instead it deals

philosophically with matters that have little or nothing to do with politics properly

speaking. Arendt insists that:

this tradition, far from comprehending and conceptualizing ail of the political experiences of Western mankind, grew out of a specific historiesl constellation: the trial of Socrates and the conflict between the philosopher and the gQܧ. It eliminated many experiences of an earlier past that were irrelevant to its immediate political purposes and proceeded until its end ... in a highly selective manner.·

117 "Walter Benjamin,· Men ln Park Times. pp.198-99.

III Betwaen Past and Future, p.27.

( ae HUman Condition, p.12.

Although there may be reason to disagree with particular aspects of

Arendtts interpretation of the tradition,eo it would be a mistake to read her

criticisms as diagnostic or therapeutic attempts to address what went wrong

29

with the tradition, as though she believed in and favoured a different tradition.

Nor should her frequent criticisms of traditional concepts and ways of thinking

throughout her writings be construed as an attempt to tldebunktl the tradition.el

Arendt writes about the tradition only in order to expose it for what it was. She is

not interested in presenting an alternative tradition (i.e. what it might or should

have been) or in discrediting the tradition of the past two and a hait thousand

years as having been something less than what it was.

Arendtts quarrel with tlthe great traditionlt rests on her conviction that this

tradition, however it has been interpreted and despite its greatness as a

tradition, is informed by a tlconceptual frameworktl of concepts and categories

which are incapable of addressing the issues of practical active life and which,

in fact, obscure these issues. Her critical reflections on the tradition are directed

therefore at exposing the ubiquitous and generally unacknowledged

presuppositions of its conceptual framework.

Arendt's critique of these presuppositions is based on her conviction that

eo ln hls study of Arendt's poIltlcal thought, Bhlkhu Parekh cautions that Arendt's account of the Western tradition Is tlmarred byexaggeratlon· and tlls not as homogeneous as she Imagines." Hannah Arendt Ind the S.rch for 1 New poIngl Phlosophy. (New Jersey: Hurnanltles Press, 1984). p.51. Parekh, however, has great sympathy for Arendt's anempt ta free poIltlcal thought from the tradltlonal orientation ta whlch It has for 50 long been bound. He has wrltten an excellent summary ci Arendt's Interpretation ~ the tradition ln whlch he dlseusses the basls for her hostHIty toward It. See hls revlew of The Llfe of the..M!!!d; tlDoes Tradltlonal Phllosophy Rest on a Mistake?,· (PoIttlcal Studles 27/2). pp.294-300.

el Between Past and Future, p.14.

( 30

they are "metaphysical fallacies" derived from the experience of philosophieal

contemplation and not from the experienee of politicallife. Arendt insists that,

since these metaphysical presuppositions usually remain submerged and

unexamined, they have prevented and continue to prevent a proper

understanding of the realm of human affairs. It should be emphasized that these

presuppositions are not a deviation from or distortion of some truer, more

authentie tradition. On the contrary, they constitute the very basis of tradition as

such. It is for this reason that Arendt, far from lamenting the "Ioss" of the

tradition, actually celebrates its absence.

Arendt observes that the break with the tradition cou Id in a certain sense

"be an advantage· since it may promote lia new kind of thinking that needs no

pillars and props, no standards and traditions to move freely without crutches

over unfamiliar terrain." The break with the tradition provides us with the great

opportunity:

to look upon the past with eyes undistracted by any tradition, with a directness which has disappeared from Occidental reading and hearing ever since Roman civilization. •

Arendt's celebration of the break with the tradition is based on her

conviction that its presence has been a formidable obstacle to interpreting both

the past as weil as present experience. The break with tradition means that the

authority of the tradition has lost its hold on us. Arendt notes, however, that

·with the world as it is, it is difficult to enjoy this advantage ..... Her celebration of

82 ·On Humanlty ln Dari< Times: Thoughts about Lessing,· Men ln Dari< Times. Hereafter clted as -rhoughts about lessing.· p.10.

1 113 Between Past and Future, pp.28-29 . ... lM -rhoughts about Lessing·, p.10.

31

this event is tempered by the realization that although "the great tradition" has

run its course and is effectively a thing of the past, its legacy still retains a

powerful claim over most of present thinking. For the break with the tradition

has not necessarily ended people's reliance on traditional categories and ways

of thinking. In fact, Arendt suggests that, since the "hold [of the tradition] on

Western man's thought has nover depended on his consciousness of it, Il quite

the opposite appears to be the case.

[I]t sometimes seems that this power of well-worn notions and categories becomes more tyrannieal as the tradition loses its living force and as the memory of its beginning recedes; it may even reveal its full coercive force only after its end has come and men no longer even rebel against it.15

It is clear from this passage that Arendt attributes the "power of well-worn

notions and categories" to inattentiveness among people who employ them. The

lasting hold of the tradition on people's minds is the result of their unreflective

adherence to traditional ways of thinking, that is, to habit and custom.18 This

sounds Iike a truism and yet, it remains unclear what Arendt means by

traditional ways of thinking and how these relate to our contemporary

understanding of the world. The next section will attempt to address both these

18 Between Put and Future, pp.25-26.

18 To avold mlsunderstandlng, It should be poInted out that Arendt, far from denounclng habit and custom for belng unretlectlve, considera bath to be necessary and Integral features of any well­ordered communlty. Arendt, how8Ver, follows Montesquieu ln dlstlngulshlng between customs, whlch -govem the actions of man,- and laws, "whlch govem the actions of the cltlzens. - Bath customs and the social morallty they constltute have their foundatlons ln 'awfulness, - that Is, in the -politicai frarnework"' of the communlty. In a situation d poIltlcal crlsls, where 'aws are no longer held valld,­nelther tradition nor custom can be trusted to ensure the safety of society agalnst radical social change. Arendt argues such a crlsls accompanled the radical changes ln the wortd durlng the Industrlal revolution wlth the result that ·soclety, although It WBS stHI able to understand and to Judge, could no lor,ger glve an account of Its categories of understanding and standards of Judgment when they were serlously challenged.· rUnderstanding, - pp.384-385. See also; -rhoughts about Lessing,­pp.10-11) The lnabllity of ·socl~ wlthout poIitlcs to glve an account of Itself ln the face of radical change, 18 the subject of the flfth chapter.

f ..

32

questions by means of an account of Arendt's conception of IIthe great

tradition. Il This account will also prepam the way for the argument, introduced in

the previous chapter, that for Arendt the essence of the contemporary crisis of

understanding is politica!.

C) The Tradition:

As mentioned, Arendt's critical reflections on the tradition focus on what

she refers to as its "conceptual framework." By this phrase Arendt means a

particular way of looking at the world of human affairs rather than any particular

set of concepts. It is a way of looking at the world which attempts to organize ail

experience according ta the criteria of consistency and universality demanded

by the experience not of politics but of philosophical thinking.

According to Arendt, the ·conceptual framework" of the tradition consists

of the hierarchical ordering of the world of thought (the ma contemplativa) over

the world of practical human affairs (the ~ ~). It has its origins in the "valid

human," but non-political experience of the philosopher, Plata. This was the

experience of not simply a difference or a tension, but the outright opposition

between the theoretical, contemplative pursuit of philosophy and the practical,

active pursuits of human affairs in the QQI§.

ln other words, the dichotomy between the relativity of human affairs ... their futility, mortality, and ever-changing motion, and absolute truth whose permanent light iIIuminates this futility.11

11 "Tradition and the Modem Age,· Partisan Revtew 22 (January 1954). p.73. This essay was revtsed and later publlshed ln Betwten Past and Future under the original tltle. Approxlmately two pages of tm 'rom the original essay (pages 73 and 74) do net appear ln the revlslon. Therefore the passage quoted above does not appear ln Between Past and Future.

33

Arendt elaims that Plato was the first to eoneeptualize the differenee

between theory and praetiee in terms of an ontologieal hierarehy.1II Plato derived

this hierarchy from his diseovery that it is somehow inherent in the philosophieal

experienee to require a complete withdrawal from the world of human affairs to

a point of utter passivity. For the philosopher, possessed by the love of truth,

eomes to reeognize that "pleasures like displeasures, distract the mind and lead

it astray, that the body ~and henee the world] is a burden if you are after truth."111

Arendt views politieal philosophy as essentially a philosopher's politieal

philosophy. She sees the whole Western tradition as vitiated by the attitude of

"withdrawal" from the world:

Politieal philosophy neeessarily implies the attitude of the philosopher towards polities; its tradition began with the philosopher's turning away from polities and then returning in order to impose his standards on human affairs.7O

This philosophieal, theoretieal attitude of withdrawal from the world in the

name of r.:e;1ain and unehanging 'truth' is an attitude whieh, Arendt argues,

eharacterizes the whole Vv'estern traditioll of politieal philosophy. Unfortunately, it

is an attitude whieh is un able to understand or to appreeiate the inherent dignity

of polities beeause it does not and, more signifieantly, eannot take its bearings

from the world.

III Arendt clalms that Plato, ln hls Phaedrus. was the tirst to establlsh a hlerarchlcal order between a 'heoretlcal way of Ilfe- and a Ilfe devoted to human affalrs. Between Past and Future, p.115.

III Lectures on Kant's PoIitlcal Philosophy. Edited and wlth an Interpretlve essay by R. Seiner. (Sussex: The Harvester Press Ud., 1982). p.27. Hereafter cited as Lectures on Kant.

70 Setween Past and Future, pp.17-18.

. .....

1

34

The "valid experience" of "withdrawal" by the philosopher gives rise to a

series of what Arendt refers to as "metaphysical fallacies, Il the most general of

which she caUs the "metaphysical two-world fallacy." This fallacy is based on the

assumption that the sensually perceptible world of phenomena, what

philosophers have called 'Appearance,' requires a ground, not itself an

appearance, to generate and sustain it. In other words, the conceptual

framework of the tradition ascribes ontological primacy to Being over

Appearance. 71

According to this conceptual framework the essential (being) lies beneath

the surface and is hidden to the senses while the surface (appearance) is

'superficial' and possesses no independent reality of Its own. Accordingly, this

view holds that reality, whatever 'mere' appearances may indicate to the

contrary, Is in essence a rational, indivisible whole to which ail things ultimately

cohere. It assumes, in other words, the unity of thought and being. Arendt

declares that, up until Hegel, 'he whole of Western philosophy ... despite ail its

variety and apparent contradictions ... had not dared to doubt that being and

71 Arendt formLlates the metaphyslcal two-wortd fallacy as conalstlng of; "the basic distinction between the sen.ory and the suprasensory, togethar wtth the notion, at leest as oId as Parmenldes, tha! whatever Is not glven to the senses - God or Belng or the Flrst Prlnclples and Causes (arehaD or the Ideas - Is more real, more truthful, more rn6Inlngful than what appears, that It la not Just bayond sense perception but ~ the world of the aenses.-rThlnklng,- p.10).

Arendt mentions other metaphyslcal talllcles as weil. She clalms that the most basic metaphyslcal fallacy conslsts ~ conceMng of Balng (reallty) on the model of truth. The -oidest and most stubborn· of these fallacles Is the ascrlptlon of a hlgher rank of reallty to causes CNer thelr affects. It Is the metaphyslcal two-wortd fallacy, however, that commands Arendt's greatest attention. (For her discussion of thase and other metaphyslcal tallacles 888; lb!d. pp.12, 15, 22, 25, 45, 197-198).

35

thought are identical.,,72

It should be noted that by the phrase "metaphysical fallacy" Arendt does

not mean a "Iogical or scientific error" but rather the mistake of interpreting the

experience of thought as thought about experience. Su ch fallacies are the result

of neither sophistry nor solipsism, but are mistakes that arise from the "actual

experience of the thinking ego in its conflict with the world of appearances. H

Arendt does not deny that each one of them has its authentic root in some

experience. She merely doubts that such experience has anything to do with

politics.73

Arendt's critique of the metaphysical fallacies rests on her conviction that

there is no 'higher' reality than the one humans experience with others in public,

political association. Arendt argues that the metaphysical presuppositions

underlying the traditional view of human affairs are in inherent conflict with the

human experience and articulation of phenomena. For while the former attest to

the singular unity, that is, absolute sameness of ail existence, the latter are

characterized by relativity and difference. The first is the product CJf philosophical

contemplation, arrived at in solitude and silence. The second is the result of

experience in association and communication with others. These two

72 "What la Exlstenze Phnosophy?," panlyn Baytaw 8/1 (Wlnter 1946). p.34. Arendt expllcat .. the rational basla ~ thla vIew ~ reallty further on ln thls essay. "The unlty ~ Seing and thought presupposed the pre-establlshed colncldence ~ essence and existence, thet, namely, everythlng thlnkable alao exista and thet fNery existent, because It Is knowable, must also be rational." (p.38).

73 'Wllllng,' p.55. In her Introduction to the flrst volume of The Ufe of the Mlnd, Arendt explalns that thls conviction WBS one of the main Inspirations behlnd her attempt to wrtte a separate study on the mental actlvltles. (C.f. -rhlnklng", pp.6-9). This was a task she had been conslderlng for sorne years. Ses her commenta at the Conference held on her thought at York University ln 1972; ln Melvyn Hill (ecI). Hannah Arendt: The R8CQVerv of the PUblic Wartd. (New York: St. Martins Press, 1979). pp.306.

( experiences, philosophie and political, are mutually exclusive as experiences;

one cannot legitimately be accounted for or understood in the terms of the

other. Vet this is precisely what Arendt claims that the Western tradition has

claimed to do for two and a half thousand years.

36

The philosopher's desire for 'truth' and certainty gives rise to his

characteristically hostile attitude toward the world of human affairs (the llim

activa). The philosopher looks on the relativity and apparent disorder of the

human world with contempt. More significant for the tradition of politiesl

phllosophy, however, is the philosopher's hostility towards political action in

particular. Arendt claims that the philosopher is "exasperated" with what Arendt

identifies as "the threefold frustration of action. "74 Arendt's conception of political

action will be discussed in detail in the next chapter. For present purposes, we

are concerned only with those features of action which Arendt claims frustrate

philosophers.

The first frustration arises from the fact that the outcome of political action

is both unpredictable and "boundless". This is because every action takes place

within an already existing "web of human relationships" which means that it

cornes into contact with the innumerable conflicting wills and intentions of

others. The result is that "action almost never achieves its purpose. ,,78 Second,

the processes initiated in action (by virtue of entering into the web of human

relationships) are irreversible. Once one has acted " one cannot un do what one

74 HUma" Condition, p.220.

( 75 lbld. p.184.; C.f. pp.190-91. -4

37

has done though one did not, and could not, have known what he was doing. u711

The third feature of action with which philosophers are particularly displeased,

according to Arendt, is the anonymity of its authors. For the unpredictable

boundlessness of action means that although the agent who set the whole

process in motion may be identified "we can never point unequivocally to him as

the author of its eventual outcome."77

It is by virtue of these qualities that political action appears to the

philosopher as both capricious and dangerous. Its qualities of unpredictability,

irreversibility and anonymity are not simply different from, but antithetical to the

eternal and universal verities of philosophy. Arendt states that "the calamities of

action," mentioned above, "all arise from the human condition of plurality."

Significantly, she adds that, since plurality is the condition 0 QWl mm for the

public realm, "the attempt to do away with this plurality is always tantamount to

the abolition of the public realm. "7'

Arendt argues that the conflict between politics as action and philosophy

has made it a great temptation for philosophers "to find a substitute for action in

the hope that the realm of human affairs may escape the haphazardness and

moral irresponsibility inherent in a plurality of agents."711 ln slightly more

emphatic terms, Arendt declares that the Western tradition "cou Id easily be

78 IbId. p.237.

77 ibid. p.185.; C.f. Between Pas, and Future, p.84.

71 Huma" Condttlon. p.220.

78 lbld. p.220.

(

(

38

interpreted as various attempts to find theoretical foundations and practical

ways for an escape from politics altogether. MIO She elaims that the hallmark of ail

such escapes Is to be found in Plato's introduction of the concept of rulership to

poUties.

Arendt points out that for the aneient philosopher, Plato, the realm of

human affairs in general was a realm of "darkness, Il while politics in partieular

was eharacterized by "confusion and deception."I' Neither labour, work, nor

action possessed any inherent dignity but were considered to be necessary

evils to serve life, build a world and order the affairs of men, respectively.12 ln

eontrast to this shadowy world of the "cave, Il Plato affirmed the existence of a

standard independent of and higher than the temporal human condition. Above

ail else, it was the function of politics, according to Plato, to organize the affairs

of men in the ggIi& according to this transcendent standard in order to make the

city am for philosophy.

10 IbId. p.222 .

• 1 IhW 17 J.WIW' p. .

12 Arendt dOIS not argue that Plato, or Arlstotle after hlm, doubted that the Greek gglII possessed a dlgnlty of Its own. Both these phllosophers were awere that the ggUa wes the place d po/ltlcal freedom. What dlsturbed each d these phlosophera, haNeYer, wes the turbulence and uncertalnty that such freedom entaHad. Nelther phlosopher consldered action (po/ltlcs) to be the distinctive human capaclty. Plato underatood the dlfference between theoratlcal and practlcal pursults as constltutlng not Iimply dltferent occupations or actlvltlea, but -dlfferent ways d Ilfe. - Arendt clalms that It WBI thls aspect d Plato's po/ltlcal phlosophy, d Identlfylng actlvltles wlth ways d Ilfe (b!œ) whlch establlshed the dlchotomy between thought and action as -a prlnclple d rulerahlp ... between men as weil. - Arlstotle, whlle dlsegreelng wlth central aspects d Plsto's po/ltk3 phlO8Ophy, 'oilowed hlm ln the main- by separatlng theory and practlce Into two distinct "ways d Ilfe- and acceptlng -as a matter of course- the hlerarchlcal order Implled ln It. tBetween Past and future. p.115-116; C.f. Human Condition, p.24).

39

According to Arendt, Plato established the theoretical foundations for an

"escape" from politics when, in The Republic, he "identified the dividing line

between thought and action with the gulf which separates the rulers from those

over whom they rule. HI3 From that point on, Arendt insists, the conflict between

philosophy and politics has been conceived in terms of hierarchy of the WB

contemplativa over the ~ activa.

By this account, ail the activities of human affairs are subordinated to

assisting in the moral life of the gglla.14 The true guardian of the city-state,

according ta this view, is not the citizen, but the ·king-philosopher" or ruler. He

alone knows the true good and may guide IIthe many, Il if not into virtue (the

preserve of the "few") then at least away from immorality and evil.18 Since Arendt

attributes the origins of the Western tradition to Plato's political philosophy, her

interpretation of its implications for political thought deserves close attention.

Arendt argues that, before he wrote The Republic, Plato's doctrine of

ideas ·[had] nothing whatever to do with politics, political experience and the

problem of action but pertained exclusively to philosophy, the experience of

contemplation, and the quest for the 'true being of things. 'II Arendt points out,

however, that Plato, far trom dismissing the political realm out of hand, -took

human affairs so seriously that he changed the very centre of his thought to

13 Between Past and Future, p.223.

14 Human Condttlon, pp.112-14.

15 Between Past and Future, pp. 1 07-115. Arendt emphaslzes that phHosophlcal Justification for the concept of rule -rests on a suspicion of action rather than on a contempt for men, and arose tram

........ the earnest deslre to flnd a substttute for action rather than tram any Irresponslble or tyrannlcal wHI to power: Huma" Qondttlon. p.222.

".'

40

make It applicable to poUtics. "II

The change in Plato's philosophy came in response to the trial and death

of Socrates and achieves its paradigmatic expression in the cave parable of The

Republic. Arendt argues that, initially:

the philosopher leaves the cave in search of the true essence of Belng without a second thought to the practical applicability of what he is going to find. Only later, when he finds himself again confined to the darkness and uncertainty of human affairs and encounters the hostility of his fellow human beings, does he begin to think of his 'truth' in terms of standards applicable to the behaviour of other people.87

ln The Bepublic, Plato substituted the idea of the "Good" for the earlier

idea of the "Beautiful" to represent "the highest idea." ln possession of the idea

of the Good, the philosopher returns from "the sky of ideas" to the cave where

he, "[as] a man among men •.. must tal<e his truth and transform it into a set

of rules, by virtue of which transformation he may then claim to become an

acteal ruler -- the king-philosopher .... For Arendt, this shift in Plato's philosophy

marks the origin of a story about a viewpoint which makes philosophy the

measure and polltics the measured. This is the story of the Western tradition.

Arendt argues that Plato's application of the doctrine of ideas to polltics in

The Bepublic, his transformation of the idea of "the Good" into "standards,

measurements, and rules of behaviour, Il is based on the on the substitution of

making for acting. Arendt states that Plato wished "to s'-Jbstitute making for

• ibid. p.113.

87 IhW 1WIIII. p.112.

f '. .. ibid. p.114.

---

-,

41

acting in order to bestow upon the realm of human affairs the solidity inherent in

work and fabrication. • Whereas action is unpredictable and boundless beeause

it requires the active engagement of others, the activity of "work" is performed in

isolation and has a limited, predietable end.

Arendt contends that the assumption that human affairs should be rulm:I,

subjected to an order whose standard lies in thought outside the "public realm"

of politieal adivity, denigrates the validity and self-defining integrity of public life

by redueing polities to an instrumental adivity. Rulership entails the

displaeement of the standards arrived at by public debate and deeision with the

standard and mentality of the craftsman, Arendt's homo mœr, who is guided in

his eraft by an idea or a model (ejdos) whieh is fixed. unehanging and

permanent. The consistent tendency of the Western tradition to coneeive of

polities as a speeies of making. to apply the instrumentalist standards

eharaderistie of fabrication to the realm of poUtiesl action. is central to Arendt's

critique of its philosophieal attitude and approach to politics.1O

Arendt points out that the substitution of making for ading as a solution to

"the calamities of adion" is to be found with "remarkable monotony ...

throughout recorded history." Arendt attributes the popularity of this

• Human Condition, p.225; C.f. 8ft"n Past and Future, p.118. Arendt points out the Ironie faelthat although ... he poIltlcaJ phUosophles of Plato and Arlstotle have domlnated ail subsequent poIltlcal thought,· nelther of them tool< thelr bearlngs trom "Valld poIltlcal experlence.· (Between Past and Eutur.I, pp.106, 105). The absence of rulershlp ln the anclent Greai< gg!!J, (about whlch more will be sald ln the next chapter), meant that nelther Plato nor Arlstotle after hlm sought examples trom the poIltlcal realm. Instead, ln thelr attempts to formulate the best way to organlze human affalrs, each of thase thlnkers took thelr ·examples and models ... trom a pre-poIltlcal sphere, trom the private realm of the household and the experlences of a slave economy.· (Human Condition, p.225).

10 Between Past and FutUre, pp.110-18, 215-18.; HUman Condition, p.220-30.

. \.

42

instrumentaUst view of poUtics to the "elemental simpUcity of the matter." Stated

brlefly. thls is the conviction that men may be sheltered from "action's

calamities" only by ensuring that "one man. isolated from ail others. remains

master of his doings from beginning to end. It is this latter feature of making or

"work" which has been most important in the development of the concept of

rulership in poUtics." It is a feature. however. whose Janus face appears with a

vengeance in the modern age.

To summarize. the preceding discussion reveals three central elements or

features to Arendt·s conception of the Western tradition. The tirst is the

postulation. born from the experience of philosophising. that the life of the

philosopher (contemplative thought) is superior to any and ail of the active

affalrs of men. This separation and hierarchical ordering of the m contemplativa over the ~ activa corresponds to the second feature of the

tradition. that is. the postulated identity of thought and being. This assumption

leads to what Arendt calls "the metaphysical fallacies.· The most general of

these is the "metaphysical two-world fallacy· which opposes reality. conceived of

as eternal and unchanging Being. to -mere' appearances. Finally. the thlrd

feature of the conceptual framework of the tradition Is the intellectual and moral

orientation toward political activity to which these two presuppositions give rise.

This is the traditional view of politics which regards it as an instrumental. goal­

oriented activity.

Arendt·s criticism of the traditional view of politics begins with her

{ 111 Humao Condftlon. p.220 . •

-

43

conviction that it Ittakes its bearingslt not from the experience of political activity

but from the experience of philosophical contemplation. Philosophieal thinking

mistakenly interprets the experience of thought as thought about experience.

Su ch interpretation has led philosophy to substitute its own distinctive

experiences for those of the worldly phenomena from which such thinking

withdraws.

The basis for Arendt's critique of the tradition lies in her conviction that

Itevery human activity, including thinking, is a determinate activity and as such

has a definite structure, generates its own distinctive experiences of the world,

and has a built-in bias."12 Arendt maintains that the tendency of philosophers to

regard the experience of contemplative thought to be paradigmatie for

experience in gerleral results from an inherent bias in the thinking activity itself

which leads them to both a false conception of the nature and purpose of

philosophy and a misguided view of the world of phenomena.83

The philosopher's bias is the product of the experience of thinking which

withdraws from the world of appearances into the serenity and order of the

mental "gap" of "non-time-space" discussed in ehapter one. The most pernicious

112 Bhlkhu Parekh, "Does Tradltlonal PhMosophy Rest on a Mistake? (Revlew d The LIfe d the Mlnd)· Pallical Studln, op. clt. p.295.

83 Arendt contends that the welght glven to the contemplative mode d thought by the Westem tradition haslargelyobscured and dlmlnlahed the slgnlflcance d the tact that rnost thlnklng la discursive. Thil la the basls for the distinction that she makn between 'hlnklng" and "knowIng.- (S .. note #21). Arendt's last work, The Llfe of the Mlnd, lB largely devoted to uncoverlng a plethora d tensions, mlsconceptlons and out-rlght errors that have reUted from the tendency d phMosophers to thlnk non-dlscurslvely about thlnklng. The occaslonal attempts by phMosophers to correct the mlsunderstandlngs of thelr predecessors do not address thla partlcular Issus, accordlng to Arendt, untM Heidegger and, ln partlcular, Jaspers. For a fine summary d Arendt's vlews on the bult-In blases of thlnklng, see Parekh, op. clt. pp.295-296.

(

(

44

result of su ch bias Is the metaphysical thesis of a 'true' being behind 'mere'

appearances with which the philosopher returns to the world. The philosopher

desires to live in a world that is as serene and orderly as his mind, and in which

order is secured, as it is in his mind, by establishing a hierarchical relationship

of command and obedience.

ln Arendt's view, the experienee of philosophical (and religious)

contemplation, is not Just unpolitieal, but anti-political sinee it is an experienee

that leads the philosopher to seek order and security in a world eharacterized

by diversity and accident. The authority of the philosophieal tradition has led

thinkers (not only philosophers) almost invariably to look upon polities as

nothing more than a means of maintaining order among humans." The principal

means of seeuring sueh order has been to establish a hierarehical relationship

between rulers and the ruled whieh subordinates the self-defining integrity of

politieal activity to the achievement of non-pelitical ends. More speeifically,

Arendt holds that the metaphysical assumptions of the tradition, as weIl as the

view of polities it inspires, destroy the conditions for pelities, that is, freedom

and plurality.

lM When Arendt speaks ~ 'authorlty,' she dOIS not mesn 'authorlly ln general,' but rather the authorlty ~ the Western tradition. For Arendt, authorlty la -more then ldvIce and 1811 than a command, an advIce whlch one may not eafely Ignore.- ha phlosophlcal roots Ile ln the hlerarchlcal relatlonship ~ cornmand and obedience. (Ietwean Post and FutUre. pp.123, 93). Arendt Insista, however, that the experIence whlch gave rIse to thls understandlng ci authorlty Is poIltlcal. net phlosophlcal ln orIgln. -Authorlty as we once knew It,· Arendt argues, ·graw out ~ the Roman experlence d foundatlon understood ln the Iight ~ Greai< poIltlcll phlosophy. - The crlsls d authorlty that accompanles the modem age, Is rooted ln the phlosophlcallegacy d thls experler.ce; an experIence whlch the Romans wert the tlrst to cali by the name ~ 'tradition.' Q.bId. pp.92. 141).

..,..,.

45

For Arendt, the source of human freedom arises from what she caUs the

human condition of IInatality,1I by which she means the human capacity to begin,

inherent in political action. According to Arendt:

freedom, which only seldom -- in times of crisis or revolution -­becomes the direct aim of political action, is actually the reason that men live together in political association at all.Without it politicallife as such would be meaningless. The raison d.:ê1œ of politics is freedom, and its field of experience is action.1II

As we will see in the next chapter, Arendt opposes the traditional view of

freedom as an "inner" faculty (the will or reason) or private lIinward space where

the self is sheltered against the world. "III Instead, Arendt ho Ids that freedom is

strictly a political phenomenon; the appearance of "new beginnings" in the

world.

Arendt argues that the philosophical basis and outlook of the Western

tradition eliminates novelty (freedom) and essential difference (plurality) from the

range of meaningful experience by interpreting these phenomena as

expressions of and reducible to an underlying, imperceptible reality which is

eternal and unchanging. As a result, $iccident and diversity have not been

considered seriously in this tradition, except as something to be eradicated

either through force or else through some form of conformity.

Arendt insists that the metaphysical conception of reality as Being makes

philosophers both unwilling and unable to account for the appearance of

genuine novelty in the world. For if reality is a rational, completed whole, there

III lbld. p.146 .

18 lbld. p.146.

46

can ~ nothing new. As Arendt says, quoting Karl Jaspers, "in philosophy,

novelty is an argument against truth." 17 The metaphysical assumptions of the

Western tradition have also led philosophers to regard the fact of difference and

diversity among men as an indication of error and hence as an obstacle to truth.

This dsnigration of human plurality finds its most common expression in the

philosophically conceived notion of 'human nature' in which the 'truth' of men,

or rather, of 'Man,' lies ïlitbin or above and not between men.- The virtual

absence of celebration for the genuine plurality of persons is, in Arendt's

opinion, perhaps the most pernicious legacy of the Western tradition of political

philosophy.

Arendt is convinced that the philosophicallegacy of our tradition of

political thought has, quite literally, conceptualized politiesl experience out of

existence. For it has betrayed and definitively obscured the diversity,

contingency and hence meaningfulness inherent in the realm of human affairs.

ln short, the Western tradition has been and continues to be not simply

inadequate, but completely at odds with its subject matter. It follows that any

thought that remains bound to the outlook and demands of philosophiesl

thinking will fail to understand politics as weil as a whole realm of experience

that stands outside, neither above nor below, philosophiesl truth. In the next

chapter we will examine Arendt's alternative to the treditional conception of man

and his humanity.

17 -Kart Jaspers: Citizen of the WorId?, - Men ln park Dmes. p.85.

- 1 owe thls succinct formulation to Bhlkhu Parekh, -Does Tradltlonal PhHosophy Rest on a Mistake?,­op. clt. p.298.

47

CHAPTER THREE

Arendt's Alternative to The Tradition

A) The Vita Contemplativa and the Vita Activa:

As was discusseJ in the previous chapter, Arendt maintains that the

hierarchical ordering of the ~ contemplativa (theory) over the ~ ~

(practice) has determined the charaoter and outlook of the Western tradition of

political as weil as philosophical thought.

By sheer force of conceptualization and philosophical clarification, the Platonic identification of knowledge with command and rulership and of aotion with obedience and execution overruled ail earlier experiences and articulations in the political realm and became authoritative for the who le tradition of political thought, even after the roots of experience from which Plato derived his concepts had long been forgotten.-

Although Arendt does not doubt the validity of the philosopher's

experience which gave ri se to the separation of theory and practice she does

challenge the hierarchical ordering of this separation "inherent in [the tradition]

from its inception." Arendt asserts, "in manifest contradiction to the tradition,"

that while the concerns of the vita contemplativa are undoubtedly different from

those of the vita activa, they are in no way superior. Her criticism of the

hierarchical ordering of thought over practice rests on her conviction that the

predominance of the contemplative mode of thought in the Western tradition

- Huma" Condition, p.255.

-------- -------------

( 48

has both prevented an adequate understanding of the discursive character of

thinking and has "blurred the distinctions and articulations within the vita ~

itself."100

As mentioned in the last chapter, Arendt maintains that every human

activity, including thinking, is a determinate activity, and as such has a definite

structure, generates its own distinctive experiences in the world, and has an

inherent bias. According to Arendt, the bias of contemplative or theoretical

thinking is to regard the order and necessity of tt.s etEJrnal to be in every way

su peri or to the capriciousness inherent in the temporal and transitory character

of human existence. As a result of this bias, traditional thinking approaches ail

experience from the basic "assumption that the same central human

preoccupation must prevail in ail activities of men, since without one

comprehensive principle no arder could be established.· 'O'

Arendt is convinced that 'he great tradition" of Western political thought

stands as a barrier ta politically relevant thinking. She contends that the diversity

of activities within the llila activa aHest to the inherent relativity of human affairs

and cannot be understood by reductionist means. Throughout her writing,

Arendt is sharply critical of those philosophies and historical situations that have

taken the concerns and principles of one activity as the standard for

understanding or judging other activities. Arendt therefore turns her back on

philosophy in an attempt to recover the distinctiveness and inherent integrity of

'00 1bkI. p.17.

( 101 lbId.

,. ,

49

the various activities of the ~ mbla. In conscious opposition to the Western

tradition, Arendt's approach to the world of human affairs is highly pluralistic. 102

She undertakes to understand the realm of human affairs not from the

perspective and concerns of philosophy, but rather from the perspective of

political experience.

The basis for Arendt's pluralistic approach to the realm of human affairs,

that is, to experience both past and present, is her conviction that "each human

activity points to its proper location in the world." 103 We become aware of this

fact, according to Arendt, not by way of theoretical speculation, but through

language. Arendt insists that:

It is language, and the fundamental human experiences underlying it, rather than theory, that teaches us that the things of the world, among which the ~ ~ spends itself, are of a very different nature and produced by quite different activities.104

Arendt maintains that language, spoken and written, is more th an a

means of description, an instrument of perception or conveyor of knowledge.

Most significant for Arendt, language discloses the phenomenal richness of

experience in the world. Words, unlike theory, retain their grounding in

experience, even when the original experiences from which they arise are no

longer felt. In the words of one critic, Arendt's predilection for making linguistic

distinctions enables her:

102 One of the flrst and best discussions of Arendt's plurallstlc approach to poIltlcs and poIltlcal theory Is Leroy Cooper's "Hannah Arendt's PoIltlcal Phllosophy: An Interpretation," Rev1ew of Po!ltlcs 38/1 (January 1976). pp.145-176.

103 HUman Condition, p.73.

104 lbId. p.94.

( to find withln our existing language more shades of meaning than we are commonly aware of when we use different words as synonyms. Her claim is that the very existence of ail these different terms testifies that the experiences they describe were known to our forefathers, even if we have ceased to notice them. tOI

. Arendt draws upon language as a repository of experience in an attempt to

50

provide an account of human activity that is more faithful to the experiences to

which they give rise. In particular, Arendt seeks to uncover the experience of

earlier ages and open up to us a range of human possibilities of which most of

us remain unaware.

Arendt's first major philosophical work, The Human Condition (1958),

contains her most extensive treatment of the ~~. In her attempt to

uncover the "distinctions and articulations" of the ~ activa, Arendt endeavours

to look not at how we are thinking, (which seems to be a central concern of the

Frankfurt School), but rather to examine "what we are doing," that is, to

reconsider, or re-tttink "the human condition from the vantage point of our

newest experiences and our most recent fears." ln the Prologue to this work

Arendt declares that her aim "is nothing more than to think what we are doing,"

and adds that "what we are doing" is the central theme of the book. tlll

As was mentioned in chapter one, Arendt holds that thought, to be

relevant to the realm of human affairs, must take its bearings from incidents of

living experience. Thus. in her attempt to 'hink what we are doing," Arendt turns

tœ Margaret Canovan, The PQUtical Thought of Hannah Arendt. (London: Methuen & Company Ud. 1974.) p.10. Canovan glves a fuller account of Arendt's concem for language on pp.53-54.

·f tOI! Human Condnlon, p.5 ..

51

her attention away from philosophy proper, the ~ contemplativa, and

confronts the experiences of the ~ activa. These experiences of what we are

doing, that is the experiences of human activities, are within the capacities of ail

humans. For this reason, Arendt calls them "the most elementary articulations of

the human condition. ,,107

Although Arendt does not mention it explicitly in The Human Condition,

the enabling impulse behind her attempt to "think what we are doing," is her

conviction that the traditional articulations of human experience have lost ail

plausibility. It is in this sense that the events of the modern world, and the

unthinkable horrors of totalitarianism in particular, have signified the "break" with

the tradition. In less dramatic prose, Arendt is convinced that contemporary

experience has exposed the inability of the tradition to render a meaningful

account, let alone en able us to understand, the worth and purpose of human

activity in the world.

Arendt's reflections on the modern disjuncture between thought and

reality, understanding and experience are expressed most succinctly in the

Prologue to The Human Condition. These reflections concern what she caUs "a

crisis within the natural sciences" which has been engendered by "the first

boomerang effects of science's great triumphs." Arendt views this crisis as

having a dual aspect. First, the 'truths' of modern science can be proved only

technologically, that is, by putting them into pradice. Second, the recent 'truths'

of science, particularly in the field of sub-atomic physics, can be demonstrated

107 ~. p.S.

( only mathematically, that is. in abstract symbols which ·will no longer lend

themselves to normal expression in speech and thought. M'oe

Arendt concludes these brief reflections with the rather alarming

speculation that:

it could be that we, who are earth-bound creatures and have begun to aet as though we were dwellers of the universe, will forever be unab!e to understand. that is. to think and speak about the things which nevertheless we are able to do.'"

52

Arendt emphasizes that this crisis within the natural sciences is ·of great

poUtical significance" because the relevance of speech is at stake. 'Wherever the

relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for

speech is what makes man a political being .• 110

Immediately following these brief refleetions on our present ability to Q.Q

what we can no longer understand, Arendt states that she intends to reconsider

the human condition in light of our most reeant experiences. "This." she

continues, ·obviously is a matter of thought. and thoughtlessness -- seems to

me among the outstanding charaeteristics of our time.· Despite this striking

pronouncement, however. Arendt says absolutely nothing more in The Human

Condition about thoughtlessness. In fact she states almost immediately after the

above quote that "the activity of thinking, is left out of these present

considerations .• ",

'01 lbId. p.3.

1(111 lbId.

110 !b!d.

,{ , li lbId. p.s.

53

ln The Human Condition as weil as in the rest of Arendt's work the

subject of thoughtlessness is given almost no treatment by her. This is not

because Arendt believed that the subject was unimportant. On the contrary, as

her reflections on the unprecedented nature of totalitarianism and her criticisms

of the Western tradition clearly demonstrate, Arendt displays greater concern for

the status of thinking in the world than most writers.

The point, however, is that Arendt's primary concern is not with the

inability of thought to account for modern experience, but rather with the nature

of modern experience as it presents itself to thinking. In a sense, her attempt IIto

think what we are doing" is an attempt to return thinking to the world of

experience. This relationship between thinking and experience is exemplified in

Arendt's account of ~he human conditionll which she offers as an alternative to

the tradition. This account will be examined presently.

At the end of the Prologue to The Human Condition, Arendt tells us that

her analysis is twofold. On the one hand, she delineates the basic aspects of

~he human condition" and its corresponding activities. and on the other. she

traces the origins of modern world alienation. These two lines of analysis are

integr~ted to a considerable degree, although the final chapter of that work

deals more specifically than the others with the historical origins of modern

world alienation. Arendt·s account of these origins and their implications for

modern understanding will be examined in detai! in the next two chapters. The

rest of this chapter will examine Arendt·s account of the human condition.

( 54

B) The Human Condition:

ln The Human Condition. Arendt conceives of active life. "the wa activa."

as distinguished by three types of activities: labour. work and action. Her

discussion of these activities is preceded by a discussion of the distinction

between the public and the private spheres of activity and the significance of

this distinction for her conception of politics. The ove rail context for these

reflections is provided by a preliminary account of "the human condition."

Arendt writes about the human condition and sharply distinguishes this

from human nature. "The human condition is not the same as human nature

and the sum total of activities and capabilities which correspond to the human

condition do not constitute anything like a human nature. _II. Arendt does not

deny explicitly that such a thing as a human nature might exist. She merely

suggests that such a conception is irrelevant to politics. It is politically irrelevant

because it is not in prir/~iple a matter of knowledge or opinion, but a matter of

faith. The issue of its existence, Arendt insists. is ·unanswerable in both its

individual psychological sense and its general philosophical sense." The only

sense in which it might be settled is "theologically. within the framework of a

divinely revealed answer.""3

Implicit in her argument is the conviction that the concept of human nature

amounts to a denial of human plurality. a refusai ta confront the Inherent

diversity and relativity of ail things human. Arendt distinguishes the question

112 IbId. pp.9-10.

( 113 IbId. pp. 10, 11 note #2.

........

55

"what" man is from the question of "who" he is. She argues that each individual

appears as a unique human being only insofar as that individual is not simply a

what. but also a D. Arendt insists. however. that if by means of the concept of

a human nature; we attempt to say who we are. we become a what. Only a God

would be able to speak of a who as though it were a what. 114 Most significant. in

this context. is Arendt's conviction that the who each person is. is not a matter

of personal knowledge (i.e. introspection) or the result of intimacy. It is instead

the result of acting and speaking together with others in the public realm of

politics.

Arendt's rejection of the concept of an eternal. unchanging "human

nature" can be traced to her masterful analysis of totalitarianism and. in

particular. of the Nazi concentration camps. Towards the end ot The Orjgins of

Totalitarjanjsm Arendt argues that the experience of the concentration camps

had revealed that:

human beings can be transformed into specimens of the human animal, and that man's "nature' is only "humant insofar as it opens up to man the ~ossibility of becoming something highly unnatural, that is, a man. 115

When Arendt exhorts a few pages later. "Human nature as such is at stake." a

phrase to which Eric Voegelin took great exception, she does not mean the

term in the traditional sense of human "essence.' Rather, she is clearly referring

to the totalitarian attempts to eradicate the worldly conditions for an authentically

114 lbld. p.10 .

115 Orlgins, p.455

( 56

human existence. Il'

Arendt posits three "basic conditions under which life on earth has been

given ta man." Ta each of these basic conditions corresponds one of the three

fundamental human activities. The latter will be discussed separately after

examining Arendt's account of these basic conditions. The tirst basic human

condition is life itself, the biological process of the human body with its cyclical

rhythm of growth, metabolism and eventual decay. The second condition is

"worldliness," the "unnatural," man-made world of things.111 The third basic

condition is human plurality; "the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and

inhabit the world." Politically speaking, plurality is the most significant aspect of

the human condition. Intimately connected with these three activities and their

corresponding conditions is the most general condition of human existence;

birth and death, natality and mortality. Il'

Arendt argues that in addition ta the conditions under which life is given to

man on earth, and partly out of them, men also ·constantly create their own

self-made conditions.· These self-made conditions have the same conditioning

power as the given conditions. 'Whatever enters the human world of its own

n. ibid. p.459. The exchange between Voegelln and Arendt on the subJect ci Arendt', reference to 1 thr8ltened "human nature". publlshed ln Ravin or PoIftJcs, 15 (January 1953) op. clt. pp.68-85. That Arendt was referrtng to the conditions tor belng human rather than human essence la ct.r frorn Arendt's precedlng analysls (only four pages before her comment on human nature) concernlng the totalltarlan systematlc assaub on the "Juridlcal," "moral" and finally "lndlvldual" penon. C.t. Qrlglns pp.447-i55.

117 Although Arendt Introduces the concept ci wortdllness as'he man-made wortd ci thlngs," we will see presently that her conception ci the "Wortd" Inducles net JUst thlngs, but a1so human relatlonshlps that arise ln the space or "In-between" that the existence of worldly obJects makes possible.

( 1 Il !b!d.. pp. 7-8.

"

accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human

condition." Arendt therefore declares that "men, no matter what they do. are

always conditioned beings." She points out, however, that the conditions of

human existence cannot "explain" what we are or answer the question of who

we are because "they never' condition us absolutely." 111

C) The Vita Activa:

57

Arendt's account of the lUta activa generally and of political Ufe in

particular, is based primarily on her interpretation of ancient Greek life. By far

the most significant feature of this interpretation is her distinction between the

pUblic and private realms ()f human activity which she derives from the poUtical

experience of the pre-philclsophical Periclean ggfi&. "At the root of Greek poUtical

consciousness we find an unequalled clarity and articulateness in drawing this

distinction. "'20 The most important feature of the distinction between the public

and private realms is that it designates the modes of concern and proper

location of human activities.

Arendt points oue that the ancient Greek city state (Athens) '1unctioned

without a division between rulers and ruled. fi Indeed, she insists that the concept

and practice of rulership was unknown in the political sphere. '2' This is because

the Athenian political, public sphere consisted entirely of free and equal citizens

111 ibid. pp.9. 11.

120 IbId. p.37.

121 Between Past and Future, p.19; HUman Condition. p.32.

( 58

whereas the concept of rule lm plies that someone or something be ruled, that is

to say, it implies inequality. According to the self-understanding of the pre­

philosophieal Greeks, the realm of inequality was the private realm of the

"household" (gü).

1) The Private Realm:

For the Greeks, the household realm was considered to be the realm of

darkness harbouring those activities which were Imerely' neccesary, futile and

shameful. The content of private life was defined exclusively in terms of

neeessity since the activities within this realm concerned only "economie"

matters "related to the life of the individual and the sUNival of the species. "'22

The necessitous character of the private realm made it non-political by

definition. '23 Private life, according to ancient thought, meant literally, the "state

of being deprived" of something essential to a truly human life. Indeed, the

Greeks considered private life, that iSI a life removed trom the common and

spent in the privacy of "one's own" (jdion), to be "idiotie" by definition. '24

Since, by necessity, ail matters of "housekeeping" demanded

administration and planning, the realm of the household was eharacterized by

the conditions of inequality and rulership. The relationships within the household

were those of "natural association" among those who were not equal. In

122 HUman Condition, p.29

123 By way d emphaslzlng the non-poIltlcal status d the prlvate realm, Arendt states that for anclent Gree!< thought "the very term poIltlcal economy wouId have been a contradiction ln tanns.· <tbld.)

( 124 ,,,1.04 !.WIW' p.38 . ..

i \ ~,

(

59

particular, the Greek household was headed by the master (the paterfamilias, or

dominus) who ruled over his household of slaves and family with complete

authority. For Arendt, as for the ancient Greeks, it is the absence of freedom

and equality in the private realm that marks it as inherently unpolitical.

ln Greek self-understanding, to force people by violence, to command rather th an to persuade, were prepolitical ways to desl with people characteristic of Iife outside the 12Q1ii, of home and family life, where the household head ruled with uncontested, despotic powers. '211

Although the ancient Greeks conceived of the private realm strictly in

terms of its opposition to the public realm they did not see the two realms as

completely unrelated. Rather, in the ancient Greek city state, the public and

private realms stood in an uneasy relation of interdependence. For "the

mastering of the necessities of Iife in the household was the condition for

freedom of the 12Q1ii. NI211

Arendt also points out that the private realm is not restricted to Just hiding

activities which are necessary, Mile or shameful, that is, those activities which

might compromise the freedom and equality of the publie realm. The private

realm also possesses its own intrinsic value as that space which harbours and

protects those human qualities, su ch as emotions and motivations which could

125 W. pp.26-27. Arendt argues that the use of force and violence ln the prlvate realm WBS Justlfied by the sheer urgency of meeting the demands of necessity. "Because ail human belngs are subject to necesslty, they are entltled to violence towards others; violence 18 the prepolltlcal aet of llberatlng oneself trom the necesslty of Ilfe and for the freedom of the wortd." (lbld. p.31).

-no- 128 !bk;(. pp.30-31.

( 60

not su:vive the vigorous scrutiny of public Iife.127

ii) The Public Realm:

ln contrast to the private realm of economic necessity, the public realm of

polities is the realm of equality and freedom. For Arendt, the ~ represents the

public sphere of politieal life, the only sphere to be characterized by freedom.

"What ail Greek philosophers ... took for

granted is that freedom is exelusively located in the politieal realm. ,,121

This is the realm where freedom is a worldly reality, tangible in words which ean be heard, in deeds whieh can be seen, and in events which are talked about, remembered, and turned into stories before they are finally incorporated into the great storybook of human history.'21

ln contradistinction to the Western tradition of thought, Arendt insists that

freedom is not a private faculty (i.e. the will or reason) within the individual, but

the publicly shared condition of individuals acting together in concert. Arendt says

both that "the raison d:mœ of politics is freedom" and that ·its field of experienee

is action." Indeed, Arendt adds that "man would know nothing of inner freedom if

he had not first experienced a condition of being free as a worldly tangible reality.

We first become aware of freedom or its opposite in our intercourse with others,

127 The human emotlons such as love, pit}' and compassion as weil as the motives undertylng human behavlour are among the thlngs whose nature It Is not to appear. They are therefore 50 cornpletely prlvate as to be "worldless·. Arendt suggests that the "most elementary meanlng" of the public and prlvate realms "Indlcates that there are thlngs that need to be hldden and others that need to be dlsplayeel publlcly If they are to exlst at ail." (lbId. p.73).

128 IbId. p.31.

( 121 Between past and Future, pp.154-155.

, , , j

1 ; j ;

,

not in the intercourse with ourselves."'3O ln light of these considerations, Arendt

holds that:

the philosophical tradition ... has distorted, instead of clarifying, the very idea of freedom such as it is given in human experience by transposing it from its original field, the realm of politics and human affairs in general, to an inward domain, the will, where it would be open ta self-introspection. 131

61

According to Arendt, the term "public" signifies two distinct but closely

interrelated phenomena. It means first, the public "space of appearance" which

testifies to the reality of what is. For Arendt, the reality of everything that is,

including one's own identity, de pends ultimately on the fact that it appears and is

experienced by others. Arendt maintains that:

Only where things can be seen by many in a variety of aspects without changing their identity, sa that those who are gathered around them know they see samenass in utter diversity, can worldly reality truly and reliably appear. Under the conditions of a common world, reality is not guaranteed by the 'common nature' of ail men who constitute it, but rather by the fact that, differences of perspectives notwithstanding, everybody is always concerned with the same object. '32

Arendt's conviction that reality, bath of self and world, depends upon

"publicity," the fact that it is perceived in common with others, stands in direct

opposition to the traditional view of reality as the non-appearing source of ail

130 !b!d. pp.146, 148. Arendt's critique of the notion of -Inner" freedom Is to be found on pp.145-152, 157. It should be noted that Arendt's point ln crltlclzlng the notion of -Inner" freedom Is not to deny Its existence so much as to emphasize that, apart from tlmes of crlsls or revolutlon, the experlence of such freedom Is poIltlcally Irrelevant because It does not appear ln the wortd. (C.f. lbid.. p.146.) One of the best analyses of Arendt's conception of freedom Is Ronald Belner's essay, -Action, Natalltyand Citlzenshlp: Hannah Arendt's Concept of Freedom, -In Z. Pelezynskl and J. Gray (ads). Conceptions of Liberty ln PoIltlcal PhllosODhy. (London: The Athlone Press, 1984). pp.349-375.

131 !b!Q., p.145.

132 Human Condition, pp. 57-58.

62

appearances. In conscious opposition ta traditional, metaphysical conceptions of

reality, Arendt insists that the public, shared quality of reality means that,

politically speaking, "being and apoearing cOincide. "'33

For Arendt the public realm also designates "the world itself insofar as it is

common to ail of us and distinguished trom our privately owned place in it."

Arendt's reflections on "the world" clearly delineate the political 'essence' of the

public realm. Firstly, the world is not identical with the earth or with nature. '34 For

human beings, she insists, "are not just in the world they are of the world. ,,1311

Secondly, the reality of the world depends entirely on its "public" character.

Arendt contends that:

without a space of appearance and without trusting in action and speech as a mode of being together, neither the reality of oneself, of one's own identity, nor the reality of the surrounding world can be established beyond doubt. ,.

The reality of the world is inseparable from its public character and it is this

"publicity" of the world which makes it a common world.

Arendt says that the destruction of the common world, and hence, of one's

sense of reality, occurs when the plurality of p~rspectives is destroyed. This may

133 Between Past and Futyre, p.194; Arendt's most succinct treatment of the relatlonshlp between Belng and Appearance Is ln ïhlnklng,· pp.19-30. Of partlcular Interest Is Arendt's rellance on the work of the Swiss blologlst Adolf Portmann to support her position that the tradltlonal hierarchy between belng and appearance, between that whlch Is hlclden and that whlch appears, should be reversed. ln IIght of Portmann's flndlngs, Arendt asks:

Could It not be that appearances are not there for the sake of the Ilfe process but, on the contrary, that the Ilfe process Is thore for the sake of appearances? Sinee we live ln an apD8lrlng wortd, Is ft not mueh more plausible that the relevant and the meanlngfulln thls wor1d of ours should be located preclsely on the surface? (!bjQ. p.27) .

..r 134 Human Condition, p.52.

Il!! ïhlnking,· p.20.

138 Human Condition, p.208.

, ..

63

happen in many ways. In the context of the present discussion, Arendt mentions

two conditions which destroy the plurality of perspectives; "radical isolation" or

mass conformity. Each finds its respedive political counterpart in tyranny, which

is divisive, and "mass society" which multiplies a single perspective and eliminates

diversity. "In both instances," Arendt contends, "men have become entirely

private, that is, they have been deprived of seeing and hearing others, of being

seen and heard by them. "'37

Finally, and diredly related to its public character, the main characteristic of

the world with respect to the individuals who share it is that it is more permanent

than they.

It is what we have in common not only with those who live with us, but also with those who were here before and with those who will come after us. But such a common world can survive the coming and going of the generations only to the extent that it appears in public. It is the publicity of the public realm which [preserves] through the centuries whatever men may want to save from the natural ru in of time.'31

It is the enduring presence of man-made objeds, the fad that they remain

unchanged over time, that permits the different people in the world, each with his

own unique perspedive, to experience a common reality. Arendt also points out

'37 lbld. p.sa. In a dlfferent context, Arendt luggests that the coerclve force of truth (both loglcaljphllosophlcal and factual) also Is destructive of a plurallty of perspectives. The trouble wlth truth 18 that It compels Immediate acknowledgment and precludes debate. Whereas debate constltutes the very essence of poIltlcalllfe, truth can brook no dlverslty, and regards ail opinion as error. As Arendt states:

'38 lbld. p.55.

The modes of thought and communication that deal wlth truth, If sean trom the poIltlcal perspective, are necessarlly domlneerlng; they don't take Into account other people's opinions, and taklng thase Into account Is the hallmark of ail strlctly poIitlcal th in king. teetween Past and Future, p.241).

that only within this shared reality, this condition of ·worldliness," can human

plurality reveal itself as the condition of unique and equal individuals.'·

84

Arendt insists, however, that the world, while distinct from earth or nature,

is not restricted to man-made objects. Neither fabricated objects, nor their

organization is sufficient to create a distinctively human world. The world,

according to Arendt, exists in two aspects: the tangible world of human artifice

and the intangible world of human affairs. It is the interdependence of these two

features which gives the world its "public· character and makes it an enduring

"common world. H

To live together in the world means essentially that a world of things is between those who have it in common, as a table is 10C8ted between those who sit around it; the world, Iike every in-between relates and separates men at the same time. 14O

The relationship between these two aspects, tangible and intangible is one

of interdependence, but Arendt seems to give priority of rank to the tangible. She

says that the whole factual world of human affairs, by which she means action

and speech, depends for its reality and continued existence on its being first

perceived by others, remembered and then reified ·into the tangibility of things·

(i.e. works of art). For ~he reality and reliability of the human world rest primarily

on the fact that we are surrounded by things more permanent than the activity by

which they were produced, and potentially even more permanent than the lives of

138 Although Arendt does not draw attention to It, the human condition d wortdllness alrnost appears as l!lI human condition. For ln Its domaln, ail other conditions, blrth and death, dlstlnctlveness and equallty (I.e. plurallty) the earth, and Ilfe Itself are present. It Is IIkely, however, that Arendt would have objected to thls Interpretation slnee It Is an exemple of the reductlonlst approach to phenomena thet SM so strongly abhorred.

1.0 Human Condition, p.52.

" , ,

'&

65

their authors."141 This qualification will prove to be significant when we turn to

consider Arendt's reflections on modern world alienation. For it underscores the

fact that, for Arendt, world alienation is a condition of the modern age, and not

merely a 'feeling' of nct belonging to the world.

iii) Labour: 142

The activity corresponding to the condition of life is "labour"; the basic

behaviour imposed on man by the necessity to survive, to live. Arendt follows

Marx, whom she calls "the greatest of the modern labour theorists," in

characterizing labour as "man's metabolism with nature." She de parts radically,

however, from Marx's understanding of this activity as "the expression of the very

humanity of man."143 Arendt argues that, since labour is the human mode of

meeting the demands of necessity common to ail living things, this activity cannot

be the "expression" of man's "humanity."

For Arendt, as for the ancient Greeks, man's humanity exists only to the

extent that he is able to distinguish himself from (and thereby transcend) the

cyclical rhythm of natural processes. The activity of labour, however, cannot

distinguish man because it is the very quintessence of a natural process. Labour

is that basic exertion required by biological, natural necessity for both the

maintenance of individual life and the survival of the species. Labour, like the life

141 IbId. pp.95-96.

142 1 have taken the liberty of substltutlng 'labour' for 'Iabor' ln quotlng Arendt.

143 !bJd. pp.93, 101.

( 66

process it serves, is both necessary and cyclical, performed in endless repetition

and inherently futile. This twofold character of labour, its necessary and repetitive

character, gives ri se to the naturalness of this activity as weil as its inherent

futility.

Arendt considers the inherent futility of the labouring activity to be its most

outstanding feature. People produce and consume according to their needs and

wants, or according to the needs and wants of others, in an endlessly repetitive

cycle. The activity of labour has, properly speaking, neither beginning nor end

since "labour and consumption are but two stages in the ever-recurring cycle of

biologicallife." I44 Although the products of labour, such as a loaf of bread, are

intended for use, the use to which they are put literally uses them up, destroys

them at once. Since the products of labour remain within nature's domain they

are perishable and must be consumed immediately, otherwise they will

deteriorate. As a result, a kind of urgency akin to the urgency of life infects both

labour and its products. '.a

Going hand in hand with the futility of labour, is its naturalness, its character

of necessity. "To labour [means] to be enslaved by necessity:'· Labour is

concerned solely with maintenance and most fundamentally with the maintenance

of life itself. It is subject to neither choice nor decision. This activity therefore does

not give ri se to either the subjectivity of individual reflection nor to the objectivity

144 Huma" Condition, pp.98, 99.

145 lbld. p.87.

(' 148 ~. p.83.

67

of the world. In the labouring process meaningful distinctions do not appear.

It follows that, to the extent that he labours, man appears not as an

individual, but as an undifferentiated member of the species, "mankind." Such a

man, Arendt argues, is not fully human. He is the animal laborans, producing and

consuming according to his needs and wants in an endlessly repetitive cycle. 141

Since subjectivity and objectivity are virtually undifferentiated in the labouring

process, both self and world have only potential existence for the animal

laborans; they are not yet real. 141

Arendt claims that the Inherent futility of labour means that it is "worldless."

For labour produces nothing that has independent existence or significance

peculiar to man by which to distinguish him from unworldly nature. "The animal

laborans," she insists, "does not flee the world but is ejected from it in so far as

he is imprisoned in the privacy of his own body, caught in the fulfilment of needs

in which nobody can share and which nobody can fully communicate .• 1. ln the human condition of IIllfe" man as animal laborans does not ri se

above his natural surroundings. He is more or less identical with nature and

enslaved by its claims of cyclical necessity. To the extent that he is capable of

building an lIunnatural" human world, man must liberate himself, however

temporarily, from the necessity of labour.

Without taking things out of nature's hands and consuming them, and without defending himself against the natural processes of growth and decay, the animallaborans could never survive. But

141 !b!d. p.47.

148 !bkt. p. 96-98,

1411 !bkt. pp.118-119.

( without being at home in the midst of things whose durability makes them fit for use and for erecting a world whose very permanence stands in direct contrast to life, this life would never be human. '110

iv) Work:

68

Arendt argues that only the presence of man-made objects, the "human

artifice," can shelter man from the elementary forces of nature and thereby

bestow some measure of permanence and stability upon the otherwise futile and

transitory quality of human life. It is the "objectivity" of the human artifice, its

"relative independence" from nature that has 'he function of stabilizing human

Iife."'!!1

Only we who have erected the objectivity of a world of our own from what nature gives us, who have built it into the environment of nature so that we are protected from her, can look upon nature as something ·objective.· Wrthout a world between men and nature, there is eternal movement. but no objectivity. ,.

The human activity corresponding to the human condition of worldliness is

·work .• 113 This is the activity of bœIla fabIr. man the fabricator or maker •• 'he

1110 l.bJd. p.135.

151 l.bJd. 136.137.

152 IW. p.137, C.f. p.97.

la Arendt Is aware that her distinction between labour and work la unuauaI and that very faw thlnkers ln the tradition have made It. In the few cases where such • distinction ho been made, as for Instance ln the case of John Locke who spoke of "the labour of our bodies and the work of our hands· the distinction has never played a major part in poIltlcal phlosophy. Arendt clalms, however, that "the phenomenal evldence in (favour of maklng the distinction) Is too strlklng to be Ignored.· CIhI HUman Condition, pp.79-80).There la the fact that the distinction between work and labour WBS Impllelt ln anclent Greek thought whleh dlstlngulshed between the ·craftsman· and the slave who laboured ln the service of necesslty. Cver and aboYe thls fragment d hlstorlcal evldence, haNever, stands the fact that:

wery European language, anclent and modem, contalns two etymoIoglcally unrelated words for what we have come to thlnk of as the same actlvlty, and retalns them ln the face of thelr persistent synonymous us..age. ~. p.80.)

69

builder of the world.· '1M The guiding principle of homo fabm is that of utility. He

produces "objects of use" which are designed and intended to last. The use to

which a product of work is put does not, as is the case with labour's products,

immediately consume or destroy it. When used properly and not abused, a work

product, such as table or chair, lasts a long time, otten longer than the life of its

maker. Arendt claims that this durability is the most important feature of homo

fabm's products.

Human life, in so far as it is world-building, is engaged in a constant process of reification, and the degree of worldliness of produced things, which ail together form the human artifice, de pends upon their greater or lesser permanence in the world itself. '1111

Although Arendt admits that even the products of work will inevitably wear out,

she insists that destruction lOis incidental to use but inherent in consumption." The

fact that man-made objects do not last forever means only that "the durability of

the human artifice is not absolute. ,,1.

Arendt characterizes durability in terms of that which opposes or "stands

against" the unreflective, monotonous course of nature. Unlike the animal

laborans, homo fabm knows that he is a mortal individual distinct from eternal

nature. For the durability of the human artifice "cuts through" and interrupts the

endlessly circular recurrence of natural processes and thereby gives rise to the

distinctively human conception of rectilinear temporality. It is the rectilinear

IIM !b!d. p.160.

1l1li lbld. p.96.

1511 lbId. pp. 138, 136.

( 70

course of Its movement that distinguishes individuallife, a life-story from birth to

death, from ail other things. "This, Il says Arendt, "is mortality: to move along a

rectilinear line in a universe where everything, if It moves at ail, moves in a cyclical

order."'117 For Arendt, It is bgmg fabm's awareness of his separateness from

nature, from his species existence, that ultimately appears as the most important

difference between him and the animal laborans.

Unlike labour which has neither beginning nor end, the activity of work has

both a definite beginning and a predictable end. Work has its beginning in the

mental image or model (.eidoa) which precedes and guides each stage of the

fabricating activity. These guiding images, in contrast to the materials provided by

nature, outlast the stages of fabrication and cannot be destroyed by their

reification. The independence of these mental images in the mind of homo fabm:

give rise to the distinction between subject and object, self and artifice that enable

bœl.Q fabe.r to transcend the natural, one-dimensional subjectivity of the animal

laborans.

Classically, homo fabAr, the craftsman or fabricator, works in isolation,

removed from the cares and demands of the public. He stands, however, in a

mediated position between public and private realms. To the extent that the

products of work ail have a shape through which they appear, -homo fII:mr is

quite capable of having a public realm of his own." This public realm is not a

polltical realm, however, but rather the marketplace of barter and exchange.'11

'57 lbId. p.19 .

• ( 'SI Human Condnlon, pp.160-161 . ....

While his products are publicly displayed, ho.rnQ fIbm himself does not stand in

the same relationship to the public realm as do his products. He must remain

sheltered from the glare and demands of the public realm if he is to continue to

produce and add durable, useful and beautiful things to the world. IIII

v) Action:

71

According to Arendt, the category which denotes "public" activity within the

m activa is "action,," Action denotes the class of activities that go on directly

Hbetween men without the intermediary of things or matter." Action is

fundamentally, although not exclusively political activity. The political quality of

action is found in the fact that it, unlike work or labour, requires the participation

of others, and is never possible in isolation. Indeed, Arendt asserts that lOto be

isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.· Although action may be initiated

by an individual, once the beginning is made, action is collective. 1.,

Action corresponds to the human condition of plurality; "to the fact that

men, not Man, live on earth and inhabit the world."'81 ln action, human plurality is

disclosed such that individual identity, the ·who· each of us is, is revealed before

the audience of our peers. Arendt claims that the desire to appear before others

and be recognized as a unique individual is a phenomenon which characterizes

ail fully human relationships.

1118 Betwee" Past and Future, p.217.

110 Huma" Condition, pp.7, 188.

181 !bId. p.7.

( Every individual is seen to be strongly actuated by a desire to be seen, heard, talked of, approved and respected by the people about him, and within his knowledge.'12

72

The human condition of plurality has the two-fold character of equality and

distinction. Plurality combines the sameness of the species and the diversity of its

particular members such that "we are ail the same ... in such a way that nobody

is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives or will live."''''

Arendt is careful to distinguish equality from sameness. Sameness

characterizes men only to the extent that ail are members of a single species

IIMan.1I Sameness is a condition which reduces the many into one and recognizes

no distinctions. It is therefore a natural condition of human existence and prevails,

as has been noted, in the activity of labour. Equality, on the other hand,

characterizes men as individuals and consists in the capacity ail men share for

acting in concert with others. Arendt derives her understanding of equality from

the Greek jsonomy, which she interprets not as equality of condition, but instead,

as a condition which makes men equal. Isonomy signifies not the common man

but rather what is common in man. UM What is most common in man, according to

Arendt, is the capacity for speech and action. It is because men are equal that

they are able to understand each other; to share a common past and plan for a

common future. The condition of equality is not a fact of birth but rather the

collective human achievement of citizenship.

'12 On Revolution. New York: Viking Press, 1963. Revlsed second edltlon, Harmondsworth: Penguln Books Ud., 1965. p.119.

'83 Human Condition, p.e.

,... On Revolution, pp.30-31.

Equality. in contrast to ail that is involved in mere existence. is not given us. but is the result of human organization insofar as it is guided by the principle of justice. We are not born equal; we become equal as members of a group on the s1ren~h of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights. '

73

The equality of men is balanced by the second characteristic of plurality,

distinctness. Although ail men belong to the same species, and ail are equally

capable of acting and speaking, no two men are ever interchangeable as

individuals nor are the points of view from which they see the common world ever

the same. Arendt contends that human distinctness is related to but quite

different from "otherness" (alteritas) which characterizes everything, animate or

inanimate that is. In man "otherness" and "distinctness" become "uniqueness

because only man is able to express distinction as such, that is to distinguish

himself. Only man "can communicate himself and not merely something."

Speech and action reveal this unique distinctness. Through them. men distinguish themselves instead of being merely distinct; they are the modes in which human beings appear to each other, not indeed as physical objects. but Qua men. 1

•

Arendt conclu des that the equality of individuals makes communication among

men possible. while the uniqueness of each individual makes it necessary. Thus

human plurality is nm political condition of men because it is the basis of action

and speech.

The distinction that Arendt makes between action, the public performance

of deeds. and speech, the public speaking of words. is often subsumed by her

under the single term of "action". Arendt maintains that action and speech while

185 Origlns, p.301.

1l1li Human Condition, p.176.

(

1. '.

74

not identical are inseparable. Ali action either is, or is accompanied by, speech.

"Speechless action, Il she states, "would no longer be action because there would

no longer be an actor, and the actor, the doer of deeds, is possible only if he is

at the same time, the speaker of words."117 Action, as the public performance of

deeds, needs speech ta have bath subject and meaningfulness.

Most of Arendt's commentators accept her distinction between speech and

action with little or no comment. Indeed, it seems obvious that speech, the public

discussion and telling of stories about events, is a form of action related to, but

quite distinguishable from action as the public performance of deeds and initiation

of events. And yet, Arendt's insistence that speechless action is not action seems

ta effectively undermine the distinction between the two.

Sorne critics have argued that the distinction between action and speech,

as Arendt portrays it, simply will not do. John S. Nelson, for example, interprets

Arendt's conception of action as "virtually pure speech. Ml. In a similar vein,

George Kateb argues that for Arendt ta insist that speechless action is not action

proper is tantamount ta viewing speech as the "one true mode of political action."

Kateb concedes that sorne deeds, as "physical actions" may be regarded as a

sort of "symbolic speech," but he suggests that such a conception of action is

187 Human Condition, pp.178-179.

181 John S. Nelson, ·PoIltlcs and Truth: Arendt's Problematlc·, Amerlcan Journal of PoIltlcal Science 22 (May 1978) p.290.

75

too narrow to account for most human deeds. 1111

It is true, of course, that we do not ordinarily think of speech and action as

being synonymous. Speech is perhaps most commonly regarded as something

people do when they do not act. Action, on the other hand, involves more th an

mere talk, it involves human beings physically doing something. It seems,

however, that the common tendency to view action and speech as mutually

independent is based on a misunderstanding of the 'nature' of action. This is the

mistake. characteristic of the Western tradition, of construing action as a species

of making. that is. as work. It is the experience of work, not action which gives

rise to a separation between speech and 'doing something.' For work is

speechless; it is performed in isolation and private. In addition to this, work, quite

unlike speech, produces tangible, useful things designed to last. To the extent

that one maintains a separation between action and speech one is no longer

talking about action. For without speech:

action loses its specifie character and becomes one form of achievement among others. It is then indeed no less a means to an end th an making is to produce an object.Ho

Arendt contends that action, conceived of as 'doing something' Jacks its

speeifically human character if it is done in silence. Such activity appears then,

not as deeds performed by men. but as the brute physicality of speeies

behaviour. SpeeehJess action takes on an instrumentaJ character and Jacks the

1111 George Kateb, Hannah Arendt: PoIltlcs. Conscience. Evll. (New Jersoy: Rowtand and A1lenheld 1983). p.15. See also, Kateb's essay "Freedom and Wortdllness ln the PoIltlcal Thought of Hannah Arendt", PoIltlcal Theorv, 5/2 (May 19n). p.155. This essay, sllghtly revlsed and expanded, appears as the tirst chapter of PoIltlcs. Conscience. EvH.

170 Human Condnlon, p.180.

,

(

1{

76

quality of being done for its own sake. Furthermore, the human condition of

plurality, suggests that, in the absence of the persuasive power of speech, any

cooperation that human activity involves must rest on either habit (i.e. conformity)

or the threat of violence.

According to Arendt, the conviction that speech and action are inseparable

has its origins in pre-Socratic thought. Before the ri se of the ancient Greek ~,

"speech and action were considered to be coeval and coequal, of the same rank

and the same kind." This is because, in the older pre-Q.Ql.i§ experience and

'tradition,' speech, like action, was concerned with immortalizing the great deeds

and words of men, by assuring their remembrance by posterity.171 It is in this

sense that the Homeric Achilles, "the doer of great deeds and the speaker of

great words," is paradigmatir of tt-lp, political actor for Arendt. In a similar vein,

Arendt regards Pericles as hl' " r ""d when he enshrined the glory of Athens

throughout the ages in his fune. ~ 1 0' ation to the Athenian people. In the case of

Pericles, his action was not a 'deed,' but rather lay in ''finding the right words at

171 Between Past and Future, p.41. The deslre and attempt to "Immortallze" the words and deeds of men was a central concem of the g. The g has thls 'functlon' by vlrtue of belng a place of "organlzed remembrance.· Arendt, followlng the anclent Greeks, points out that "ta Immortallze" dld not refer ta a bellef but to an actlvlty. For the Greeks of the pro-philosophlcal J2Qll&, the Immortallzlng actlvlty was poIltical action and was an attrlbute of the ggU§ Itsetf. To appear ln the public realm, that Is, ta dlstlngulsh oneself, ensured that mortal men could achleve a form of "earthly Immortallty" ln the public memory for generatlons to come. Before the rlse of the anclent Greek city state the task of Immortallzing fell to the poets. After the decllne of the ggU§, however, thls task was undertaken by the hlstorlan (e.g Herodotus) who sought"to save the mortal deeds of men trom the futNIty that cames from obllvlon." Although Arendt retums tlme and agaln to thls theme, It concems her conception of poIltlcs to an axtent that lies outside the scope of thls present essay. It should be noted, however, that Arendt flnds the loss of and Interest ln poIltlcs to be dlrectly related to the fact that for modem hlstorlcal consclousness, "nothlng Is forever," not aven nature, wlth the result that "lm mortal It y has ned the worid." See "The Concept of History,· ln Between Past and Futurj!. pp.41-90. An Insplred stucly of Arendt's reftectlons on the theme of Immortallty Is David luban's "Explalnlng Dark Times: Hannah Arendt's Theory of Theory", Social Research, 50 (Sprlng 1983). pp.21S-248.

.. 77

the right moment, quite apart from the information or communication they may

convey.",n ln another context, Arendt portrays a similar understanding of speech

as action in terms of the ancient historian, Herodotus, who undertook the

commitment "to say what is ... to testify to what is and appears . . . because it

is.,,'73

It was not until the foundation of the Greek city-state, and even more in the

political philosophy that sprang from it, that action and speech became viewed as

sepErate, independent activities.

The emphasis shifted from action to speec.h, and to speech as a means of persuasion rather than the specifically human way of talking back and measuring up to whatever happened or was done.,,114

ln light of her appreciation for this historical fact, it seems unlikely that the

distinction Arendt makes between speech and action concerns two different

modes of acting in public. Rather the distinction between speech and action

corresponds ta, and thereby iIIuminates the twofold character of action itself as

both revelation and initiative.

Human action is revelatory. When individuals meet in public one of their

primary concerns is ta seek out the identities of ather actors. It follows, according

to Arendt, that every human act must at the same time contain an answer to the

question "Who are you?" Arendt states that the disclosure of who the actor is, is

implicit in both his deeds and words. This disclosure can become explicit,

172 C.f. Human Condition, pp. 25-26.

173 Between Past and Futyre, p.229.

174 Hyman Condition, pp.25-26.

------------------------------------------------------

78

however, only through the latter in which the actor "identifies himself as the actor,

announcing what he does, has done and intends to do." Arendt therefore

attributes the revelatory capacity of action to speech.175

For speech to offer a genuine revelation, however, human agency must

disclose something unique and unforeseeable which marks a radical break from

what went before. In other words the revelatory capacity of speech requires the

element of novelty.178 This novelty consists of the initiative inherent in action. "To

aet, in its most ganeral sense, maans to take an initiative, to begin . . . to set

something into motion."177 Arendt observes that if, in the context of her distinction,

speech has a closer affinity to revelation that action does, then action has a

cl oser affinity to beginning. Speech therefore corresponds most closely to the

human condition of plurality 1 while action corresponds most closely to the more

general condition of natality. 171

Natality is a key category in Arendt's thought for it denotes the uniqueness

and freedom that she considered to be essential to human dignity. Indeed in

Arendt's work, the human experience of natality is elevated to a philosophie

thematic; it, along with the human condition of plurality, is the basis of her critique

of the tradition as weil as her non-traditional conception of action. It also serves

175 Human Condition, pp.178-179.

178 1 owe thls partlcular understandlng of the relatlonshlp between revelatlon and Initiative ln Arendt's thought to Ronald Belner, "Action, Natallty and Cltlzenshlp: Hannah Arendt's Concept of Freedom,· op. cit. pp.355.

171 Human Condition. 177.

178 J.nk.t. p.178.

79

as the inspiration behind her view that the unprecedented is possible in history.

Natality is a term coined by Arendt to denote bath the fact of human birth

and the human capacity for beginning. The human condition of natality therefore

has, unlike plurality, both prepolitical and political existence. Birth is an

announcement of new possibilities in the world because with the appearance of

each newcomer the unexpected can be expected. Thus the preliminary, pre­

political experience of natality is fundamentally a potentiality for the political

experience of natality, that is, of freedom.

With the creation of man, the principle of beginning came into the world itself, which, of course, is only another way of saying that the principle of freedom was created when man was created but not before.171

With the birth of a human being, the faculty for novelty and so freedom,

makes its first appearance in the world. Arendt's most succinct statement of the

relation between natality and freedom appears in a phrase from St. Augustine

whom she quotes often; "that there be a beginning, man was created before

whom there was nobody.,,180 ln action the miracle of human birth is reenacted.

For in word and deed men insert themselves into the world "and this insertion is

like a second birth, in which we confirm and take upon ourseh'cs the naked fact

of our original physical appearance ... 1.1 Action appears as a miracle, however, not

179 lQIQ. p.177.

180 Huma" Condition, p.177, "Understandlng", p.390. C.f. Between Past and Future, p.167 and Qn Revolution, p.211. It Is slgnlflcant that Arendt ends her analysls of totalltarlanlsm wlth thls quote from Augustine. In the concludlng paragraph of that work she refers ta the pre-hlstorlcal, pre-poIltlcal quality of "Beglnnlng" as "the supreme capacity of man" This capaclty, she adds "Is guaranteed by each new blrth; It Is Indeed every man." (Orlglns, p.479).

181 Hyman Condition, pp.176-177.

( 80

from the perspective of the agent, but from the perspective of natural or historical

processes whose automatism it interrupts by beginning something new and

unexpected.112

1\ is in the nature of every new beginning that it breaks into the world as an 'infinite improbability', and yet it is precisely this infinitely improbable which actually constitutes the very texture of everything we cali raal. Our whole existence rests, after ail, on a chain of miracles, as it were. 183

What is perhaps most striking about Arendt's description of action as a

miracle is her insistence that this miracle is a worldly phenomenon, the fact of

natality. In concluding the section on "Action" in The Human Condition, Arendt

writes:

The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, 'natural' ruin is ultimately the fact of natality. in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is in other words the birth of new men and the new bef~inning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope ... It is the faith in and hope for the world that found perhaps its most glorious and succinct expression in the f~w words with which the Go~els announce their 'glad tidings': 'A child has been born unto US.'1

According to Arendt, if the world were strictly natural, determined by inexorable

laws and automatic processes, human affairs would simply follow the inexorable

law of mortality and human history would be mere fatality. Action, as the

"actualization" of natality is miraculous because it saves the world from its natural

futility.1M

182 ll2!Q. p.246; C.f. Between Past and Futyre, 169.

t 183 Between Past and Futyre, p.169.

184 Human Conctnlon, p.247.

18!1 ll2lQ. p.246.

81

CHAPTER FOUR

The Collapse of the Public and Private

A) The Modern Age:

ln her reflections on "modernity," to use a broad and infelicitous term,

Arendt does not speak of a "modern tradition."'· Instead she refers to the

"modern age" and argues that although it was an age characterized by hostile

rebellion against the tradition, it did not succeed in breaking free from the

conceptual hold of this tradition. The modern age did not develop a new

tradition to replace the one it inherited, nor could it have done 50. For, despite

its pretensions to radical newness, the thought of the modern age remained

bound to the same conceptual hierarchy that had informed and guided the

thought and praetice of previous ages. The validity of this hierarchy, and of the

ontologieal separation of being and appearance on which it rested, did not

encounter a sustained philosophical critique untillate in the modern age. It was

not until the nineteenth century that events and developments 50 transformed

the conditions of the world and the human understanding of it "that a matter-of­

course reliance on tradition was no longer possible.",a7

Although Arendt does not put it in quite this way, the modern

,se Although It does not suit the purposes of thls thesls, Il Is both possible and legltlmate to Interpret Arendt as dlstlngulshlng between a "classlcal" and a "modern" tradition. Shlraz Dossa makes excellent use of thls distinction ln hls recent study of Arendt's poIltlcal thought. See hls The Pybllc Realm and the Public Self. (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1989). pp. 18-28.

187 Between Past and Future, p.26.

82

philosophical rebellions which mark the end of the tradition are based on a

much earlier and in a sense, more typical, rebellion of science against nature.

According te Arendt, both modern philosophy, which attempts to place man in

the position of "Master of Seing," and modern science, "which looks upon

nature from a universal standpoint and thus acquires complete mastery over

her," are characterized by a rejection of nature "as it has been given, a free gift

from nowhere." For Arendt, as for many others who have written on the subject,

the rebellion against nature is an integral part of what it means to be modern.'88

Arendt is profoundly critical of the modern age. Unlike many of her

contemporaries and predecessors, however, her criticisms of this period are

directed at neither its rejection of tradition, nor its rejection of nature. On the

contrary, Arendt will argue that the rebellions of the modern age did not

succeed in breaking free of tradition, but rather, are integral to it, and that, far

from alienating human beings from nature, the modern age has brought man

much too close to that which is natural. It is this latter conviction that stands at

the basis of Arendt's criticism of the modern age. For Arendt, the very humanity

of man consists in his being ua-natural.

The outstanding characteristic of the modern age, according te Arendt,

'88 "What Is Exlstenze Phllosophy?" Partisan RevleYl8/1 (Wlnter 1946). p.37; HUman Condition, pp.268, 3. In suggestlng that, for Arendt, the term modem denotes a rebellion agalnst nature, 1 restrlct my clalm to the sclentlflc endeavours and schools of phllosophy (notably "Exlstenze· and ·Phenomenology") Arendt herself identifies as typlcally modem ln thls sense. It Is obvlous that, consldered as a distinct movement or perlod ln phHosophy or Ilterature, the connotations of the term 'modem' and Its derlvatlves (e.g. 'modemlsm' and 'post-modern') are much broader and more complex than 1 have suggested here. An excellent Interpretation and discussion of 'modernism' Is provlded by Richard Ellmann and Chartes Feldelson. Jr. In thelr Introduction to The Modem Tradition: ~ounds of Modern Llteratyre (New York: 1965) pp.7-16.

was the declining character of the world as a stable dwelling place for man.

Arendt calls the process of this decline "world alienation," or, in its most

83

pronounced manifestations, "worldlessness. Il For Arendt, world alienation is the

quintessential condition of modernity. She calls it "the hall mark of the modern

age," and insists that it is "still alive and present in our own world."'· Modern

world alienation entails the loss of concrete experience. It is identical with the

sense that ail things are in movement, that ail is process and constant change.

The most perplexing aspect of modern change is its utterly directionless

persistence. '110 It is in this sense that the modern condition of worldlessness

entails the contemporary disjuncture between thought and world.

ln The Human Condition, Arendt's delineation of the three "basic" human

conditions, their corresponding activities and the public and private realms

discussed in chapter three, is interspersed with an historicsl analysis of the

origins of modern world alienation.,., The purpose of this historical analysis,

Arendt tells us:

is to trace back modern world alienation ... to its origins, in order to arrive at an understanding of the nature of society as it had developed and presented itself at the very moment when it was

1811 Setween Past and Future, p.S3.

190 This description of worldlessness Is a paraphrase of that glven by Barry Cooper ln hls essay "Action Into Nature: Hannah Arendt's Reflections on Technology,· ln Day, R., R. Beiner, and J. Mascullli, (eds). Democratie Theorv and Technologlcal Society. 1988. pp. 316-335.

1111 It ought to be noted tnat, Just as The Orlglns of Totalnarlanlsm Is not a 'hlstory' of totalltarlanlsm, but rather an historlcal account of the elements which crystallized Into totalitarlanism, so too The Human Condition is not a history of the vlla~, but rather an hlstorlcal account of the elements that have made up the vlta~. This distinction 15 dlscussed further ln Elizabeth Young-Bruehl's outstanding blography, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1982. pp.320-

'"'" 321.

84

overcome by the advent of a new and yet unknown age. 1112

Arendt's reflections on the modern age, and in particular her analysis of modern

world alienation, provide a philosophical elaboration of many of the assumptions

and philosophical concepts that remain undeveloped in her earlier analysis of

the "origins" of totalitarianism. '83

Arendt finds the origins of modern world alienation to lie in three great

events which stand at the threshold of the modern age: the discovery of

America, the Reformation and the invention of the telescope. These three events

initiated a series of world transforming developments which disrupted the

relative stability of the pre-modern world and gave ri se to new, heretofore

unknown experiences. '''' ln her discussion of these events Arendt argues that

modern world alienation consists of a twofold flight trom the world. There is tirst,

a flight from the "natural" world (earth) into the universe, and second, a flight

from the human world into the self. As we will see, in the next chapter, this

twofold flight from the world precipitated the eventual breakdown of the tradition.

Arendt's aceount of the events and developments that led to and

characterize the modern age, and her account of the breakdown of the tradition

that accompanied them, can be read as two quite distinct, though never

182 Human Condition. p.6.

183 Young-Bruehl's reconstruction of the Intellectual concerns that occupled Arendt as a young university professor durlng the McCarthy years reveals Important Unes of contlnulty between her seminal work on totalltarlanlsm and the themes shI! was to take up ln her later works, partlcularty ln The Human Condition and Betwee" Past and Future. See For Love of the Wortd. op. clt. pp.276-327.

''''' Arendt Inslsts, however, that these eVI3nts were not ·unprecedented· becau~e precedents exlst and If predecessors can be narned for thern. Hyman Condition, p.248 .

•

85

completely separate narratives. Both these narratives are organized around the

theme of world alienation or "worldlessness. Il Although Arendt herself does not

present her reflections on the modern age explicitly as two distinct accounts, it

is quite clear that these reflections move, often with great subtlety, between an

analysis of modern events and an analysis of modern attempts to understand

these events. In the discussion to follow, 1 will attempt to make these two levels

of analysis explicit by dividing Arendt's account of the modern age into two

separate narratives. 1115

It should be emphasized that by dividing Arendt's refleetions on the

modern age into two separate narratives, 1 do not mean to imply that she saw

any causal connection between events and ideas. Contrary to our usual

expectations of historieal narrative, Arendt's account of the modern age tells the

story of a series of interdependent rather than causally related events and

developments. Although it was mentioned at the beginning of this essay that

Arendt does give priority to evants over ideas in the field of politieal theory, she

nowhere says that our ideas are determined by events. To restate the issue in

more traditional terms, she never suggests that how we aet determines how we

think. or vice versa. 1811

1115 Arendt's reflections on th·a modern age are ta be found throughout ail of her writings and the discussion that follows Is not restrlcted ta any single work. The narrative structure that 1 am suggestlng, however, Is derlved from Arendt's account of the modem age ln the last chapter of The Hyman Condition. Part of the dlfflculty ln followlng the lines of argument in Arendt's account of the modem age stems from the fact that she does not place much emphasls on the chronology of the events and developments that she dlscusses. Arendt regards such emphasls, famillar to us ail, as a mistaken and typlcally modern phenomenon ln itself; "bestowlng upon mere tlme-sequence an Importance and dlgnity It never had before." Between Past and Futyre. p.65. (Please see next note).

11111 Perhaps Arendt's lack of concem wllh thls Issue Is best expr6ssed by her ln a passage tram The Hyman Condition. In wrltlng about the demise of philosophy ln the modern age, Arendt states that:

It Is difficult to say whether Il suffered more from the almost automatlc rlse

{ 86

Arendt's first narrative on the modern age treats the ri se of man's

alienation from the world historically. That is, in terms of the changing

relationships between the human activities, labour, work and action throughout

history. Arendt calls such relationships the "constellation" of human activities.

Not the capacities of man, but the constellation which orders their mutual relationships can and does Change historically. Such changes can best be observAd in the changing self-interpretations of man throughout history, which, though they may be quite irrelevant to the ultimate 'what' of human nature, are still the briefest and most succinct witnesses to the spirit of whole epochs. l

•7

Arendt's primary concern is to analyze the effects that these changes

have had on the our relationship to the world, rather than to see them as

expressing or manifesting our changing ideas and consciousness within it.

Arendt conceives of the former, broadly, as corresponding to historical shifts in

the spaces for activities, that is, in terms of the changing relationship between

the public and private realms. Arendt does, of course, recognize that modern

ideas, and what she herself refers to as the "chanbl'1g self-interpretations of

man," have played an important role in history. This role, however, is restricted

to the human understanding of the world, past, present and future, rather than

of actlvlty to an altogether unexpected and unprecedented dlgnlty or from the 1085 of tradltlonal truth, that 15, of the concept of truth undertylng our whole tradition. (p.294)

Arendt's dlslncllnatlon to expand upon the relatlonshlp between Ideas and events ln hlstory Is perfectly consistent wlth her rejection of the hlerarchlcal orderlng of theory over practlee, (dlscussed in the prevlous chapter) and her stated opinion that nelther Is superlor to the other.

f lD7 Between Past and Future, p.62. For clarification of Arendt's hlstorlcal approach to the vlta ~ plesse see note * 191.

to the history of the world itself.1• The character and development of this

modern understanding is the subject of Arendt's second narrative and will be

examined in the next chapter. The rest of the present chapter will analyze

Arendt's tirst narrative on the modern age.

B) First Narrative -- Events in the Modern Age:

Arendt's first narrative treats the theme of worldlessness from the

87

perspective of the events and activities that brought about and characterize the

modern age. In this narrative the most significant event is the Reformation

which, Arendt argues, established the preconditions for the rise of modern

society with its concomitant collapse of the public and private realms. Arendt's

discussion of these developments is guided by the conviction that the so-called

'Ioss of faith' in the modern age does not lie in a deviation from sorne natural or

traditional 'essence' or 'truth,' but in a radical loss of the world. This conviction is

perhaps most succinctly expressed by Arendt in her epigrammatic pronouncement,

"World alienation, and not self-alienation, as Marx thought, has been the hallmark of

the modern age."1"

198 The contrast 1 have suggested between Arendt's hlstorlcal approach to the modem age, and other approaches to the past whlch treat It from the perspective of a thlstory of Ideas,' 18 oost expressed ln Arendt's own and often repeated declaratlon that, "hlstory Is a story of avents and not of forces or Ideas with predlctable courses.· (Huma" Condition, p.252). One of the bast discussions of Arendt's phenomenologlcal approach as Il applles to hlstorlcal analysls Is Bhikhu Parekh, Hannah Arendt and the Search For a New PoIitlcal PhlloSQPhv (Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanitles Press, 1981). Chapter one.

199 Human Condition, p.254.

-------------------------------------------------

88

The first event Arendt discusses, the discovery of America, does not play a

major part in her account of the modern age as such, but is mentioned briefly by

way of setting the stage for her discussion of the other two events to usher in the

modern age. Arendt's primary interest in the discovery of America as an event lies

in her contention that this event marks the beginning of a modern shift in

perspective, or worldview, that Arendt calls "the Archimedean standpoint." As we

will see, this stand point became increasingly incorporated into aspects of common,

everyday experience as the result of modern developments, namely, the advent of

a global capitalist economy and the rise of modern science. The latter two

developments are traced by Arendt to the Reformation and the invention of the

telescope respectively. A fuller account of the dimensions and implications of this

modern perspective will be left for the next chapter. What is of concern here are

only the nascent beginnings of this perspective; the origins of modern world

alienation.

Arendt tells us that the discovery of America and the subsequent exploration

of the earth, had the paradoxical effect of shrinking the earth in the sense of

making it seem much sm aller. The exploration of the earth brought together its

distant parts in maps and navigation charts. These maps and charts anticipated the

actual shrinkage of earthly space and the abolition of distance later to be achieved

by technology. Present technology has made it possible to reach any point on

earth without it being necessary to spend any significant part of one's life travelling.

Arendt's characterization of this development is striking; "Men now live in an earth­

wide continuous whole where even the notion of distance ... has yielded to the

onslaught of speed. Speed has conquered space [and] made distance

meaningless.,,200 Indeed, although Arendt does not mention it, this aspect cf

modern experience is clearly evident in common discourse where the amount of

88

time it takes to do what were once time-consuming tasks or to travel what used to

be significant distances is now frequently remarked to have taken "no time at ail."

More significant than the apparent shrinking of the earth, howAver, was the

discovery that the human surveying capacity requires that the observer detach

himself completely from involvement in and concern with his immediate

surroundings. Arendt points out that the most decisive shrinkage of the earth

during the modern age was achieved with the invention of the airplane, that is, by

actually leaving the surface of the earth altogether. In this sense, the airplane:

is like a symbol for the general phenomenon that any decrease of terrestrial distance can be won only at the priee of putting a decisive distance between man and earth, of alienating man from his immediate earthly surroundings.201

This alienation from the earth, inherent in the discovery and taking possession of

the earth, both preceded and accompanied the world alienation of the modern age.

The second event which stands at the threshold of the modem age is the

Reformation. Arendt claims that the process of world alienation that accompanied

this event developed in three stages. The tirst stage was the creation of the class of

"Iabouring poor." During the second stage the distinction between the public and

200 !.!2.!d. p.250.

201 Ibid. p.251. Arendt flnds the contemporary flight Into space to be the most recent and radh::allnstance of this form of world allenatlon. (C.f. !.!2!Q. pp.1-2).

private realms was destroyed with the rise of society. The third stage was the

decline of the nation-state which coincided with the end of the imperialist era in

Europe. For the purposes of this thesis, only the tirst two stages will be

discussed.202

90

According to Arendt, the expropriation of church property during the

Reformation had the "unforeseen consequence" of expropriating the peasantry.

With this event, millions of human beings became exposed to the exigencies of life

and were thereby transformed into mere embodiments of productive labour-power,

that is, into the new class of "Iabouring poor." Deprived of the property which had

ensured them a stable place in the world, the members of this new class became

alienated from the world and were thrown back upon themselves; their common

membership in the human species and a common con cern for survival. 203

Arendt argues that the creation of this class of labouring poor released

hithertofore unheard of forces of "productivity" into the world. We have seen,

202 1 do not Intend to dlscusa Arendt's analysls of the decllne of the European natlon-state system because Its prlmary hlstorlcallnterest for Arendt concerns her search for the orlglns of totalltarlanlsm. ln that analysls, Arendt examines the modem conditions of ·statelessness,· ·'onellness· and ·superfluousness· that characterlzed the experlence and outtook of the modern ·masses.· These conditions were preclpltated by the decline of the natlon-state ln the flrst decades of thls century and were by far the most dramatlc manifestations of the absence of poIltlcs ln the modem age. In her later reflectlons, Arendt dld not so much abandon these Ideas as Incorporate them Into the broader context of her search for the orlglns of modem wortd allenation. Ta pursue the contlnultles of her account ln thls matter, however, would substantlally alter the direction of the present discussion. Arendt's fullest account of the decllne of the natlon-state Is ln the section ·Imperialism,· ln ~ Orlglns of Totalltarlanlsm. esp. pp.267-302. For two succinct Interpretations of Arendt's analysls of the decllne of the natlon-state as It relates ta the rlse of totalltarlanlsm see: Barry Cooper The End of HlstON: An EssaY on Modem Hege!!anlsm. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. pp.14-17; A. James Gregor, Interpretations of Fasclsm. Morrlstown, N.J.: General Learnlng Corporation, 1974. pp.96-103.

203 ·Originally,· Arendt Inslsts, ·property meant no more or less than ta have one's location ln a partlcular part of the wortd.· (Hyman Condition, p.61. C.f. p.253). It follows that the loss of such property Is

...... ~.. identical wlth the condition of wortd allenation. Arendt ln fact states that "he only actlvlty that corresponds strictly to the experlence of wortdlessness 15 labouring: <l.b!d. p.115).

'-'

( 91

Arendt argues that the creation of this class of labouring poor released

hlthertofore unheard of forces of "productivity" into the world. We have seen,

however, that, according to Arendt's analysis of the labouring activity, the

productivit)' of labour does not add anything to the human artifice. In fact, Arendt

claims that quite the opposite is the case. As noted earlier, labour and

consumption are but two inextricable stages of the life-process. The activity of

labour produces objects only incidently and is primarily concerned with the means

of its own reproduction. Arendt, following Marx, argues that the productivity of

labour does nat lie in any of labour's products, but the surplus of "labour-power."

This labour-power, she adds, "never 'produces' anything but Iife."204

On the basis of her reflections concerning the activity of labour, Arendt

asserts that the expropriation of the peasantry during the Reformation destroyed

stable property. For the creation of a class of propertyless poor changed property

into wealth, while the sudden availability of labour-power made it possible to

transform wealth into fluid capital. This transformation of property, Arendt suggests,

brought property itself under the necessitous cycle of production and consumption.

The very nature of capital is, like the labour which creates it, to generate more of

itself in an endless process. Arendt, once again borrowing an insight from Marx,

argues that this process acquires a momentum of its cwn comparable with a

natural process. The transformation of labour-power into a natural process

achieves its greatest expression in the rise of modern society. Arendt claims that

the ri se of society constitutes the second stage in the growing world alienation of

( 204 lbld. p.88.

,

92

the modern age. 205

C) Modern Society:

According to Arendt, society is a relatively new and 5pecifically modern form

of human association which, strictly speaking, is neither public nor private. Society

is a peculiar hybrid realm in which "economics" and other matters pertaining to the

private realm of life and the "household" become matters of public concern. For

Arendt, society amounts to nothing less than "the collective of families economically

organized into the facsimile of one super-human family."-

Society is the form in which the fact of mutual dependence for the sake of lite and nothing else assumes public significance and where the activities connected with sheer survival are permitted to appear in public. 207

ln society people come together and interact in their private capacity as

members of special interest groups or as individuals rathar than in the public

capacity of citizens. As was the case with the class of "Iabouring poor" whose

creation was a precondition for the ri se of society, members of society do not

share a common human world and a public realm of action, but only their common

membership in the human species and a common concern for survival.

ln society, Arendt argues, "it is the life process itself which in one forrn or

another has been channel/ed into the plÂblic realm." She suggests that the clearest

indication that "society constitutes the public organization of the life process itself, N

20IS lbId. pp.25S-56.

206 ~. p.29.

207 lbId. p.46.

. (

93

is ta be found in the fact that modern communities have been transformed into

societies of labourers and jobholders.:zee For the activity most intimately connected

to the life process is, of course, labour. Arendt argues, however, that once the

labouring activity was admitted to "public stature" in the life process of society, the

process character of labour itself ceased to be "circular, monotonous recurrence"

and became transformed "into a swiftly progressing development. Il Thus Arendt

characterizes modern society as "the unnatural growth of the natura!." 208 The

elevation of labour ta public prominence has resulted in the rapld growth and ever

increasing encroachment of the "social realm" against the private and intimate on

the one hand and the political on the other, ever since the earliest stages of the

modern age.

The rise, or "growth" of the social realm is a phenomenon, however, which

concerns the predominance, not of a particular activity, but of a particular viewpoint

whlch infects ail activities. Arendt identifies this viewpoint with the consumer

mentality of the animallaborans; a way of looking at the world "that takes nothing

into account but the life process of mankind." 210 Su ch a viewpoint has great

difficulty generating and sustaining meaning in life since it regards ail human

activities as more or less equivalent aspects of a process which reduces ail things,

man-made and natural, to objects of human consumption.

208 W. pp.45-46.

2011 HUman Condnlan, p.47. The reductlon of ail human actlvitles and expenences to aspects cl a superhuman, all-encompasslng process Is, ln .4rendt's vIew, the quintessence of modem understandlng. We will tum ta examine the character and development of thls understandlng 1" the nex! chapter.

( 210 lbkl. p.89.

94

According to Arendt, the consumer mentality of man as the anim...ID laborans

is the result of the modern condition of worldlessness; the loss of both a public

space of meaning and the durability of the human artifice. These two aspects of the

human condition of "worldliness" are destroyed in modern society where they are

sacrificed to the private and "privative" pursuits of mass consumption. In the early

stages of society this viewpoint characterized the orientation of the bourgeoisie

towards the world. Today, Arendt argues, it characterizes the outlook of ail

members of society.

Arendt contends that ever since the last stages of the modern age, the

consumptive viewpoint of labour has infected almost ail human activities. Stated

slightly differently, we could say, with Arendt, that today we live in a society of "job

holders." Arendt actually refers to this as "the last stage of the labouring society."

For even now, labouring is too lofty, tao ambitious a word for what we are doing, or think we are doing, in the world we have come to live in. The last stage of the labouiing society, the society of jobholders, demands of its members a sheer automatic functioning, as though individuallife had actually been submerged in the over-alllife process of the species and the only active decision still required of the individual were to let go, so to speak, to abandon his individuality, the still individually sensed pain and trouble of living, and acqulesce in a dazed, 'tranquillized,' functional type of behaviour.:l11

Arendt's account of this modern orientation ta the world is one of the most

insightful and interesting aspects of her analysis of the modern age. She analyzes

the development of this orientation, as weil as its implications, in terms of the

211 Human Condnlon, p.322. After thls passage, Arendt goes on to point out that the trouble wlth modern theorles of behavlonsm Is not that they are wrong, but that they mlght become true. Such theorles, she contends, are actually "the best possible conceptuallzatlons of certain obvious trends ln modern

'.. society.· (!QIg. C.f. pp.45-46).

-

95

modern transformation of the "world-building" activity of work into the world­

destroying activity of labour. According to Arendt, the latter d'3velopment is one of

the most significant consequences of the world-alienation of the modern age. It has

its origins in the decline of politics and the concomitant ri se of society during the

imperialist era late in the modern age.

D) The Rise of the Animal Laborans:

The destruction of private property during ,the Reformation period laid the

foundations for a capitalist economy in Europe. Arendt contends that "the new

social body of rising bourgeoisie" initially had no interest in politics, but were

concerned exclusively with the "limitless accumulation" of capital through "private

enterprise." ln the 1860s and 1870s, how9ver, the overaccumulation of cap:tal

resulted in widespread economic crises and depressions across Europe. In

response to these crises, the bourgeoisie began to export surplus capital and

manpower overse~s to establish new markets and business opportunities in the

colonies. The risks of overseas investments ~ompelled the bourgeoisie to concern

themselves with matters of state. Arendt thus identifies the imperialist era with the

"political emancipation of the bourgeoisie .• 212

Arendt argues that the entrance of the bourgeoisie into pOlitics for the sole

purpose of protecting their overseas investments, had the effect of

instrumentalizing politics by subordinating it completely to the pursuit of private,

economic interests. The instrumentalization of politics resulted in a weakening of

212 Arendt discusses the role of the bourgeoisie durlng the Imperlallst era ln Origlns. pp.123-157.

increasingly became matters of public concern.213 For Arendt, the weflkening and

ultimate cOllapse of this distinction was the single most important factor ln the

growing world alienation of the modern age.

96

The most immediate consequence of the 1055 of the distinction between

public and private spheres of activity is that the integrity and distinctiveness of ail

human activities becomes threatened and ultimately blurred. For in the growing

absence of a public realm of meaning, neither the purpose nor the relative worth of

human activities can be sustained. The instrumentalization of politics degrades

politics and deprives the world of ail purpose and meaning outside the standards of

instrumentality itself. Instrumentalization thus becomes its own justification, that is,

becomes understood in terms of the now familiar formulation, "the ends justify the

means." This, Arendt insists, although certainly not impossible, is inherently

meaningless. Arendt's portrayal of the virtual meaninglessness of a world in which

instrumentalization has become its own justification, is conceptualized in terms of

the transformation of work into labour.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the guiding principle of work is that of

utility. Homo ~ thinks about and judges both the things and the people of the

world in terms of their usefulness or productivity. 214 Arendt holds that what most

clearly distinguishes the activity of work from that of labour is the fact that the

utilitarian, means-end orientation of work gives worK its character of having a

213 !bk;I. p.149.

214 -During the work process, everything Is judged ln terms of sultabllity and usefulness for the deslred end and for nothlng else."CHuman Condition, p.153. C.f. Between Past and Future, p.216).

97

utilitarian, means-end orientation of work gives work its character of hav!ng a

defi"ite beginning and a predictable end. As noted earlier, the activity of work,

unlike labour, produces durable objects which are designed to last. Arendt insists,

however, that the distinction between the activity of work and the activity of labour

"becomes merely a difference in degree if the worldly character of the produced

thing -- its location, function, and length of stay in the world -- is not taken into

account. ,,215

The category of means and ends which distinguishes work from labour can

be understood, maintained and justified only from a perspective or principle which

stands outside the means-end framework, that is, outside the fabrication

experience itself. Homo fabm: cannot. for example, provide an answer to the

question Arendt borrows from Lessing. namely; "And what is the use of use?" This

is a question not of utility but of meaning.211

For Arendt, the distinction between questions of utility and questions of

meaning is crucial. She formulates this distinction linguistica"y as the difference

between something being done "in order to ... " and something being done "for the

sake of ... " A carpenter, for example, performs his work "in order toM make a table,

but "his whole life as a carpenter is ruled by something quite different, namely an

encompassing notion 'for the sake of· which he became a carpenter in the first

place.":!17

215 Huma" Condnlon, p.94.

218 lbkl. p.154. C.f. Setween Past ar .. "'; Future, p.80.

:( 217 Betwee" Past and Future, p. 79.

98

According to Arendt, both the means and the ends of fabrication involve anly

the "in arder ta." The phrase, "for the sake of," reters not to an end, but ta a worldly

standard such as durability, excellence or beauty, which stands autside the means­

end framework and furnishes the activity of work with meaning.21e Since the

utilitarian mentality of hQmQ ~ is cancerned only with maans and ends ("in order

to"), he can neither recognize nor contribute to the general meaningfulness "for the

sake of" which his r.ctivity is undertaken.

Arendt states that the instrumentalization of the worlJ by man in the capacity

of homo tab.er, "implies a degradation of ail things into means, their loss of intrinsic

and independent value. ,,2111 It follows that in a strictly utilitarian world the distinction

between meaning and end does not appear. Arendt insists that the failure to

maintain the distinction between utility and meaningfulness leads to relativism.

The trouole with the utility standard inherent in the very activity of fabrication is that the relationship between means and ends on which it relies is very much like a chain whose every end can serve again as a means in some ather cantext. In other words, in a strictly utilitarian world, ail ends are baund to be of short duration and ta be transformed into means for some further ends.22O

Homo fabm's inability to distinguish between questions of utility and questions of

meaning leads him to mistake the end or goal of his activity for its meaning. ''The

2111 Arendt clalms that the standards of the wood are Mlumlnated most fully ln warka of an. These products of J:!sm!2 fAbI!: possess -a hlgher arder- of durabliity then most man-made thlngs because they are "wlthout any utliity whatsoever. - As a result, -[I}t Is as though wortdly stabliity had become transparent ln the permanence of an, so that a premonition of Immortallty ... of sornethlng mortal achleved by mortal hands, has become tanglllly present, ta shlne and ta be sean, ta sound and to be heard, to speak and ta be read: (Huma" CPndltlcn pp 167~).

2111 lbIQ. p.156.

220 .!.b!Q. pp. 153-54.; C.f. Between Past and Futyre, p.79.

( growing meaninglessness of the modern world." Arendt contends. "is perhaps

nowhere more clearly foreshadowed than in this identification of meaning and

end."221

Arendt insists, however. that the real issue at stake in homo faber's

99

incapacity to understand meaning concerns less the instrumental and utilitarian

rationality of work ger e as it does the generalization of the fabrication experience

to ail experiences. The generalization of the experience of work to ail human activity

leads to the establishment of usefulness and utility "as the ultimate standards for life

and the world of men." ln other words. the intrumentalization of the world is not an

inevitable result of the 'instrumental rationality' of homo ~'s thinking, but a result

of his having lost his rslationship to the world.222

Arendt holds that maintaining the distinction between public and private is

essential to maintaining the world and its standards. With the weakening of this

distinction in modern society. these standards have gradually been replaced by the

worldless standards of bQmQ fabm's private needs and desires as a fabricator.

Arendt asserts that:

since it is in the nature of man the user and instrumentalizer to look upon everything as a means to an end _. upon every tree as potential wood -- this must eventually mean that man becomes the measure. not only of those things whose existence depends upon him, but of literally everything there is.223

221 Between Past and Future. p.78.

222 Human CondltlQn. pp.157, 156. Although Arendt does not mentlQn It, thls clarlflcatlQn Is cQnsistent wlth her prQject, diseussed in the third ehapter, "to think what we are dQing- rather than to examine "how" we are thinking.

1 223 1bkf. p.158 . ..

-~--------------------

r ,

1

!

---- -----------------......

100

ln a world where there are no recognized standards existing outside the

utilitarian perspective of homo faber, the interests of the self, that is, the private

individual, replace the interests of the world, lnd man becomes therefore the

highest end, "the measure of ail things." ln such a situation, the worldly obiectivity

of use objects would be replaced by "the subjectivity of use itself." It follows that, if

one permits the standards of bQmQ ~ to rule the world he will judge everything,

both naturel and man-made, as though it belonged to the class of use objects. This

"anthropocentric utilitarianism," leads homo ~ to regard the products of his

activity as having no other purpose but to make more products. "Eventuaily,"

Arendt says, homo ~ will "help himself to everything and consider everything as

a ~ere means for himself.,,224

Arendt claims that the "anthropocentric utilitarianism" of b.QmQ fab.er has

found its greatest expression in the Kantian formula that every human being is an

"end in himself." She points out that, from the perspective of b.QmQ~, this

formulation is paradoxical, for where man is "the supreme end," everything else,

nature and the world, is degraded into mere means, robbed of its inherent dignity.

From the perspective of the world itself, Arendt sees the perplexity as Iying in the

fact that while only fabrication with its instrumentality is capable of building a world,

this same world becomes as worthless as the employed material, a mere means to

further ends, if the standards which governed its coming into being are permitted to

224 !.b!Q. pp.155. 156,158.

101

ru le it after its establishment. ~

According to Arendt, "the last public realm" was the exchange market of

commercial society, before t~le advent of monopoly capitalism. The exchange

market was established by homo ~ in the process of producing things for

exchange rather than use. As a producer of commodities for exchange, .b.QrnQ

~ "comes out of his isolation" and enters the public marketplace as a merchant

or trader. In the market place, however, people "were no longer the fabricators

themselves, and they did not meet as persons but as owners of commodities and

exchange values."228

Arendt argues that when .b.Qm.Q ~ produces e)(clusively for the market,

that is, produces objects for the purposes of exchange rather than use, "the

finished end product changes its quality." For the market is concerned with a

thing's durability, not for the sake of using it, but in arder ta store it away for future

exchange. Arendt claims that this change in the quality of the abject produced

reflects the change from use value ta exchange value, which she calls "the original

sin of capitalism.,,227

Arendt says that the loss of worldly standards and ru les that gives ri se ta

b.QmQ ~'s anthropocentric utilitarianism, leads to the view of the "universal

relativity" of value; that a thing has no intrinsic, "objective" worth, but only value in

relation to other things. Arendt suggests that:

This shows how closely the relativity of the exchange market is

225 ll2!Q. p.156. See also Betwee" Past and Future, p.216.

22tI Huma" Condition, p.162.

?( 227 ll2!Q. pp. 163, 165.

•

connected with the instrumentality arising out of the world of the craftsman and the experience of fabrication. The former, indeed, develops without break and consistently trom the latter.22B

102

Eventually, Arendt argues, the production of objects solely for exchange and not

for use transforms the "conspicuous production" of a society of producers into the

"conspicuous consumption" of a labourers' society.229 Arendt describes this

transformation in terrns of the almost inevitable slide trom b.QmQ ~ into the

animal laborans.

Once bQmQ ~ cornes to view the things of the world, both natural and

man-made, as material for his infinite making he has entered the realm of the

animal laborans. Arendt points out that technologieal developments since the

industrial revolution have exaeerbated this situation.

The industrial revolution has replaced ail workmanship with labour, and the result has baen that the things of the modern world have become labour products whose natural fate is to be consumed, instead of work products whieh are there to be used.230

Arendt observes that in modern times the tools of b.QmQ ~ have been

supplanted by machines. She argues that the modern development of the "division

of labour," in the assembly-line techniqu~ of mass production, has turned the

activity of work into a productive proc§55 c~aracterized by neither beginning nor

end. The automation of production means that the products of .b.QmQ ~ are not

designed "for the sake of" beauty or use, which are standards of the world, but

228 1.b!Q. p.166.

229 ~. p.160.

230 ll2!Q. p.124.

( 103

only "in order to" fulfil the "operational capacity of the machine."231

ln such a situation the distinction between end and means no longer makes

sense since it is the capacity of the machine and not the end which determines the

shape of the product. In other words, the product becomes indistinguishable from

the process that made it. "Here," Arendt asserts, "the very nature of work is

changed and the production process ... assumes the character of labour. Il The

products of modern manufacturing, because of their sheer abundance, no longer

possess the durability of work products but are transformed into consumer goods.

The ideals of homo fabm, the fabricator of the world, which are permanence, stability, and durability, have been sacrificed to abundance, the ideal of the animal laborans. We live in a labourers' society because only labouring, with its inherent fertility is likely to bring about abundance.232

The activity of work performed in the mode of labouring, that is, as an

endless cycle of production and consumption, takes on the IIdevouring character of

biological Iife.·233 Arendt argues that, from this perspective, the durability of the

world is of no intrinsic value and, in fact, appears as a hindrance ta the only value

the life process can recognize •• the endless, cyclical monotony of life itself. ~e

danger of future automation,· Arendt declares, is less the much deplored

mechanization and artificialization of natural life than the possibility that:

ail human productivity would be sucked into an enormously intensified life process and would follow automatically, without pain or effort, its ever-racurrent natural \~cle. The rhythm of machinAs would magnify and intensify the natural rhythm of life enormously, but it would not change, only make more deadly, life's chief character with respect to

231 !b!d. p.152.

232 IbId. p.126.

if 233 " lllKt. p.96 . ....

the world, which is to wear down durability.234

ln this situation the fundamental purpose of homo f2b§r has become

reversed. He no longer regards his activity as one of providing an objective,

durable world for humans on earth and instead comes te see it as a constant

104

transformation of the world. Hence the modern (and contemporary) condition of

worldlessness. "Worldlessness," Arendt states, "is possible only on the assumption

that the world will not last. ,,235 From a slightly different perspective, Arendt says that

with the modern transformation of work into labour. we have lost the public realm

and with it ail meaningful distinctions between man and nature.

It is as though we had forced open the distinguishing boundaries which protected the world, the human artifice, from nature, the biological process which goes on in its very midst as weil as the natural cyclical processes which surround it, delivering and abandoning to them the always threatened stability of a human world.2311

It is above ail the loss of worldly permanence, of the durability and stability of

the human artifice, which Arendt sees as the legacy of the modern age. The irony

of our situation ought not to escape us. Arendt observes that the alienation of man

from the world, "foremost among the characteristics of [the modern age)" is very

"difficult to perceive as a basic condition of our whole life because out of it, and

partlyat least out of its despair, did arise the tremendous structure of the human

artifice we inhabit today, in whose framework we have even discovered the means

234 !b!d. p.132.

23!1 !b!d. p.54.

2311 J..b!d. p.126.

( 105

of destroying it together with ail non-man-made things on earth."237

Arendt states that, late in the modern age, the loss of the world as place of

permanence and meaning was somewhat mitigated by the modern discovery of

"the potential immortality of mankirld." This earthly immortality, however, belongs in

fact, to men who have ail but forgotten that they are mortal. It belongs not to free

and unique individuals, but to the species "Man, Il for which there is only the endless

recurrence of natural necessity. More significant in terms of our present reflections,

however, is Arendt's ironie observation that such an attempt to find immortality

through the species means nothing less than that "permanence is entrusted to a

flowing process, as distinguished from a stable structure."231 Arendt argues that the

modern understanding of reality in terms of process is one of the most pernicious

legacies of the modern condition of worldlessness. In the next chapter we will

examine Arendt's "second narrative" on the modern age for her account of how this

modern understanding came about.

237 Setwee" Past and Future. pp.53-54.

f 238 !.b.Id., p.75.

106

CHAPTER FIVE

The Decline of the Tradition

A) Second Narrative -- Understanding in the Modern Age:

Arendt's second narrative on the modern age is more strietly philosophieal

than the first. In it Arendt examines the third, and in her view, most momentous

event to usher in the modern age; the invention of the telescope.23I ln this narrative

Arendt explieates more fully her understanding of the phenomenon of world

alienation as entailing a twofold f1ight trom the world: the first from the earth into the

universe, and the second, trom the world into the self. This twotold f1ight from the

world was the result of two developments stemming from the use of the telescope:

the achievement of a universal standpoint trom which to aet l'pon the earth, and

the modern distrust of the truth-revealing capacity of the senses. These two

developments find their philosophical articulations in the aehievement of the

Archimedean point, and in Descartes' philosophy of radical doubt respectively.

From a more general perspective, Arendt's second narrative approaehes the

theme of modern world alienation in terms of its impact on tradition. Arendt, in

other words, turns to consider the events and developments of the modern age

from within the "conceptual framework" of the tradition itself. For Arendt, the

238 Arendt Inslsts that, compared wlth the earth allenatlon that beglns wlth the In~entlon of the telescope and underlles the whole development of modem natural science, 'he wlthdrawal from territorial proxlmlty contalned in the discovery of the globe as a whole and the world allenatlon produced ln

....... the twofold process of expropriation and capital accumulation are of mlnor slgnlflcance: Hyman Condition, p.264.

107

tradition ln the modern age tells the story of the effect that attempts to understand

the events and developments of the modern age had on the authority of the

tradition. In these attempts, philosophers rebelled against the tradition and forced

its conceptual framework inte a series of reversais. More specifically, Arendt will

argue that these events and developments provoked major rethinking of and

revisions to the conceptual framework of the tradition. Of these, two are of central

importance; the reversai of the hierarchical order of the yita contemplativa and the

vita activa, and the reversai within the vita activa itself. Arendt attributes the decline

of the tradition to these reversais.

By means of the telescope, a man-made instrument. it was discovered that

the earth, contrary to ail direct sense experience, revolves around the sun. This

empirical confirmation of the Copernican hypothesis. that is, the existence of a

heliocentric universe, demonstrated that neither the unaided human senses nor

human reason could be trusted to discover trLlth.

Arendt discusses two consequences of this diseovery whieh reveal that bath

des pair and triumph are Inherent in the same event. The despair appears in the

immediate philosophie reaction to the -new reallty- revealed by this event, namely,

in Descartes' formulation of radical doubt. The triumph appears, but is short-lived

in the development of modern science; that is, "the science of the Arehimedean

point. .. 240 For Arendt, these two developments correspond to the two~old character

of modern world alienation.

The first form of world alienation Arendt diseusses in relation to the

,f 240 lblQ. p.271.

108

telescope is the modern f1ight from the world into the universe. The invention of the

telescope enabled men ta penetrate the mysteries of the universe, thereby fulfilling

"the Archimedean wish for a point outside the earth ;tQm which ta unhinge the

world." More precisely, Arendt argues that, by means of the telescope, human

perception achieved a universal, cosmic standpoint. Men were obliged ta see the

earth as part of the cosmos and by no means its centre. As a result, "ail events

were considered ta be subject ta a universally valid law ... which means, among

other things, valid beyond the reach of human sense experience." According ta

Arendt, the achievement of the Archimedean point has enabled humans ta act on

the earth and within terrestrial nature as though he disposed of it from outside.24'

The modern ability ta handle nature tram a point in the universe outside the

earth has made possible the triumphs of modern science over nature. In the more

recent developments of contemporary physics, it has enabled men to introduce

cosmic processes to the earth, (e.g. modern genetics) and to begin new natural

processes (e.g. atomic energy) which hitherto existed only in other parts of the

universe, such as the sun. This has, of course, produced a situation in which the

survival not only of the human world, but of the earth itself is at stake.Z4Z

From the perspective of human understanding, however, the situation is

perhaps even more troubling. Arendt points out that "from the viewpoint of the

241 Humao Condition, pp.262~. Arendt', last essay ln BetwBln Past and Future. "The Cooquest of Space and the Stature of Man,· contalns her most detaNed aceount of the Implications and slgnlflcance of thls ·unlversal standpolnr for contemporary science as weil as poIltlcs.

242 lbld. p.262.

-

109

universe, the earth is but a special case and can be understood as such." As a

result, "everything happening on earth has become relative since the earth's

relatedness to the universe became the point c~ reference for ail measurements."

Thus, quite apart from the potential dangers of modern techno!ogy. Arendt points

out repeatedly that men can now dQ things from a universal, absolute standpeint,

but have lost the capacity to think in universal, absolute terms, "thus realizing and

defeating at the same time the standards and ideals of traditional philesophy. ,,243

The second flight from the world that Arendt discusses is the modern

escape from the werld into the self. In her first narrative. Arendt sometimes refers

to this phenomenen as "innerworldly alienation," and finds its origins te lie with the

destruction of private property in the expropriations of the Reformation period.

Speaking generally, Arendt sees the escape from the world into the self as the

result of a profound loss of trust in the reality and stability of the world. This loss

of trust is embodied in the anthropocentric utilitarianism of homo fab§r-cum-animal

laberans, for whom, as we have seen, the durability of the world is but an obstacle

to self-fulfilment. In her second narrative, Arendt develops more fully her analysis

of the birth of the modern self. She links it most specifically te the modern loss of

confidence in the human capacity te know and therefore to be at home in the

world.

According to Arendt, Cartesian doubt is the most fundamental expression

of the modern escape from the world into the self. Arendt argues that the recent

discoveries in the natural sciences convinced Descartes that man in his search for

1 243 Hyman Condition, pp.269-270.; C,f. Between Past and Future, pp.266-271. -\

," 110

truth and knowledge can trust neither the given evidence of the senses, nor the

"innate truth" of the mind, nor the "inner light of reason." This mistrust of the human

capacities has been ever since one of the MOSt elementary conditions of the

modern age and the modern world.241•

B) Knowing as Making:

The modern conviction that neither reason nor the unaided senses can

provide access to objective reality led to a division between being and appearance.

According to the modern view, the relationship between being and appearance:

is no longer static as it was in traditional scepticism, as though appearances simply hide and cover a true being which forever escapes the notice of man. This Being, on the contrary, is tremendously active and energetic: it creates its own appearances, except that these appearances are delusions ... [Ilt turns out that this tremendously effective Being is of such a nature that its disclosures must be illusions and that conclusions drawn from its appearance must be delusions.245

Arendt emphasizes that what was lost in the modern age was not the capacity for

truth or reality or faith, but only the certainty that formerly went with them. Unlike

traditional scepticism, the Cartesian doubt did not rest on a suspicion of reason as

such, but on "man's relationship to the world. "248

244 Between Past and Future, p.54.

245 Human Condition, pp.276-2n.

246 ·'t now turned out that wlthout confidence ln the senses nelther falth ln God nor trust ln reason could any longer be secure, because the revelatlon of both divine and rational truth had always been Impllcltly understood to follow the awe-Insplrlng slmpllclty of man's relatlonshlp wlth the wortd ... If we begln to doubt the fundamental truthfulness and reilabHlty of thls relatlonshlp ... none of the tradltlonal metaphors for suprasensual truth - be It the eyes of the mlnd . . . or the volee of conscience •.. can any longer carry Its meanlng" Between Past and Future, p.54.

( 111

Arendt points out that ail of the traditional metaphors for suprasensual truth

were based on analogies from sense experience. Such metaphors as "the eyes of

the mind" and "the voice of conscience" are clearly derived from the experience of

sensory perception. With the loss of confidence in the truth-revealing capacities of

the senses ail such metaphors became suspect and the traditional understanding

of truth changed its meaning. Cartesian doubt was the philosophical articulation of

the discovery that truth, contrary to traditional assumptions, does not reveal itself.

ln despair of ever finding certainty in sensory experience or in reason

informed by it, philosophy turned away from the world and into the self. For even

though man could no longer be certain of the 'outside' world he shared with

others, it nevertheless remained possible to know one's own thoughts, the 'inner'

processes and self-made entities of the mind. Introspection became central to the

practice of modern philosophy. Arendt points out that, philosophically speaking,

Descartes moved the Archimedean point into man himself.N7

Arendt states that the Cartesian removal of the Archimedean point into the

human mind "freed [man] from given reality altogether -- that is, from the human

condition of being an inhabitant of the earth." As a result commonsense, which

once had been the "sixth" sense by which the five other senses, each with its

intimately private sensations, were brought to bear on a certain "sameness" in the

common world, "now became an inner faculty without any world relationship." ln

the modern age, the basis for common knowledge became profoundly private. It

was no longer the objectivity of the world humans experienced in communication

( 247 HUman Condition, pp.284-85. "

r "

112

with others that attested to the shared reality of what is. no longer the condition of

"worldliness." but rather the common structure of the human mind.24a

Arendt points out. however. that the most immediate consequence of the

invention of the telescope was "the spectacular rise of modern science, which for

a long time seemed to be liberated by the discovery that our senses by themselves

do not reveal truth. ,,249 Arendt writes that:

the Cartesian method of securing certainty against doubt corresponded most precisely to the most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the new physical science: though one cannot know truth as something given and disclosed, man can at least know what he makes himself. This, indeed. became the most general and most generally accepted attitude of the modern age.250

The modern position that man can only know what he makes himself meant that

knowing came to be understood in the mode of making.

Modern scientists came to see their task as one of finding "ways and means

by which nature could be trapped by experiments and instruments so that she

would be forced to reveal her secrets. "2151 Modern science, with its emphasis on

creating the conditions for knowledge by means of the experiment, placed ail

knowledge squarely in the realm of human doing. Arendt says that because of this.

the first centuries of the modern age saw b.QmQ ~ rise to the position formerly

occupied by the philosopher.

As a result. the modern pursuit of knowledge shifted "from the old

248 !bk!. pp.283-285.

249 Setween Past and Future. p.55.

2!50 Human Condition, p.282.

2151 !bk!. p.278.

113

questions of 'what' or 'why' something is to the new question of 'how' it came into

being." This development marks the introduction of the concept of "process" into

fabrication. Arendt argues that:

The shift from the 'why' and 'what' to the 'how' implies that the actual abjects of knowledge can no longer be things or eternal motions but must be processes, and that the object of science therefore is no longer nature or the universe but the history, the story of the coming into being, of nature or life or the universe."2!12

Although modern science owes its extraordinary rise to the discovery of the

Archimedean point, it, along with philosophy, has been unable to escape the

relativization inherent in a perspective that removes humans from the world of

corn mon sense and objectivity. Just as the challenge to common sense appears

in the removal of the Archimedean point into the human mind, sa the challenge to

objectivity appears, eventually, in the Archimedean standpoint adopted by modern

experimental science. In our own time. Arendt insists, the originally "well-founded

optimism" of modern science has come to share the pessimistic mood of modern

philosophy.2!13

Arendt argues that the turning point in the intellectual history of the modern

age came when the image of organic life development (naturalism) came to

replace the earlier image ofthe watchmaker (mechanistic world-view). The greatest

implication of the new world-view lay in the belated triumph of the Cartesian

philosophical method (deductive logic). The shift to an organic world-view meant

252 !.bkl. p.296. Arendt goes on to point out that the natural sciences developed Into hlstorlcal disciplines long before the concept of hlstory became dominant ln modem phllosophy or modem ·hlstorlcal consclousness· became predominant ln men's mlnds.

; 2!13 !bjQ. p.213.

r 1

114

that modern experimental science itself became subjective, depending for its

conclusions on the deductive reasoning of the mind, rather th an strictly empirical

observation and inductive logie.2!14

Problems with the notion of scientific objectivity first appeared at the level of

subatomic physics. Arendt makes repeated references ta the discoveries and

speculations of the nuclear physicist, Werner Heisenberg. According to his

uncertainty (or indeterminacy) principle, contemporary science places the scientist

in the paradoxical position of conducting his search for objective reality with

technical instruments, theories and hypotheses. This means that, in the final

analysis, he will ultimately encounter nothing but himself, his own constructions,

and the patterns of his own thoughts and actions.2M The absurd as weil as

troubling consequences of this discovery lie in the fact that:

we can take almost any hypothesis and m upon it, with a sequence of results in reality which not only make sense but ~. This means quite literally that everything is possible not only in the realm of ide as but in the field of reality itself.~

Ironically, the achievement of the Archimedean point, from which man

hoped initially to "unhinge the world, Il has done just that. Rather than providing

man with a universal perspective for discovering the objective meaning of the

universe, however, it has resulted in a peculiar loss of perspective. This loss

threatens to destroy not merely the age old distinction between objectivity and

Z4 ~. 312-313.

:2!5S Between Past and Future. pp.48-49, 86, 277; Human Condition. pp.261, 266.

258 Between Past and Future. p.87.

115

subjectivity, but the existence of meaning itself.2!I7

Arendt also discusses the relativizing effect that science has had, albeit

indirectly, on notion of the 'objective value' of things. The ability of science ta

answer the modern need for certainty led ta the adoption of science's greatest

virtues -- success, industry and truthfulness -- as the moral standards of the

modern age. Arendt argues that as the "ail important standard of success" took

over, the notion of the ory changed its meaning. Theory in the modern age lost its

contemplative character of old and became hypothesis, that is, thought which is

subject ta being proved. In other words, the issue of "validity" replaced the notion

of truth and the test of theory became a "practical" one - not what it "reveals, H but

whether it works. As a result, moral virtues lost their traditionally theoretical basis

and became "practical" -- "turning away from truth ta truthfulness and from reality

ta reliability. ,,2!11 According ta Arendt, this development reflects a more immediate

result of the invention of the telescope; that is, the reversai of the traditional

hierarchy of the vita contemplativa and the vita activa.

Arendt argues that the extraordinary success of modern science in its

pursuit of knowledge led ta the weakening and ultimate collapse of the conceptual

217 The theoretlcal perplexltles of contemporary science challenge the tradltlonal assumptlon that we can dlscover a 'true' or 'obJective' reallty Independent of human perception or ressan. Arendt suggests that there 18 Ilttle IndlC".atlon or even hope of thls situation changlng. Indeed, she points out that the Increaslng sophistication of sclentlflc Instruments and techniques, makes It every day more unllkely that man will encounter anythlng ln the world around hlm that 15 not "man-made" and hence Is not, ln the last analysls, hls own self ln a dlfferent dlsgulse. (C.f. Human Condition, pp.261 , 266, 273, 286-87). Arendt glves as a cogent example, one of the greatest "trlumphs" of racent science: "the astronaut, shot Into outer space and Imprlsoned ln hls Instrument-rldden capsule," who cannot actually, physlcally encounter his surroundlngs without Immedlately dylng. Setween Past and Future, p.277.

~

'-t ~ Human Condition, pp.278-79.; C.f. SetWeen Past and Future, p.39.

• 116

framework of the tradition. For "the dichotomy between contemplation and action

could not be upheld under conditions in which science became active and Qi.d in

order to know."2e8 Faced with the practical needs and ideals of modern science,

and modern philosophy informed by that science, contemplation quickly lost its

place in the traditional hierarchy of theory and practice.2eO

The modern identification of knowing and making rendered contemplation

altogether meaningless and eliminated it from the range of meaningful human

capacities, "almost as a matter of course." Arendt points out that this did not

constitute a reversai of the vita contemplativa and the vit a activa, but the

destruction of the hierarchy altogether. The actual reversai between theory and

practice did not concern contemplation, but thinking. Thinking ceased to be viewed

as a guide ta human activity and became no more than "the handmaid of doing."~1

Arendt discusses a second reversaI of hierarchy in the traditional framework.

This was the reversai within the ~ ~ itself. As a result of the elimination of

contemplation, the inherent dignity of the vita ~, which the tradition had so

Jang denied, was restored Jate in the modern age. The realm of human affairs paid

a high priee for this recovery, however, sinee it was not the dignity of action and

speech that was affirmed, nor even the activity of work, but the formerly despised

259 Between Past and Future, p.39.

280 By ·contemplatlon,· Arendt has ln mlnd two klnds. There 15 tlrst, the classlcal conception of contemplation as thaumazeln, "the shocked wonder at the miracle of Seing,· which Is the beginning of ail phllosophy. The second klnd of contemplation Is derlved trom the experlence of the craftsman and consists ln the passive beholdlng of an Ides or mode! accordlng to whlch he fabricates hls object. Arendt points out that It Is thls second klnd of contemplation that became the predominant one ln the Western tradition of phllosophy. (Human Condition, pp.302-303).

261 Hyman Condition, pp.305, 291-92.

( 117

activity of labour.

The transformation of homo fabm into the animal taborans, has already

been discussed in the context of Arendt's tirst narrative on the modern age. ln that

account we followed Arendt's analysis of this transformation from the perspective

of modern conditions, that is, in terms of the ri se of society and the concomitant

collapse of the public and private realms. As presented, Arendt's concern was

most clearly to examine how the collapse of the publie and private realms led

ultimately to the relativization and then devaluation of ail values. At the end of her

second narrative, Arendt returns to thls theme to consider it trom the perspective

of modern understanding.

ln her second narrative, Arendt analyzes the "defeat" of homo fibm in terms

of a radical change in his mentality rather than in terms of changing conditions. In

particular, Arendt argues that the transformation of homo fa.bm: into the animal

laborans occurred as a result of the modern concept of "process" being introduced

into the fabricating activity. Arendt explains that, from the perspective of tJgmQ

fit.:

the modern shift of emphasis trom the 'what' to the 'how,' trom the thing itself to its fabrication process, was by no means an unmixed blessing. It deprived man as maker and builder of those fixed and permanent standard~ and measurements which, prior to the modern age, have alwa:ts served him as guides for his doing and criteria for his judgement.

The introduction of the modern notion of process into the fabricating activity

deprived .t!QmQ fibm of those permanent measures that precede and outlast his

( 282 lbld. p.307.

..

.. 118

activlty. As a result, processes and not ideas, the models and shapes of the things

to be, became the guide for the making and fabricating activities of bQmQ ~ in

the modern age.2e3

The modern understanding of work as a process of making corresponds ta

the ri se of automation discussed in Arendt's first narrative. With the development

of modern manufacturing processes, the products of homo ID became

incidental ta the process of making. Arendt notes that this reveals that the world

alienation of the modern age extended even to the most worldly of human

activities.2e4

Arendt asks herself, however, why the decline of homo mbm late in the

modern age, should have led to "the victory of the animal laborans." More

specifically, she questions why modern understanding elevated labour, the activity

relegated byall previous ages to the lowest most despised position, Nto the highest

rank of man's capacities." She asks alternatively, why, within the diversity of the

human condition with its various capacities, it was precisely life that became the

overriding concern and interest of the modern age.- ln answer ta this query,

283 !bkt. p.300.

264 !b!d. p.307. The modem perception that products of manufacturlng are Incldentsl to the production process !tself has become wldespread. Durlng a public address on crlmlnallty ln govemment, Arendt refleeted on "the more or less commonly held conviction that manufacturlng 'companles' are ln business not to produce goocls but to provlde Jobs. - Arendt attrlbutOO thls perception to the fact that ft was the development of war economies rather than economlc poIleles that endOO the Depression of the thirtles. In IIght of thls experlence, Arendt contends, ft has become -almost universally aceepted that we must make cars to keep Jobs, not to move people around" She goes on to point out that 'he billions of dollars demanded by the Pentagon for the armaments Industry [to produee weapons not Intended for use) are necessary not for 'national securlty' but for keeplng the economy trom eollapsing" -Home to Roost-, ln S.B. Wamer Jr. (00). The Amerlcan Experiment (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976) p. n.

2e5 Human Condition, p.313.

119

Arendt turns to consider the influence of Christianity on the self-understanding of

the modern age.

Arendt points out that the modern age, its declining religious faith

notwithstanding, still operated within the fabric of traditional Christian society.

Arendt argues that the basic Christian belief in the sacredness of life amounted to

a reversai of the ancient relationship of man and world. As a result, in the context

of the collapsing distinction between public and private, modern man came to

assert the value of life, whether of the individual or of the species "mankind," as the

highest good. In this situation, not only did the human world cease to be the

highest good, but the highest good itself ceased to be something stable and

permanent. ...

Arendt argues that the modern reversai of doing and contemplating (i.e.

thinklng) coinclded with the earlier reversai by Christianity of lite and the world. The

coincidence of these two reversais prepared the way for the rise and dominance

of the animal laborans late in the modern age.

Only when the ~ activa had lost its point of reference ln the ~ contemplativa could it become active life in the full sense of the word; and only because this active life remained bound to life as its only point of reference could life as such. the labouring metabolism of man with nature, become active and unfold in its entire fertility. 217

Arendt's analysis suggests that the high estimation given to the activity of

labour late in the modern age was the rasult of two central tenats of modern

understanding. The first was the central importance in modern i.lnderstanding of

2!MI W. pp.318t 314.

r 2117 W. p.320.

120

the concept of process. The second was the fact that the modern age did not

challenge the fundamental Christian estimation of life, itself a process, as the

t-lighest good. As a result, the activity assoeiated with the life process, labour,

achieved hithertofore unheard of status among human capabilities and the ri se of

the animallaborans followed as a matter of course.

Arendt points out that the understanding of human activities as a process

was not confined to the experience of labour and work. Rather, in the modern age,

everything concerning man and nature came to be viewed as a process or series

of processes. Of particular concern to Arendt in this context is the transformation

of political philosophy when it submitted to the instrumentalist view of polities

inherent in modern economics.

Historically, political theorists from the seventeenth century onward were confronted with a hitherto unheard-of process of growing wealth, growing property, growing acquisition. ln the attempt to account for this steady growth, their attention was naturally drawn to the phenomenon of a progressing process itself, so that ... the concept of process became the very key term of the new 8a.e as weil as the sciences, historical and natural, developed by it.

Late in the modern age, everything concerning man and nature came to be

viewed as a process or series of process9s. Most significantly, the modern view

that everything known is "made" by man led him:

to consider himself part and parcel of the two superhuman, all­encompassing processes of nature and history, both of which seemed doomed to an infinite progress without ever reaching any inherent ~ or approaching any preordained idea."

288 ll2!d.. p.105.

a !12kI. p.307.

-------------------------------------

( 121

Arendt claims that the concept of process is the result of the modern

condition of worldlessness.

[T]he experience which underlies the modern age's notion of process ... is by no means primarily an experience which man made in the world surrounding him; on the contrary, it sprang from the des~air of ever experiencing and knowing adequately ail that is given to man and not made by him.210

Arendt's characterization of the modern age as one of growing worldlessness is

based on her conviction that "the spirit of the whole epoch" may be understood in

terms of the responses ta this modern despair.

ln response to the modern despair of ever knowing anything he had not

made himself, man "began to try out his capacities for action." This is, of course,

Arendt's terminology. The actors themselves understood their acting as "making."

According to Arendt, men began to aet, first into nature by way of modern science

and then, into history by way of revolution. In so doing they became "aware that

whenever man acts he starts processes."

The notion of process does not denote an objective quality of either history or nature; it is the inevitable result of human action. The first result of men's acting into history is that history becomes a process. and the most cogent argument for men's acting into nature in the guise of scientific inquiry is that today . . . 'nature is a process.'271

The modern conviction that nature is a process meant that nature was no longer

conceived in terms of ~, but in terms of becoming.

Arendt points out, however, that the understanding of events as part of a

process means that to our modern way of thinking nothing is meaningful in and by

210 Between Past and Future, p.62.

( 271 lllld.

122

itself. The concept of process renders experience meaningless because it implies

that:

the concrete and the general, the single thing or event and the universal meaning, have parted company. The process, which alone makes meaningful whatever it happens to carry along, has thus acquired a monopoly of universality and signi\icance.272

The conoept of process is incapable of bestowing meaning on particular

occurrences because it dissolves ail of the particulars into means whose

meaningfulness ends the moment the end-product is finished.273

Arendt maintains that the modern understanding of reality as process had

a destructive impact on the authority of the tradition late in the modern age.

Arendt's reflections on this development will conclude what 1 have called her

second narrative on the modern age.

C} The End of the Tradition:

Arendt maintains that the loss of concrete experience, that is, the condition

of modern alienation from the world, finds its paradigmatic expression in the

worldless language of processes. The turn to the self in modern philosophy, the

flight from the world into the universe in modern science, and the apparently

unlimited accumulation of wealth late in the modern age ail reflected the declining

importance of the public, political realm, and ail these "developments" are

concerned with processes. It is for this reason above ail that none of these

272 Human Condition. p.64.

273 ll2IQ. p.80.

->,

123

experiences can be accounted for within the terms of reference provided by the

conceptual framework of the tradition.

The realization that truth does not reveal itself, either to the "eyes of reason"

nor to the senses, was an explicit challenge to the first presupposition of the

tradition, namely, the traditional identity ofthought and being. The Cartesian doubt

that developed as a response to this "new reality" was simply the philosophical

articulation of what was to become a matter of course for modern science, that is,

the division between being and appearance. The modern view, that being is "active

and energetic" and hides behind deceptive appearances of its own making, also

entailed a rejection of the second presupposition of the tradition, that reality is

eternal and unchanging. Finally, the modern view of reality as process, challenged

the third aspect of the tradition, namely the view that politics is an instrumental

activity. As we have seen, it is in the nature ot ail processes, according to Arendt,

that within its f10w there can be no permanent ends independent of the process.

For ail such ends once achieved automatically become transformed into means for

further ends. Indeed, Arendt points out that in such a situation the very distinction

between means and ends collapses.

This was the context in which modern philosophy waged its greatest assault

on the tradition. The modern "age of suspicion" inaugurated a series of conscious

rebellions against the tradition by philosophers. Of the nineteenth century "rebels

against the tradition" Arendt singles out three as most important, Kierkegaard,

Marx and Nietzsche. "Their greatness lay- she tells us "in the fact that they

perceived their world as one invaded by new problems and perplexities which our

124

tradition of thought was unable to cope with."274

According to Arendt, each of these thinkers, "took account of those traits of

modernity which were incompatible with our tradition.,,27~ Each respectivety

challenged one of the basic assumptions underlying traditional religion, tradition al

poUtical thought, and traditional metaphysics by consciously reversing or "inverting"

the traditional hierarchy of concepts. Arendt argues that the attempt of these

thinkers to break free from the conceptual hold of tradition led their thought into

fundamental contradictions. More significantly, however, these reversais weakened

the authority of the tradition by undermining the fundamental premise on which it

had been established, namely, the notion that reality is unchanging and permanent

"Being." Arendt refers to this period, which brought about the ultimate collapse of

the traditional hierarchy, as "the end of the tradition."

i) Kierkegaard:

Kierkegaard confronted the conflict arising between the modern age's spirit

of doubt and distrust in appearances, and traditional religion's unquestioning

confidence that truth § revelation and thus appears to man's reason and senses.

Arendt says that Kierkegaard's leap from doubt into faith was an attempt to save

faith from the onslaught of modernity. What he did, however, was bring about a

reversai and a distortion of the tradition al relationship betwaen reason and faith.

274 J.bkl. p.27.

27S ~. p.31.

125

From that time on religion itself became modern, and "sincere religious experience

has seemed possible only in the tension between doubt and belief. ,,278

ii} Marx:

Arendt states that Marx confronted "the incompatibility between classical

political thought and modern political conditions." For Marx, modern conditions had

elevated labour, "traditionally the most despised of ail human activities," to the

highest rank of productivity and to the expression of mants freedom. Marx,

according to Arendt, was convinced that "modern political conditions . . . which

pretended to be able to assert the time honoured ideal of freedom under unheard­

of conditions of universal equality," ought to have put to rest the traditional concept

of labour as "the very symbol of man's subjection to necessity."277 Arendt argues

that Marx "endeavoured to save philosophical thought" from "the impact of labour,"

that is, from the traditional understanding of labour as necessity. He did this by

reversing the traditional hierarchy and asserting the superiority of the realm of

action over the realm of contemplation (thinking). For Marx the realm of action

meant, of course, labour. This attempt to address this incompatibility of modern

experience and traditional thought. however. led Marx into two major

contradictions.

The first contradiction appears in Marx's philosophical glorification of labour

as the "most human and productive of man's activities." Such a position, Arendt

2711 Betwnn Past and Future. p.29. C.f. HUman Condnlon, pp. 275-276.

r 2n Between Past and Future. p.32. ""

126

points out, contradicts his assertion that, "the revolution," will emancipate man from

labour. Arendt ask& rhetorically, "If labour is the most human and most productive

of man's activities, what will happen when, after the revolution,'labour is abolished'

in 'the realm of freedom,' when man has succeeded in emancipating himself from

it? What productive and what essentially human activity will be left?"278

The second major contradiction Arendt discusses involves Marx's reversai

of contemplation and doing. The definitive expression of this reversai is Marx's last

thesis on Feuerbach: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world differently;

the point is, however, ta change it." Before Marx, from Plata ta Hegel, philosophy

was "not of this world." Marx, in direct rebellion against this tradition al view,

predicts that the world of common human affairs will one day become identical with

the realm of ideas. For Marx, however, il is the labouring activity that is the

expression of man's humanity. It follows, Arendt argues, that

thought itself will become bound to the inexorable laws of necessity from which

Marx had sought ta "save" il.mI ln addition, Arendt points out that this reversai of

acting (making) over thinking (contemplation) eliminated contemplation from the

range of meaningful human experience. Arendt insists that Marx's attempt to

"realize philosophy" marks the final collapse of the dichotomy of the m

278 lbld. p.24. C.f. Human Condition, pp.104-05.

278 Between Past and Future. pp. 21. 23, 32.

(

(

contemplativa and the vita activa.2ID

Marx's leap from theory into action, and from contemplation into labour, came after Hegel had transformed metaphysics into a philosophy of history and changed the philosopher into the historian to whose backward glance eventually, at the end of time, the meaning of becoming and motion. not of being and truth, would reveal itself.,,281

iii) Nietzsche:

The third rebellion against the tradition that Arendt discusses appears in the

work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche. Arendt observes, is often credited with

having been a nihilist. This common perception is not only mistaken. it also

obscures the fact that Nietzsche was "the first to try to overcome the nihilism

inherent . . . in the reality of modern life." 282 Nietzsche, like Marx, confronted the

incompatibility between traditional (philosophical) thought and modern political (Le.

social) conditions. More specifically, Nietzsche addressed the tension between

traditiona' 'ideas' as the transcendent standards and measurements by which

human thought and actions were recognized and judged, and modern society

which had "dissolved ail such standards into relationships between its members.

establishing them as functional values.·213

280 Arendt mentions a thlrd contradiction ln Marx concemlng hls glorification of violence. Her discussion of thls contradiction parallels that concemlng labour. Accordlng to Arendt, Marx declares. on the one hand. that violence Is the ·mldwlfe of hlstory" and ther.ore the rnost dlgnlfled of ail forms of human actlvhy. On the other hand, however. Mane holds thet the end of class struggle and dlsappearance of the state after the revolutlon wHl mean that violence will no longer be possible. œJ1W8en Past and Future, pp.21-24).

281 lbld. p.29.

282 ll2k!. p.30.

283 lbkt. p.32.

, .

128

ln his attempt to "overcome" the nihilism inherent in this situation, Nietzsche

set out to "devaluate the current values of society." He realized, however, that his

radical critique of social values undermined the very existence of absolute

standards as such. For "[i]deas in the sense of absolute units had become

identified with social values to such an extent that they simply ceased ta exist once

their value-character, their social status, was challenged."284 Nietzsche rebelled

against the Western tradition of philosophy altogether and proclaimed the

superiority of Iife and the realm of sense experience over the suprasensuous,

transcendent ideas of traditional metaphysics. What he discovered, however, was

that within the conceptual framework of the tradition, the sensuous realm can only

have existence to the extent that it is grounded in the suprasensuous,

transcendent realm. As Nietzsche observed:

We aboli shed the true [suprasensory] world: which world has remained? Perhaps the world of appearances? ... But nol Together with the true world we aboli shed the world of appearances.215

Arendt claims Nietzsche's "inverted Platonism" or "transvaluation of values, Il

was the last attempt to turn away from the tradition; it succeeded, however, only

in turning the tradition upside down. More significant than the mere reversai of

concepts, was the discovery that the elimination of one of the terms in the

traditional hierarchy of concepts results in eliminating the difference between them.

Arendt observes that:

once the always precarious balance between the two worlds is lost, no matter whether the 'true world' abolishes the 'apparent one' or vice versa, the whole framework of reference in which our thinking was accustomed to orient itself breaks down. In these terms, nothing

284 !bkt, p.34.

285 !bls:f. 1 have taken the liberty of addlng capltals to the beglnnlng d two phrases ln thls quote. The same quote (silghtly altered) a1so appears ln "Thlnklng,· pp. 1 0-11.

129

seems to make much sense any more.288

Arendt argues that the attempts by Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche to

think against the tradition destroyed the last vestiges of its authority, at least

among philosophers. As we saw in chapter two, the conceptual framework of the

tradition was rooted in the assumption that reality, whether conceived of as Being

or process (Le. History), is in essence a rational, completed whole. Although

Arendt doesn't put it quite this way, the authority of this tradition depended upon

its ability to deny, rather than account for, the appearance of genuine novelty in the

world. It is precisely the appearance of new beginnings through human action,

however, that Arendt holds to be the outstanding feature of events and

developments in the modern age.

ln face of the literally world-transforming events and developments in the

modern age the tradition proved increasingly unable to deny what Arendt calls "the

contingent character of reality"; the fact that modern change is the result of "new

beginnings," which is to say, human action in the world.2I1 To the extent that they

still held traditional assumptions about reality, Arendt points out that Kierkegaard,

Marx and Nietzsche failed to confront the fact that novelty itself had become the

most significant aspect of modern experience. Arendt suggests that this was

because they faced "the perplexity of having to deal with new phenomena in terms

of an old tradition of thought outside of whose conceptual framework no thinking

288 !.tmf. p.11.

287 C.f. Between Past and Future, pp.89, 257. Arendt's conception of reallty as ·radlcally contingent" has not recelved much attention ln the secondary literature although It Is, to say the very l&ast, a fasclnatlng one. For a discussion and critique of Arendt on thls matter see; John S. Nelson, ·PoIltlcs and Truth: Arendt's Problematlc,· op. clt. pp.270-301.

, "

, , ,<

r. ., 1

130

seemed possible at all."288 It is in tl'1is sense primarily that Kierkegaard, Marx and

Nietzsche, their radical innovations notwithstanding, remained traditional

philosophers. For although their thinking arase from new experiences, that is from

the world, it was not from the world that they took their bearings, but from the

tradition they had rejected. As Arendt states:

The destructive distortions of the tradition were ail caused by men who had experienced something new which they tried almost instantanAously to overcome and resolve into something 0Id.288

For the tirst time since its beginnings, it became apparent to philosophers

that the Western tradition of thought was not merely opposed to the world, but in

a peculiar sense inadequate to il. Stated slightly differently, we could say with

Arendt that, as the modern age 'progressed,' it became virtua"y impossible for

the vita contemplativa to continue ta obscure and deny the reality of human action

in the vita activa.

Arendt's more immediate concern in discussing these three thinkers,

hl..)wever, is to argue that, although they each stand at "tho end of the tradition,"

none of them carl be held responsible either for the eventual break with the

tradition or for the structure and conditions of the modern world in which we live

today.290 This point is important in light of the fact that Arendt's account of the

modern age, as presented here, emphasizes two distinct but never who"y separate

concerns; the decline of the tradition and the collapse of the public and private

realms. For Arendt, the latter event, with ail that it entails, cannot be attributed to

-.. 288 Between Past and Futyre. p.25. My emphasls.

288 Between Past and Futyre. p.29.

290 ll2K1. p.27.

r

131

changing ideas within and challenges to the tradition.

The preceding two chapters have attempted to follow Arendt's account of

the modern age by considering her concern with the relationship between

understanding and the world. Speaking very generally, it appears that the collapse

of the division between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa coincided

historically with the collapse of the private/public distinction in the modern age, that

is, with the ri se of society. In other words, the ri se of society is intimately related

to both the decline of the tradition and the loss of politics in the modern age. In

contrast to many others who have written about the loss of meaning and

understanding in the world, Arendt holds that it is the loss of pOlities and its

concomitant worldlessness rather than thinking itself or the tradition that is of

greatest concern. For Arendt maintains that people cannot be fully human in the

absence of a world. In concluding this study, 1 will turn to consider sorne possible

implications of these reflections in the next chapter. More specifically, the

discussion to follow should help to exemplify the political nature of the

contemporary crisis of understanding.

132

CHAPTER SIX

Conclusion

A) Eichmann in Jerusalem:

ln chapters four and five, we followed Arendt's account of the events and

developments of the modern age and the modern historical understanding to

which they gave rise. The modern changes in what Arendt calls the

"constellation" of human activities is reflected in the changing self-interpretations

of man throughout the modern period. According to Arendt's account, man's

understanding of himself has shifted in accordance with the changing conditions

within the world during the modern age.

Considered from the perspective of Arendt's political thought, the

changes in human understanding have been as dramatic as the changes within

the world. We have moved from understanding ourselves as most essentially

rational beings possessed with the faculty of speech, to understanding

ourselves as essentially labourers and jobholders. For us, it is no longer politics

that is the highest good, but rather life itself. This appears to many as a self­

evident truth.

1 would like to conclude this study with an examination of Arendt's most

controversial work, Eichmann in Jerusalem.281 For, as 1 will attempt to show, the

figure of Adolf Eichmann epitomizes the modern disjuncture of thought and

281 Eichmann ln Jerusalem: A Report on the Banallty of Evil. New York: Viking Press, 1963. Revlsed and enlarged edltion, Harmondsworth: Penguln Books Ud., 1965. Hereafter clted as ElDJ.

c action, understanding and experience that Arendt attributes to modern world

alienation, that is, to the modern condition of "worldlessness."

133

The essence of Arendt's views on Eichmann is weil known. The crux af

her argument is that Eichmann carried out his duties as a member of the Nazi

hierarchy not out of a sense of personal hatred of the Jews nor out of

ideological conviction, but simply from an unwavering sense of duty. According

to Arendt, the most striking feature about Eichmann at his trial was his apparent

inability to understand the significance of what he had done. It was on this basis

that Arendt spoke of "the banality of evil" and attributed to Eichmann what she

called his "inability to think." Eichmann, she argued, simply failed to think about

or judge the situation which led him to become one of the most notorious

criminals of the twentieth century. 2112

The most peculiar thing about Eichmann is that he apparently had no

personal hatred of the Jews; he had even behaved courteously to individual

Jews with whom he had consulted. Arendt points out that Eichmann went to

considerable lengths to prove he had "nevet' harboured any iII feelings against

his victims"2113 Nobody believed him. The judges, Arendt says, "preferred to

conclude from occasional lies that he was a liar -- and missed the greatest

2112 Durlng the war, Eichmann was ln charge of organlzlng the transportation system for sandlng Jews to the kNllng centres ln the East. Arendt notes that -'echnlcally and organlzatlonally,- Elchmann's position ln the Nazi hlerarchy was nal very hlgh. His position as head of Jewlsh emlgratlon became Important, however, once the Nazis began thelr pollcy of 'orced emigration- (I.e. deportatlon) and liquidation Qf the Jews. Indeed. Eichmann headed the only office ln the reglme that offlclally dealt excluslvely wlth the -Jewlsh question; the ideologicallmportance of which, by the end of the war, -had grown to fantastic proportions.- <!J2!g. pp.70-71). 21112

2113 !bId. p.30.

1 < , 4 :j 1 \ ~

{ 1

1

134

moral and even legal challenge of the whole case." For the case, as in any other

criminal proceeding, rested on the assumption that the defendant must have

been aware of the criminal nature of his aets. That is, that he possess a basic

knowledge of right and wrong.2IM However, in Arendt's depiction, Eichmann's

conscience was a strange affair.

Eichmann did not appear to feel any guilt, even though "the tacts of the

case of what Eichmann had do ne were never in dispute."2115 ln his own eyes he

should not have been on trial for murder since he never personally killed or

gave an arder to kill anyone. - Although his pre-trial statements to his Israeli

interrogator make it clear that Eichmann knew that he had done wrong, the

monstrousness of what he had done seemed ta escape him. While on trial,

Eichmann appeared virtually untroubled by his raie in the Nazi extermination

programme. He was visibly disturbed, however, by the recollection that he had

once slapped the face of Dr. Josef Loewenherz, the head of the Vienna Jewish

Community.287 Arendt notes that at his trial "it was not the accusation of having

sent millions of people ta their death that ever caused Eichmann real agitation

but only the accusation (dismissed by the court) of one witness that he had

once beaten a Jewish boy to death. ,,2911

284 IW. p.26.

285 lbld.. p.90. C.f. p.56.

2118 IW. p.22.

287 !b!;t. pp.46-47.

2911 ll2kt. p.109.

(

{

135

Surprisingly, Arendt claims that Eichmann had "an innate repugnance to

crime." She suggests that, although it was of little legal relevance, "it was of

great political interest to know how long it takes an average person to overcome

his innate repugnance toward crime." Eichmann, she insists, supplied an answer

to this question that could not have been clearer and more precise.21111

When Eichmann aetually went and saw the Nazi killing centres at

Treblinka, Chelmo and Minsk, he was completely repulsed by the experience.

Arendt points out that Eichmann's revulsion reveals that he did have a

conscience, but that it "functioned in the expected way for about four weeks,

whereupon it began to function the other way around." Shortly after his visits to

the killing centres, Eichmann organized his tirst mass deportations of Jews from

Germany, "in accordance with a 'wish' of Hitler:3OD

Arendt claims that Eichmann had one last ·crisis of conscience" in the

final year of the war. This was when he was ordered by his superior, Heinrich

Himmler, to stop the deportations of the Jews. Eichmann, however, knew that

the order had originated not with Hitler, but with Himmler, and so regarded the

order as an aet of treason and disobeyed. The Court, understandably, did not

view this as an act of conscience on the part of Eichmann, but rather regarded

it to be one of the most incriminating pieces of evidence against him.301

2l1li lb.!d. p.93.

300 1b1d. p.95-96.

301 Arendt points out that Himmler hlmself was not motlvated by conscience when he ordered the deportatlons to be stopped. It was rather a seIf-rnotlvated, calculated attempt to both becorne 'he brlnger of pesee ln Germany,· and to appease the AIlles ln the nalve hope of receMng more lenlent treatment trom them after the war.(!b!Q. pp.144-147.)

. ,

[His] uncompromising attitude toward the performance of his murderous duties damned him in the eyes of the judges more than anything else, which was comprehensible, but in his own eyes it was precisely what justified him.302

136

Adolf Eichmann, the infamous mass murderer, displayed no evidence of

fanaticism or hatred at his trial. Nor did he give any indication that he felt guilty

for what he had done. Instead, what had struck Arendt about him was:

a manifest shallowness in the doer that made it impossible to trace the uncontestable evil of his deeds to any deeper level of roots or motives. The deeds were monstrous, but the doer •• at least the very effective one now on trial·· was quite ordinary, commonplace and neither demonic nor monstrous.303

ln Eichmann in Jerusalem and later in The Life of the Mind, Arendt argues

that what enabled Eichmann to undertake atrocious evils was "not stupidity but

thoughtlessness." Eichmann's thoughtlessness was most clearly revealed by his

"inability to speak" in anything other than clichés and stock phrases. At one

point during the cross-examination, Eichmann, answered a question with a

cliché not familiar to the presiding judge and was unable to think of another way

to put it. Eichmann, by way of explanation, apologized saying, "Officialese ... is

my only language." Officialese became his only language, Arendt observes,

"because he was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was nat

a cliché."3CM

Arendt argues that Eichmann's almost complete dependence on clichés

and slogans served ta insulate and protect him from reality, that is, from

302 !J2k1. p.137.

303 "Thinking; p.4.

304 .E!DJ. p.48 .

confronting the meaning and significance of what he was involved in.

The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability ta speak was closely connected with an inability ta think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somef:\ody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of ail safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such. ,,30!1

137

Arendt says that Eichmann's "remoteness from reality" revealed a "Iack of

imagination," by which she means that he was un able lOto think from the

standpoint of somebody else." Arendt most often referred to this kind of mental

activity as "representative thinking," and sometimes, (following Kant) as the

"enlarged mentality." ln Arendt's judgment, this lack of imagination was

Eichmann's "greatest flaw." It was perhaps most tellingly revealed in Eichmann's

repeated and detailed explanations to his Israeli police interrogator, a German

Jew, that it was not his fault that he had been un able to rise above the ranks of

a lieutenant-colonel in the S.S. Indeed, his whole confession was "told in the

tone of someone who was sure of finding 'normal human' sympathy for a hard­

luck story." More striking still, was Eichmann's wish "'to find peace with [his]

former enemies fil once he had confessed.308

Arendt insists that Eichmann represents lia new type of criminal," one

"who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, [and therefore] commits his crimes

under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel

that he is doing wrong. Il If this were true, however, it would seem virtually to

305 ll2lQ. p.49.

:( 30e !.b!d. pp.48-50, 53. ':.\

138

absolve Eichmann of his crimes. In the words of one critic, Arendt's statement

"comes dangerously close to suggesting that we are dealing with something

outside the realm of moral choiee and personal responsibility." How, after ail,

can someone who "never realized what he was doing," and who never intended

to kill anyone (nor personally did so) be he Id both legally and morally

accountable for his deeds?307

ln the Postscript to Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt suggests that

Eichmann ought to have been able to think for himself; to recognize the criminal

nature of his deeds and to judge them for what they were. Arendt's

condemnation of Eichmann is based on her conviction that he could have acted

differently th an he did if he had been thinking.

What we have demanded in these [postwar] trials, where the defendants had committed 'Iegal' crimes, is that human beings be capable of telling right from wrong even when ail they have ta

307 Wendy Flory, "The Psyehology of Antlsemltlsm: Consclenee-Proof Ratlonallzatlon and the Deferrlng of Moral Cholee,· ln Michael Curtis (ad). Antlsemttism ln the COntemporarv Wodd. (Boulder, Col.: Westvlew Press, 1986). p.239; Sae also Noe! O'Sulllvan, ·PoIlllcs, Totalitarlanlsm and Freadom: The PoIltlcal Thought of Hannah Arendt,· PoIltlcal Studles 21 (Jurt8 1973). p.192.

ln hls essay, ·Beyond 'the Banallty of EvU,'· Brttlsh Jpuroal of poIRlcal Science vol. 10, 1980. pp.417-39. Barry Clarke also racognlzas thls as a problem. Clarke's essay Is by far one of the best analysas of "the banallty of evU.· He points out that whlle ·Arsoot was undoubtadly correct ln regardlng Elchmann's appearance as banal,· thls does not mean that he was ~ banal, that Is, Incapable of reason and thought and wUI and jUdgement.· If the laner were the case, then "[Eichmann] could hardly be held ta be morally culpable for hls actions." ~ 425). Clarke goas on ta argue that, ·[h]owever apt the notion of 'the banallty of evll' may be as a description of Elchmann's appearance It cannat provlde a complete account of hls evll-dolng nor ln anyway explaln the moral grounds of hls punlshment." (Clarke 433)

Clarke argues that a more ·adequate,· by whlch he means phllosophlcally coherent, characterlzatlon of Elchmann's evll would be ta cali It heteronomous and not ·banal.· Speaklng generally, Clarke's position Is that Eichmann made a conscious cholce ta do evll. whlch Is ArendJ's position as weil. Clarke dlffers from Arendt, howevor, ln hls Inslstence that for a person ta be morally responslble for hls crimes, the cholce ta do evU must be made not JUst once, but repeatedly. A person may ln thls way continue ta rellnqulsh hls autonomy, but he does not and cannat forfelt hls spontanelty. The fact that a persan can only rellnqulsh hls autonomy and not hls spontanelty means that he retalns at ail tlmes the abllity ta say nu ta evK and, hence, remalns morally responslble for hls deeds. (Clarke 438-439).

'f . ' . . ,

l

guide them is their own judgment, which, moreover, happens to be completely at odds with what the~ must regard as the unanimous opinion of ail those around them.

139

ln this passage Arendt seems to be suggesting both that there are moral

standards which exist independently of the world, and that these can be

discovered through autonomous thinking and judging. As Leah Bradshaw has

recently argued, the example of Eichmann suggested to Arendt "that thinking

autonomously -- that is, detaching oneself from the world of appearances, was

absolutely essential to acting morally." Bradshaw goes on to point out that, if

true, this would require that "one has the capacity to think outside of the

formative context of the plural, pclitical realm. ,,3CIII

Arendt's reflections on Eichmann's "inability to think" and "Iack of

imagination," led her to reconsider the role that the activity of thinking played in

"conditioning" people's moral behaviour. Arendt's posthumously published Ibg

Llfe of the Mjnd is the uncompleted product of these later reflections. In the

Introduction to this work Arendt asks:

could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specifie content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil doing or even 'condition' them against it?,,310

Arendt's purported aim in this work introduces significant tensions into

3011 ~, pp.294-95.

308 Leah Bradshaw, Acting and Thlnklng: The PoIltlcal TholJght of Hannah Arendt. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1989. p.7. Bradshaw devotes the thlrd chapter of her stucly to carefully analyzlng the slgnlflcance of Arendt's encounter wlth Eichmann. Bradshaw argues that the experfence provoked a ·radlcal shift" ln Arendt's thought.

310 "Thlnklng," p.S .

140

her writings considered as a single corpus. Arendt's focus in The Life of the

Mind is to establish the autonomy of the mental faeulties both from one another

and, most signifieantly. from the world of appearanees. As we have seen,

however. in ail of her major works prior to Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt is

adamant that thinking takes its bearings from the world of appearances. Another

consistent and dominant theme in these works is Arendt's insistence that the

loss of understanding in the contemporary age is the result of the world

alienation that began early in the modern age. The presentation of thinking, on

the one hand, as dependent on the public world of appearanees and then, on

the other hand, as autonomous. is a central tension that many readers find

exists between Arendt's earlier work and her project in The Life of the Mind. 311

It is not necessary to pursue this tension in Arendt's thought here. For

what is of primary concern to the present discussion is not the question of

Eichmann's re~;ponsibility to think and judge for himself. but what his tailure to

think reveals to us about the relationship between thinking and polities. Adolf

Eichmann. has become. in the words of one of Arendt's most astute crities, "the

paradigmatic figure of the non-thinking and un-judging. non-citizen of our

311 This tension ln Arendt's thought can be reformulated as one that concerns her vlews on the relatlonshlp between thought (the ~ contemolatlva) and action (the ~ ~. 1 ndeed , It Is preclsely such a formulation that Informs the theme and organlzatlonal structure of two of the most recent book-length stLldles of Arendt's work. See, Leah Bradshaw, Acting and Thlnklng: The PoIltlcal Thoyght of Hannah Arendt. op. clt. and G.M. Tlaba, PoIltlcs and Fr_om: Hyman Will and Action ln the Thoyght of Hannah Arendt. Lauham, Md.: University Press of America Inc., 1987. Ronald Belner has Investlgated thls aspect of Arendt's later work ln hls "'nterpretlve Essay", appendlng Arendt's Lectyres on Kant. op. clt. pp.131-144. See also the articles by Agnes Helier, "Hannah Arendt on the Y..lli Contemplatlva", PhllQSOphvand Social Crltlclsm 12 (FaIl1987). pp.281-29fi.; Jean Yarbourgh and Peter Stem, • ~ AClh!I and Vlta Contemplatlva: Reflectlons on Hannah Arendt's PoIltlcal Thought ln The Lite of the Mlnd", Revlew of PoIltlcs 43 (July 1981). pp.323-54.

(

141

times."312 While this is undoubtedly true, 1 think the, it is perhaps more

significant to eonsider that Eiehmann's "inability to think" exemplifies the politieal

essence of the eontemporary cri sis of understanding. Eichmann epitomizes the

politieal essence of the erisis of understanding in the modern worlld because his

"thoughtlessness" embodies, or exemplifies our dependency on the world for

understanding. In other words, more th an a paradigm of thoughtlessness, Adolf

Eichmann stands as the quintessence of the "worldless" individual of our times.

B) Worldlessness and Thoughtlessness:

Although the issue of Eiehmann's personal responsibility raises important

and diffieult legal, moral and philosophieal questions, his crimes remain

primarily, for Arendt, political phenomena. Considered in political rather than in

psychologieal or moral terms, Eichmann must be understood neither as a

pathologieal monster nor as the incarnation of evil but, as Plato put it, as "a man

among men. "313 From sueh a perspective, it seems that what is at issue here is

not so mueh the human eapaeity for thinking, as it is the human capacity for

"being ïtith others. If Arendt considers the human capacity for "being with others

and neither for or against them" to be the quintessence of humanity.314

312 Ronald Belner, PoIttlcal Judgmem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. p.154.

313 This Is true of a strlctly legsl perspective as weil. In Arendt's opinion, the Judges at Elchmann's triai were to be commendad for thelr unwaverlng adherence to thls prlnclple. She argues, however, that It WBS largely because of It that they faMed ultlmately to address the pecullar Challenge that Eichmann presentad 10 tradltlonal Iagal concepts. Foremost among thase WBS "the assumptlon cu"ent ln ail modem lagal systems that Intent to do wrong Is necessary for the commission of a crime.· ~, p.277.

314 C.f. Human Condition p.180. When Arendt speaks of ·humanlty,· she does nol mean 'the brotherhood of manklnd.' Such a notion she regarded as pemlclous slnce It suggests that ·net men ln thelr Infinite plurallty but man ln the slngular, one spacles and Its exemplars ... Inhablt the earth: Arendt argues

.. 142

The difficulty with Eichmann was not that he lacked any mental

capabilities. He quite obviously was capable of the calculative type of thinking

required for his job as a Nazi bureaucrat. Indeed, Arendt says, "there were two

things he could do weil, better than others: he could organize and he could

negotiate."315In Arendt's presentation of him, Eichmann appears not as an

ideologue, but rather as a career-Nazi who undertook his murderous activities

with great diligence and even enthusiasm. His sense of duty was

uncompromising even though:

in principle, [he] knew quite weil what it was ail about ... He was not stupid. It was sheer thoughtl~ssness -- something by no means identical with stupidity -- that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is 'banal' and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, that is still far from calling it commonplace.311

ln this passage Arendt seems to be saying that although Eichmann knew what it

was ail about, he did not understand. Eichmann's lack of understanding,

however, was not due to "stupidity" in the sense of not knowing what it was ail

that -humanity Is exempllfled not ln fraternity but ln frlendshlp,- somethlng that -Is not Intlmately personal but makes poIltlcal demands and preserves reference to the wor1d.- Arendt's understandlng of -humanlty- Is derlved from that of the anclent Greeks. "The Greeks called this humanness whlch Is achleved ln the dlscourse of frlendshlp phllanthropla, 'love of man,' slnce Il manlfests Itself ln a readlness ta share the world wlth other men" For the anclent Greeks, however, such a prlnclple applled only to Greek cltlzens whlch for the Greeks excluded anyone not Greek by blrth. The latter were by definltlon 'barbarlan.' The Romans, on the other hand, dld not dlscrlmlnate agalnst those who were not Roman by blrth and allowed anyune, regardless of ethnie orlglll or decent, ta become full Roman cltlzens. Arendt therefore preferred to use the Roman equlvalent, humanltas. ("Thoughts about Lessing: p.25). For an excellent discussion of the role that the concept hymanltas plays ~n Arendt's thought, partlcular1y ln her ref\ectlons on -judglng,- see Elizabeth Young-Bruehl, -Reflectlons on Hannah Arendt's The Llfe of the Mlnd: PoIltical Theorv, 10/2 (May 1982). pp.271-30S.

315~, p.45.

31e !.b.!Q. pp.287-288.

.

143

about. The product of understanding is not knowledge, but meaning. Eichmann

knew what he was doing but the meaning of what he was doing escaped him. It

is nothing less th an the presence of meaning, however, that establishes the "in­

between" of human relationships through which people are separated and related

at the same time; that is, the human condition of "worldliness." Understanding, for

Arendt is a politieal virtue for only with understanding can we be "with others

and neither for or against them." The faculty of understanding, however, is not

the same as thinking, for unlike thinking, understanding can never withdraw

from the realm of appearances.317

Understanding, unlike either thinking or knowing, requires the presence of

others. Arendt's reliance on the experience of the ancient Greeks is once again

instructive. The Greeks, Arendt tells us:

learned ta understand -- not to understand one amlther as individual persons, but to look upon the same world from one another's standpoint, ta see the same in very different and frequently opposing aspects.31

•

For Arendt, understanding is something people must ~ through practieal

experience in the publicly constituted politieal realm. One must first eneounter a

plurality (or at least some difference) of perspectives before understanding can

317 It ought ta be noted that for Arendt, the abliity ta thlnk, ta wlthdraw oneself fram one's Immediate Involvement ln the wor1d of appearances, although not the same as understandlng, Is a necessary precondltlon for understandlng. Arendt's portrayal of Eichmann as 'houghtless,· suggests morethan his lack of understanding. The question of why Eichmann dld not thlnk, however, ralses the more strictly philosophical issue of what thinking Is, or at lesst, the nature of the experlences to whlch thlnklng glves rlse. It was preclsely this Issue that Arendt tumed to pursue ln The Llfe of the Minct

318 Between Past and Future, p.52 .

.. take place. In Arendt's discussion of Nazi society she suggests that it was

precisely the virtual absence of such perspectives that contributed to

Eichmann's "Iack of imagination"; his so-called "thoughtlessness."3111

144

Arendt points out that, although Eichmann had been doing his best right

along to assist in the 'Final Solution,' he "had still harboured some doubts

"about su ch a bloody solution through violence." These doubts were dispelled,

however, when in January 1942, Eichmann attended a secret meeting of

government officiais who expressed "extraordinary enthusiasm" for the Final

Solution.32O This positive and unexpected response by so many of his superiors

had a profound effect on Eichmann. He admitted that, fi At that moment, 1

sensed a kind of Pontius Pilate feeling, for 1 felt free of ail guilt." 321

"As Eichmann told it," Arendt points out, "the most potent factor in

soothing his own conscience was the simple fact that [with one exception] he

could see no one, no one at ail, who actually was against the Final Solution."322

318 WhUe It Is true that ln The lite of the Mlnd Arendt seeks to establlsh the autonomy of the mental facultles, and that Imagination, by "de-senslng" the data of sensory experlence, Is Integral to the autonomyof 88ch of the facultles, Arendt does not present Imagination !tself as a separate faculty. Nor does she ever argue that Imagination Is completely Independent of the wor1d. In her discussion of the way ln whlch language (metaphor) aets as a bridge between the Invisible realm of thlnklng and the realm of appearances, Arendt observes that "the thlnklng ego never leaves the wor1d of appearances altogether." The metaphor that ·unltes" the two worlds Is a ·de-sensed· product of the Imagination; that Is derlved from sense experlence but transformed by the Imagination Into Images. ("Thlnklng," pp.110, 85).

320 ~, p.113. This was the Conference of the Staatssekretare (Undersecretarles of State), now referred to as the Wannsee Conference, called by Reinhardt Heydrich for the purpose of coordlnatlng ail efforts of the government mlnlstrles and civil service toward the Implementation of the Final Solution. Eichmann, by far the lowest ln rank and social position of those present, acted as secretary of the meeting. (lbJQ. pp.112-114).

321 !b1d. p.114.

322 J..bId. p.116.

_J' i,

-

145

According to Arendt's account, cooperation with the Nazis was widespread. She

discusses the disturbing fact that the Nazis received cooperation from ail sorts

ot people and organizations outside the Nazi Party. These included German

government employees, officiais, and military personnel who were not Nazis, as

weil as the German population at large. The Nazis also received cooperation

from the governments and populations of countries that Germany came to

occupy in the course of the war. By far the most disturbing element of

cooperation, however, came from the Jews themselves. Eichmann, she states,

"did not expect the Jaws to share the general enthusiasm over their destruction,

but he did expect more th an compliance, he expected -- and received, to an

extraordinary degree -- their cooperation. This was, 'of course, the very

comerstone' of everything he did ... " :123

Within the social context of the Third Reich, Eichmann was a diligently law

abiding man, who lived by the precepts of duty and obedience. Indeed, he

claimed to have lived according to what turned out to be a fairly accu rate

rendition of Kant's moral imperative. In relation to his murderous activities,

Arendt says that Eichmann:

was not lago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been further from his mind than to determine with Richard III 'to prove a villain.' Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at ail. And this diligence

323 lbId.. p.117. There were, cf course dlssentlng volces and had Eichmann been wUling he would IIkely have heard at least sorne of them. Indged, Arendt notes that the one tlme Eichmann dld encounter opposition (Dr. Rudolf Kastner asked hlm to stop "the death mils at Auschwltz-) seemed to have made a deep Impression on hlm slnce he mentloned It several tlmes. Apart trom thls single Instance, Eichmann sald, -Nobody came to me and reproached me for anythlng ln the performance of my dutles: Qbkt. pp.116, 131).

146

in Itself was by no means criminal ... 324

At his trial Eichmann appeared to be neither mentally insane, sadistic, or

fanatlcally antisemitic. Indeed, Arendt insists that, "everybody could see that this

man was not a 'monster,' but it was difficult indeed not to suspect that he was a

clown ... 3211 By way of emphasizing her point, Arendt mentions that half a dozen

psychiatrists who examined him for the trial had certified him as "normal". Arendt

notes in particular, however, that one of the psychiatrists found Eichmann's

"whole psychological outlook," his attitude towards his family and friends, to be

"not only normal but most desirable."328

ln reflecting on the incomprehensible abyss that separated the mendacity

of the figure, Adolf Eichmann, from the unspeakable enormity and horror of his

deeds, Arendt observes that:

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were Iike him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and our moral standards of judgment, this normality [is~ much more terrifying than ail the atrocities put together . . .32

Arendt contends that the crimes of the Third Reich, "were not committed by

outlaws, monsters and raving sadists, but by the most respected members of

respectable society who more often th an not did not even believe the 'words of

324 lbld. p.287.

325 !bId. p.54.

328 1bkI. pp.2S-26.

327 lbkl. p.276.

{

147

the Fuhrer', which had the force of law .• 321

What made the situation in which Eichmann and so many others like him

historically unique was the in credible degree to which public life and politics in

Nazi Germany had become a matter of private concern. In a recent defence of

Arendt's judgments concerning Eichmann, Shiraz Dossa describes the

privatization of the 'public realm' in Nazi Germany acutely.

The public realm in Nazi Germany was not a political realm at ail: its characteristic passions were personal careers and racial­biological questions. Nazi politics was not centred on issues of communal concern -- on the manner, the tone and the fate of the public life of citizens in the ancient Greek sense -- but exclusively on private concerns. Among the Nazis and their supporters, there were no citizen s, strictly speaking, only private men in search of careers. To them, the public realm was no more than an organized and civilized market for jobs, promotion and success • . . Nazism, while maintaining its elaborate public image, privatized public life to the point of almost destroying it.321

Eichmann was incapable of "being with others" in Arendt's sense, not

simply because he was duty-bound to his "job,· but more signlficantly because

under the social conditions of the Third Reich, doing one's job was considered

to be the greatest 'public' virtue.

Arendt insists that Eichmann did have a conscience, but that his

conscience operated precisely opposite to what one would ordinarily expect.

The case of Adolf Eichmann revealed to Arendt the fact that his conscience, far

328 ·Personal Responslblilty Under Dictatorship,· The Listener 72 (6 August 1964). p.205.

321 Shiraz Oossa. The Public Rulm and the Public Self, fnaterloo, Ontario: WUfrld laurier University Press, 1989). pp.134·135. In the final chapter of this Innovatlve study cl Arendt's poIltlcal thougbt, Dossa defends Arendt agalnst those who have crltlcized her apparently unsympathetlc treatment of the Issues raisad by Elchmann's triai. Oossa argues persuaslvaly that Arendt\l Juclgements conceming Eichmann and the fact of Jewlsh cooperation wlth the Nazis can be understood and appreciated onIy on the basis of ber poIltlcal theory. (Sse IbId. pp.125·141).

.. 148

from being an independent moral faculty which he ignored, merely reflected the

norms of his society. Arendt points out that "he would have had a bad

conscience only if he had not done what he had been ordered to [do] -- to ship

millions of men, women and children to their death with great zeal and the most

meticulous care." Arendt states that:

[Eichmann] did not need to ·close his ears to the voice of conscience' ... not because he had none, but because his conscience spoke with a ·respectable voice,' the voice of respectable society around him.330

ln her port rayai of him. Eichmann appears as an "ambitious" man

constantly desirous of success, which for him meant social status and

recognition. Arendt emphasizes that Eichmann was boastful, often "talked big"

and exaggerated his own role in the Nazi hierarchy. 331 Within the context of the

Third Reich, Eichmann, the "good family man and jobholder," resembled nothing

so much as the bourgeois philistine. Su ch a man, says Arendt:

has driven the dichotomy of private and public functions, of family and occupation, so far that he can no longer find hi~ own person in any connection between the two. When his occupation forces him to murder people he does not regard himself as a murderer because he has not done it out of inclination but in his professional capacity. Out of sheer passion he would never do harm to a fly.332

330 ~. p.126.

331 IbId. pp.33, 126,281.; C.f. pp. 29. 46-41.

332 The Jew U Pariah: Jewlsh Idenltty and Poinies ln the Modem Age. Edlted and wlth an Introduction by R.H Feldman. (New York: Grove Press. 1918). p.234. It la of Imerest to note lhat, years before she had ever encountered Elchmano, Arendt descrlbed Heinrich Himmler as havlng:

(a] supreme abDIty for organlzlng the masses loto total domination by assumlng that most people are nelther bohemians, fanatles, adventurers, sex maniaes, crackpots, oor social 'aD ures, but flrst and foremost Jobholders and good famlly men ... Nothlng proved easler to destroy than the prlvacy and prlvate morallty of people who thought of nothlng but safeguarding their prlvate lives. (Qrlgios, p.338).

149

Eichmann. the excessively private man who cared more about his private

interests that the lives and welfare of others. lived in a society where privacy had

become raised to a public virtue. As a result. however, the very distinction

between public and private had collapsed beyond ail recognition. As Arendt

wrote in The Human Condition, the situation of modern society has Hchanged

almost beyond recognition the meaning of the two terms and their significance

for the life of the individual and the citizen.·333

It is in this sense that Adolf Eichmann appears as the quintessence of the

worldless individual. "For the sad and very uncomfortable truth of the matter. M

Arendt argues, "was that it was not his fanaticism but his very conscience that

prompted Eichmann to adopt his uncompromising attitude [in the performance

of his duties).M334 The trouble with conscience for Arendt is that it does not

operate independently of the social mores in which one finds oneself. Where

these social mores are nothing more than private interest writ large. as they

were in Nazi Germany, conscience cares nothing for the world.

Such caring for the world is expressed beautifully by Arendt's biographer,

Elizabeth Young-Bruehl. as Mamor mundi"; love of the world. This particular love

is no mere sentiment of the heart. nor does it belong strictly to the life of the

mind. Rather, it is our very sense of reality itself. It is a love that we must luIll in

the publicly constituted realm of polities. This, says Arendt, is the true meaning

of education; "the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough

.f 333 Human Condition. p.38. ~

334 W. p. 146.

.", ,

150

te assume responsibility for it.,,33!1

It cannot be overemphasized how significant it is that the "respectable

society" of the Third Reich stopped short of questioning the Nazi policies

against the Jews. Arendt argues that the fact of widespread cooperation with

the Nazis, among Jews and non-Jews alike, greatly contributed to Eichmann's

epportunities for feeling like Pontius Pilate. Indeed, she suggests that, as the

months and years passed by Eichmann "Iost the need to feel anything at all."338

Eichmann's "wcrldlessness," his "remoteness from reality" and "Iack of

imagination" do not, however, explain why Eichmann did not think. More

specitically, 1 do not mean to imply that Arendt attributed Eichmann's "inability to

think" to Eichmann's "worldlessness. Il Arendt in tact never asks the question

"Why did Eichmann stop thinking. Il Furthermore it is, as we have seen, her

conviction that while human beings are always conditioned beings, they are not

conditioned absolutely. It would therefore be an injustice to the subtlety and

complexity of Arendt's insights to draw too strong a connection between

worldlessness and thoughtlessness.

ln light of this qualification, it should be noted that Arendt objected to the

characterization of Eichmann as "everyman" which some have suggested was

the crux of her meaning behind the phrase "the banality of evil." She never said

that there is an "Eichmann in every one of US.,,337 Nor did she mean to imply

335 Between Post and Future, p.196.

338 E.!rW, p.135.

337 ~,p.286. See also the exchange between Arendt and Christian Bayat the Conference held ln honour of her work at York University, shortly before her deatt'!. Reproduced ln, Melvyn Hill (ed). Hannah Arendt: The Recoverv of the Public Wortd. op. clt. pp.328-330.

(

151

that the adjective "banal" meant that Eichmann's evil was common in the sense

of 'commonly occurring.'

This is not ta say that there are not quite a number of Eichmanns. But they look really quite different. 1 always hated the notion of 'Eichmann in each one of us.' This is sim ply not true. This would be as untrue as the opposite, that Eichmann is in nobody.338

As a prototype, Eichmann represents not people in general, but only the

individual who conforms ta social structures and expectations ta the extent of

forleiting his responsibility to the world. His evil, furthermore is banal because it

is predicated not on the decision to commit evil, but on the refusai to make any

decisions at all.338

The point is that for Arendt, the status of thinking in the modern world is

in no greater crisis than the world itself. "Unfortunately,· Arendt wrote three

years before she encountered Eichmann, "no other human capacity is so

vulnerable, and it is in fact far easier ta aet under conditions of tyranny th an it is

to think. Il :MO The figure of Adolf Eichmann will no doubt remain for us the

paradigm of thoughtlessness. More disturbingly from a political perspective,

however, he represents the human and very modern ability ta dQ things we do

not understand, and worse, to continue doing them without a thought

to the fact that we do not understand what it is we do.

338 Hill, op. clt. p.330.

338 Arendt's reference to ,he banallty of evll- Is still otten dlsmlssed by her crltlcs as elther mlsrepresentlng Eichmann or as mlsconstrulng extreme evI. Those who belleve that Arendt mlsrepresents Eichmann argue that Arendt was fooled by Elchmann's seIf·portralt on the wltness stand ln Jerusalem. Typlcally, the most adamant crltlclsms of Arendt's port rayai of Eichmann accuse her of belng a poor psychologist. Contrary to Arendt, many view hlm as havlng been extremelyantl· semltlc and attrlbute hls apparent lack of evll motives or feelings of gullt to the tact that he was -an unconsclooable lIar. - Ses for example, Abigail Rosenthal, A Good Look At Eva. PhHadeiphla: Temple University Press, 1987. pp. x, 17-18, 165-168. Another psychologlcal account of Elchmann's banallty Is presented by Wendy S. Aory, -rhe Psychotogy of Antisemltlsm: Conscience Proof Ratlonallzatlon and the Oeferrlng of Moral Choice, - op.clt. pp.238-250.

340 Human Condition, p. 324.

1

152

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