civic republicanism, from Aristotle to
Tocqueville
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works ...
. Her political concept is centered around
active citizenship
Active citizenship or engaged citizenship refers to active participation of a citizen under the law of a nation discussing and educating themselves in politics and society, as well as a philosophy espoused by organizations and educational instit ...
that emphasizes
civic engagement
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...
and collective deliberation. She believed that no matter how bad, government could never succeed in extinguishing human freedom, despite holding that modern societies frequently retreat from democratic freedom with its inherent disorder for the relative comfort of administrative bureaucracy. Her political legacy is her strong defence of freedom in the face of an increasingly less than free world. She does not adhere to a single systematic philosophy, but rather spans a range of subjects covering totalitarianism, revolution, the nature of freedom and the faculties of thought and judgment.
While she is best known for her work on "dark times", the nature of totalitarianism and evil, she imbued this with a spark of hope and confidence in the nature of mankind:
That even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination might well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given to them.
''Love and Saint Augustine'' (1929)
Arendt's doctoral thesis, (''Love and Saint Augustine''), was published in 1929 and attracted critical interest, although an English translation did not appear until 1996. In this work, she combines approaches of both Heidegger and Jaspers. Arendt's interpretation of love in the work of Augustine deals with three concepts, love as craving or desire (''Amor qua appetitus''), love in the relationship between man (''creatura'') and creator (''Creator – Creatura''), and neighborly love (''Dilectio proximi''). Love as craving anticipates the future, while love for the Creator deals with the remembered past. Of the three, ''dilectio proximi'' or ''
caritas'' is perceived as the most fundamental, to which the first two are oriented, which she treats under ''vita socialis'' (social life). The second of the
Great Commandments (or
Golden Rule) "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" uniting and transcending the former. Augustine's influence (and Jaspers' views on his work) persisted in Arendt's writings for the rest of her life.
Some of the
leitmotifs
A leitmotif or leitmotiv () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is an anglici ...
of her canon were apparent, introducing the concept of (Natality) as a key condition of human existence and its role in the development of the individual, developing this further in ''The Human Condition'' (1958). She explained that the construct of natality was implied in her discussion of new beginnings and man's elation to the Creator as ''nova creatura''. The centrality of the theme of birth and renewal is apparent in the constant reference to Augustinian thought, and specifically the innovative nature of birth, from this, her first work, to her last, ''The Life of the Mind''.
Love is another connecting theme. In addition to the Augustinian loves expostulated in her dissertation, the phrase ''amor mundi'' (love of the world) is one often associated with Arendt and both permeates her work and was an absorbing passion throughout her work. She took the phrase from Augustine's homily on the
first epistle of St John, "If love of the world dwell in us". ''Amor mundi'' was her original title for ''The Human Condition'' (1958), the subtitle of Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's biography (1982), the title of a collection of writing on faith in her work and is the newsletter of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College.
''The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (1951)
Arendt's first major book, ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (1951), examined the roots of
Stalinism
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
and
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
, structured as three essays, "Antisemitism", "Imperialism" and "Totalitarianism". Arendt argues that totalitarianism was a "novel form of government," that "differs essentially from other forms of political oppression known to us such as despotism, tyranny and dictatorship" in that it applied terror to subjugate mass populations rather than just political adversaries. Arendt also maintained that Jewry was not the operative factor in the Holocaust, but merely a convenient proxy because Nazism was about terror and consistency, not merely eradicating Jews. Arendt explained the tyranny using Kant's phrase "''
radical evil
Radical evil (german: das radikal Böse) is a phrase used by German philosopher Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Kön ...
''", by which their victims became "superfluous people". In later editions she enlarged the text to include her work on "Ideology and Terror: A novel form of government" and the
Hungarian Revolution, but then published the latter separately.
Criticism of ''Origins'' has often focused on its portrayal of the two movements, Hitlerism and Stalinism, as equally tyrannical.
''Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess'' (1957)
Arendt's on Rahel Varnhagen was completed while she was living in exile in Paris in 1938, but not published till 1957, in the United Kingdom by East and West Library, part of the
Leo Baeck Institute
The Leo Baeck Institute, established in 1955, is an international research institute with centres in New York City, London, and Jerusalem that are devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. Baeck was its first intern ...
. This biography of a 19th-century Jewish socialite, formed an important step in her analysis of Jewish history and the subjects of
assimilation and
emancipation
Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchis ...
, and introduced her treatment of the
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora ( he, תְּפוּצָה, təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of th ...
as either ''pariah'' or ''parvenu''. In addition it represents an early version of her concept of history. The book is dedicated to Anne Mendelssohn, who first drew her attention to Varnhagen. Arendt's relation to Varnhagen permeates her subsequent work. Her account of Varnhagen's life was perceived during a time of the destruction of German-Jewish culture. It partially reflects Arendt's own view of herself as a German-Jewish woman driven out of her own culture into a
stateless existence, leading to the description "biography as autobiography".
''The Human Condition'' (1958)
In what is arguably her most influential work, ''
The Human Condition
''The Human Condition'', first published in 1958, is Hannah Arendt's account of how "human activities" should be and have been understood throughout Western history. Arendt is interested in the ''vita activa'' (active life) as contrasted with t ...
'' (1958), Arendt differentiates political and social concepts, labor and work, and various forms of actions; she then explores the implications of those distinctions. Her theory of political action, corresponding to the existence of a public realm, is extensively developed in this work. Arendt argues that, while human life always evolves within societies, the social part of human nature, political life, has been intentionally realized in only a few societies as a space for individuals to achieve freedom. Conceptual categories, which attempt to bridge the gap between
ontological
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ex ...
and sociological structures, are sharply delineated. While Arendt relegates labor and work to the realm of the social, she favors the human condition of action as that which is both existential and aesthetic. Of human actions, Arendt identifies two that she considers essential. These are forgiving past wrong (or unfixing the fixed past) and promising future benefit (or fixing the unfixed future).
Arendt had first introduced the concept of "natality" in her ''Love and Saint Augustine'' (1929) and in ''The Human Condition'' starts to develop this further. In this, she departs from Heidegger's emphasis on mortality. Arendt's positive message is one of the "miracle of beginning", the continual arrival of the new to create action, that is to alter the state of affairs brought about by previous actions. "Men", she wrote "though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin". She defined her use of "natality" as:
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 beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born.
Natality would go on to become a central concept of her political theory, and also what Karin Fry considers its most optimistic one.
''Between Past and Future'' (1954...1968)
''Between Past and Future'' is an anthology of eight essays written between 1954 and 1968, dealing with a variety of different but connected philosophical subjects. These essays share the central idea that humans live between the past and the uncertain future. Man must permanently think to exist, but must learn thinking. Humans have resorted to tradition, but are abandoning respect for this tradition and culture. Arendt tries to find solutions to help humans think again, since modern philosophy has not succeeded in helping humans to live correctly.
''On Revolution'' (1963)
Arendt's book ''On Revolution'' presents a comparison of two of the main revolutions of the 18th century, the
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
and
French Revolutions. She goes against a common impression of both Marxist and
leftist
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soc ...
views when she argues that France, while well-studied and often emulated, was a disaster and that the largely ignored American Revolution was a success. The turning point in the French Revolution occurred when the leaders rejected their goals of freedom in order to focus on compassion for the masses. In the United States, the founders never betray the goal of '. Arendt believes the revolutionary spirit of those men had been lost, however, and advocates a "council system" as an appropriate institution to regain that spirit.
''Men in Dark Times'' (1968)
The anthology of essays ''Men in Dark Times'' presents intellectual biographies of some creative and moral figures of the 20th century, such as
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish my ...
,
Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspers ...
,
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat part ...
,
Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch (; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian writer, best known for two major works of modernist fiction: '' The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler,'' 1930–32) and ''The Death of Virgil'' (''Der Tod des Vergil,'' 1945).
...
,
Pope John XXIII
Pope John XXIII ( la, Ioannes XXIII; it, Giovanni XXIII; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, ; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 19 ...
, and
Isak Dinesen
Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (born Dinesen; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962) was a Danish author who wrote works in Danish and English. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countrie ...
.
''Crises of the Republic'' (1972)
''Crises of the Republic'' was the third of Arendt's anthologies, consisting of four essays, "Lying in Politics", "Civil Disobedience", "On Violence" and "Thoughts on Politics and Revolution". These related essays deal with contemporary American politics and the crises it faced in the 1960s and 1970s. "Lying in Politics" looks for an explanation behind the administration's deception regarding the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and ...
, as revealed in the ''
Pentagon Papers
The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 ...
''. "Civil Disobedience" examines the opposition movements, while the final "Thoughts on Politics and Revolution" is a commentary, in the form of an interview on the third essay, "On Violence". In "On Violence" Arendt substantiates that violence presupposes power which she understands as a property of groups. Thus, she breaks with the predominant conception of power as derived from violence.
When Hannah Arendt died in 1975, she left a major work incomplete, which was later published in 1978 as ''The Life of the Mind''. Since then some of her minor works have been collected and published, mainly under the editorship of Jerome Kohn. In 1994 "Essays in Understanding" appeared as the first of a series covering the period 1930–1954, but attracted little attention. A new version of ''Origins of Totalitarianism'' appeared in 2004 followed by ''The Promise of Politics'' in 2005. The renewed interest in Arendtiana following these publications led to a second series of essays, ''Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953–1975'', published in 2018. Other collections have dealt with her Jewish identity, including ''The Jew as Pariah'' (1978) and ''The Jewish Writings'' (2007), moral philosophy including ''Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy'' (1982) and ''Responsibility and Judgment'' (2003), together with her literary works as ''Reflections on Literature and Culture'' (2007).
''The Life of the Mind'' (1978)
Arendt's last major work, ''The Life of the Mind'' remained incomplete at the time of her death, but marked a return to moral philosophy. The outline of the book was based on her graduate level political philosophy class, ''Philosophy of the Mind'', and her
Gifford Lectures
The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in ...
in Scotland. She conceived of the work as a trilogy based on the mental activities of thinking, willing, and judging. Her most recent work had focused on the first two, but went beyond this in terms of '. Her discussion of thinking was based on
Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
and his notion of thinking as a solitary dialogue between oneself, leading her to novel concepts of conscience.
Arendt died suddenly five days after completing the second part, with the first page of Judging still in her typewriter, and McCarthy then edited the first two parts and provided some indication of the direction of the third. Arendt's exact intentions for the third part are unknown but she left several manuscripts (such as ''Thinking and Moral Considerations'', ''Some Questions on Moral Philosophy'' and ''Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy'') relating to her thoughts on the mental
faculty of Judging. These have since been published separately.
Collected works
After Hannah Arendt's death, her essays and notes have continued to be edited and published posthumously by friends and colleagues, including those that give some insight into the unfinished third part of ''
The Life of the Mind
''The Life of the Mind'' was the final work of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), and was unfinished at the time of her death. Designed to be in three parts, only the first two had been completed and the first page of the third part was in her typewrit ...
''. ''The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age'' (1978), is a collection of 15 essays and letters from the period 1943–1966 on the situation of Jews in modern times, to try and throw some light on her views on the Jewish world, following the backlash to ''Eichmann'', but proved to be equally polarizing. A further collection of her writings on being Jewish was published as ''The Jewish Writings'' (2007). Other work includes the collection of forty, largely fugitive, essays, addresses, and reviews entitled ''Essays in Understanding 1930–1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism'' (1994), that presaged her monumental ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', in particular ''On the Nature of Totalitarianism'' (1953) and ''The Concern with Politics in Contemporary European Philosophical Thought'' (1954). The remaining essays were published as ''Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953–1975'' (2018). Her notebooks which form a series of memoirs, were published as in 2002.
Correspondence
Some further insight into her thinking is provided in the continuing posthumous publication of her correspondence with many of the important figures in her life, including Karl Jaspers (1992), Mary McCarthy (1995), Heinrich Blücher (1996), Martin Heidegger (2004),
Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic. He wrote often about the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America.
Early life
Like many other New York Intellectuals, Alfred Kazin was t ...
(2005), Walter Benjamin (2006),
Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Mysticis ...
(2011) and
Günther Stern (2016). Other correspondences that have been published include those with women friends such as Hilde Fränkel and Anne Mendelsohn Weil (''see''
Relationships).
Arendt and the Eichmann trial (1961–1963)
In 1960, on hearing of
Adolf Eichmann's capture and plans for
his trial, Hannah Arendt contacted ''The New Yorker'' and offered to travel to Israel to cover it when it opened on 11 April 1961. Arendt was anxious to test her theories, developed in ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', and see how justice would be administered to the sort of man she had written about. Also she had witnessed "little of the Nazi regime directly" and this was an opportunity to witness an agent of totalitarianism first hand. The offer was accepted and she attended six weeks of the five-month trial with her young cousin from Israel,
Edna Brocke. On arrival she was treated as a celebrity, meeting with the trial chief judge,
Moshe Landau
Moshe Landau ( he, משה לנדוי) (29 April 1912 – 1 May 2011) was an Israeli judge. He was the fifth President of the Supreme Court of Israel.
Biography
Landau was born in Danzig, Germany (modern Gdańsk, Poland) to Dr. Isaac Landau and ...
, and the foreign minister,
Golda Meir
Golda Meir, ; ar, جولدا مائير, Jūldā Māʾīr., group=nb (born Golda Mabovitch; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was an Israeli politician, teacher, and ''kibbutznikit'' who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1 ...
. In her subsequent 1963 report, based on her observations and transcripts, and which evolved into the book ''
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'', Arendt coined the phrase "the
banality of evil" to describe the phenomenon of Eichmann. She, like others, was struck by his very ordinariness and the demeanor he exhibited of a small, slightly balding, bland bureaucrat, in contrast to the horrific crimes he stood accused of. He was, she wrote, "terribly and terrifyingly normal." She examined the question of whether
evil
Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...
is radical or simply a function of thoughtlessness, a tendency of ordinary people to obey orders and conform to mass opinion without a critical evaluation of the consequences of their actions. Arendt's argument was that Eichmann was not a monster, contrasting the immensity of his actions with the very ordinariness of the man himself. Eichmann, she stated, not only called himself a Zionist, having initially opposed the Jewish persecution, but also expected his captors to understand him. She pointed out that his actions were not driven by malice, but rather blind dedication to the regime and his need to belong, to be a "joiner."
On this, Arendt would later state "Going along with the rest and wanting to say 'we' were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible". What Arendt observed during the trial was a bourgeois sales clerk who found a meaningful role for himself and a sense of importance in the Nazi movement. She noted that his addiction to clichés and use of bureaucratic morality clouded his ability to question his actions, "to think". This led her to set out her most debated dictum: "the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us – the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil." By stating that Eichmann did not think, she did not imply lack of conscious awareness of his actions, but by "thinking" she implied reflective rationality, that was lacking.
Arendt was critical of the way the trial was conducted by the Israelis as a "show trial" with ulterior motives other than simply trying evidence and administering justice. Arendt was also critical of the way Israel depicted Eichmann's crimes as crimes against a nation state, rather than against humanity itself. She objected to the idea that a strong Israel was necessary to protect world Jewry being again placed where "they'll let themselves be slaughtered like sheep," recalling the
biblical phrase. She portrayed the prosecutor,
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Gideon Hausner
Gideon Hausner ( he, גדעון האוזנר, 26 September 1915 – 15 November 1990) was an Israeli jurist and politician. Between 1960 and 1963, he served as Attorney General and was later elected to the Knesset and served in the cabinet.
Hau ...
, as employing hyperbolic rhetoric in the pursuit of Prime Minister
Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
's political agenda. Arendt, who believed she could maintain her focus on moral principles in the face of outrage, became increasingly frustrated with Hausner, describing his parade of survivors as having "no apparent bearing on the case". She was particularly concerned that Hausner repeatedly asked "why did you not rebel?" rather than question the role of the Jewish leaders. Arendt argued that some Jewish leaders associated with the Jewish Councils (
Judenräte
A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across German-occupied Europe, occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ' ...
), notably
M. C. Rumkowski, acted during
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
, in cooperating with Eichmann "almost without exception" in the destruction of their own people. She had expressed concerns on this point prior to the trial. She described this as a moral catastrophe. While her argument was not to allocate blame, rather she mourned what she considered a moral failure of compromising the imperative that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. She describes the cooperation of the Jewish leaders in terms of a disintegration of Jewish morality: "This role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter in the whole dark story". Widely misunderstood, this caused an even greater controversy and particularly animosity toward her in the Jewish community and in Israel. For Arendt, the Eichmann trial marked a turning point in her thinking in the final decade of her life, becoming increasingly preoccupied with
moral philosophy
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
.
Reception
Arendt's five-part series "Eichmann in Jerusalem" appeared in ''The New Yorker'' in February 1963 some nine months after Eichmann was hanged on 31 May 1962. By this time his trial was largely forgotten in the popular mind, superseded by intervening world events. However, no other account of either Eichmann or National Socialism has aroused so much controversy. Prior to its publication, Arendt was considered a brilliant humanistic original political thinker. However her mentor, Karl Jaspers, warned her about a possible adverse outcome, "The Eichmann trial will be no pleasure for you. I'm afraid it cannot go well". On publication, three controversies immediately occupied public attention: the concept of Eichmann as banal, her criticism of the role of Israel and her description of the role played by the Jewish people themselves.
Arendt was profoundly shocked by the response, writing to Karl Jaspers "People are resorting to any means to destroy my reputation ... They have spent weeks trying to find something in my past that they can hang on me". Now she was being called arrogant, heartless and ill-informed. She was accused of being duped by Eichmann, of being a "self-hating Jewess", and even an enemy of Israel. Her critics included
The Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
and many other Jewish groups, editors of publications she was a contributor to, faculty at the universities she taught at and friends from all parts of her life. Her friend Gershom Scholem, a major scholar of
Jewish mysticism
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's '' Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in ...
, broke off relations with her, publishing their correspondence without her permission. Arendt was criticized by many Jewish public figures, who charged her with coldness and lack of sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust. Because of this lingering criticism neither this book nor any of her other works were translated into Hebrew until 1999. Arendt responded to the controversies in the book's Postscript.
Although Arendt complained that she was being criticized for telling the truth – "what a risky business to tell the truth on a factual level without theoretical and scholarly embroidery" – the criticism was largely directed to her theorizing on the nature of mankind and evil and that ordinary people were driven to commit the inexplicable not so much by hatred and ideology as ambition, and inability to empathize. Equally problematic was the suggestion that the victims deceived themselves and complied in their own destruction. Prior to Arendt's depiction of Eichmann, his popular image had been, as ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' put it "the most evil monster of humanity" and as a representative of "an atrocious crime, unparalleled in history", "the extermination of European Jews". As it turned out Arendt and others were correct in pointing out that Eichmann's characterization by the prosecution as the architect and chief technician of the Holocaust was not entirely credible.
While much has been made of Arendt's treatment of Eichmann, Ada Ushpiz, in her 2015 documentary ''Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt'', placed it in a much broader context of the use of rationality to explain seemingly irrational historical events.
''Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen''
In an interview with
Joachim Fest
Joachim Clemens Fest (8 December 1926 – 11 September 2006) was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor who was best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including a biography of Adolf Hitler and books about ...
in 1964, Arendt was asked about Eichmann's defense that he had made Kant's principle of the duty of obedience his guiding principle all his life. Arendt replied that that was outrageous and that Eichmann was misusing Kant, by not considering the element of judgement required in assessing one's own actions – "" (No man has, according to Kant, the right to obey), she stated, paraphrasing Kant. The reference was to Kant's (Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason 1793) in which he states:
(The saying, "''We must hearken to God, rather than to man''," signifies no more than this, viz. that should any earthly legislation enjoin something immediately contradictory of the moral law, obedience is not to be rendered)
Kant clearly defines a higher moral duty than rendering merely unto Caesar. Arendt herself had written in her book "This was outrageous, on the face of it, and also incomprehensible, since Kant's moral philosophy is so closely bound up with man's faculty of judgment, which rules out blind obedience." Arendt's reply to Fest was subsequently corrupted to read (No one has the right to obey), which has been widely reproduced, although it does encapsulate an aspect of her moral philosophy.
The phrase has become one of her iconic images, appearing on the wall of the house in which she was born (''see''
Commemorations), among other places. A
fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
on the
Palazzo degli Uffici Finanziari (1942), in the Piazza del Tribunale,
Bolzano
Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third la ...
, Italy celebrating
Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
, read ''Credere, Obbedire, Combattere'' (Believe, Obey, Combat). In 2017 it was altered to read Hannah Arendt's original words on obedience in the three official languages of the region.
The phrase has been appearing in other artistic work featuring political messages, such as the 2015 installation by Wilfried Gerstel, which has evoked the concept of resistance to dictatorship, as expressed in her essay "Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship" (1964).
List of selected publications
Bibliographies
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Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
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Full texton
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
* 400 pages. (''see''
Rahel Varnhagen
Rahel Antonie Friederike Varnhagen () (née Levin, later Robert; 19 May 1771 – 7 March 1833) was a German writer who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celeb ...
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The Origins of Totalitarianism
''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', published in 1951, was Hannah Arendt's first major work, wherein she describes and analyzes Nazism and Stalinism as the major totalitarian political movements of the first half of the 20th century.
History
...
and
Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism
Comparison or comparing is the act of evaluating two or more things by determining the relevant, comparable characteristics of each thing, and then determining which characteristics of each are similar to the other, which are different, and t ...
Full text (1979 edition)on
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
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The Human Condition
''The Human Condition'', first published in 1958, is Hannah Arendt's account of how "human activities" should be and have been understood throughout Western history. Arendt is interested in the ''vita activa'' (active life) as contrasted with t ...
)
*
* (see also
Between Past and Future)
* (see also
On Revolution
''On Revolution'' is a 1963 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt presents a comparison of two of the main revolutions of the eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions.
History
Twelve years after the publication of h ...
Full texton
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
Full text: 1964 edition(see also
Eichmann in Jerusalem
''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers ...
)
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The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
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Full text on
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
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* , partly based on ''Was ist Politik?'' (1993), French translation as ''Qu'est-ce que la politique?''
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''fragments''
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''see also''extract
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at ''Pensar el Espacio Público''**
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Views
In 1961, while covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt wrote a letter to Karl Jaspers that Adam Kirsch described as reflecting "pure racism" toward
Sephardic Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
from the Middle East and
Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. She wrote:
On top, the judges, the best of German Jewry. Below them, the prosecuting attorneys, Galicians
Galicians ( gl, galegos, es, gallegos, link=no) are a Celtic- Romance ethnic group from Spain that is closely related to the Portuguese people and has its historic homeland is Galicia, in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. Two Romanc ...
, but still Europeans. Everything is organized by a police force that gives me the creeps, speaks only Hebrew, and looks Arabic. Some downright brutal types among them. They would obey any order. And outside the doors, the oriental mob, as if one were in Istanbul or some other half-Asiatic country.
Although Arendt remained a
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jew ...
both during and after World War II, she made it clear that she favored the creation of a Jewish-Arab federated state in
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to:
* Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan.
* Mandatory P ...
(now Israel and the
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The ...
), rather than a purely Jewish state. She believed that this was a way to address Jewish statelessness and to avoid the pitfalls of nationalism.
Accusations of racism
It was not just Arendt's analysis of the Eichmann trial that drew accusations of racism. In her 1958 essay in ''Dissent'' entitled ''Reflections on Little Rock'' she expressed opposition to
desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...
following the 1957
Little Rock Integration Crisis
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering ...
in Arkansas. As she explains in the preface, for a long time the magazine was reluctant to print her contribution, so far did it appear to differ from the publication's liberal values. Eventually it was printed alongside critical responses. Later ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' would express similar hesitancy over the Eichmann papers. So vehement was the response, that Arendt felt obliged to defend herself in a sequel. The debate over this essay has continued since. William Simmons devotes a whole section of his 2011 text on human rights (''Human Rights Law and the Marginalized Other'') to a critique of Arendt's position and in particular on Little Rock. While some critics feel she was fundamentally racist, many of those who have defended Arendt's position have pointed out that her concerns were for the welfare of the children, a position she maintained throughout her life. She felt that the children were being subjected to trauma to serve a broader political strategy of forcible integration. While over time Arendt conceded some ground to her critics, namely that she argued as an outsider, she remained committed to her central critique that children should not be thrust into the front-lines of geopolitical conflict.
Feminism
Embraced by
feminists
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that socie ...
as a pioneer in a world dominated by men up to her time, Arendt did not call herself a feminist and would be very surprised to hear herself described as a feminist, remaining opposed to the social dimensions of
Women's Liberation
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
, urging independence, but always keeping in mind ''Vive la petite différence!'' On becoming the first woman to be appointed a professor at Princeton in 1953, the media were much engaged in this exceptional achievement, but she never wanted to be seen as an exception, either as a woman (an "exception woman") or a Jew, stating emphatically "I am not disturbed at all about being a woman professor, because I am quite used to being a woman". In 1972, discussing women's liberation, she observed "the real question to ask is, what will we lose if we win?". She rather enjoyed what she saw as the privileges of being feminine as opposed to feminist, "Intensely feminine and therefore no feminist", stated Hans Jonas. Arendt considered some professions and positions unsuitable for women, particularly those involving leadership, telling
Günter Gaus
Günter Gaus (23 November 1929 – 14 May 2004) was a prominent German journalist-commentator who became a diplomat and (very briefly) a regional politician in Berlin. Once he had moved on – as he probably assumed, permanently – from the wo ...
"It just doesn't look good when a woman gives orders". Despite these views, and having been labelled "anti-feminist", much space has been devoted to examining Arendt's place in relation to feminism. In the last years of her life,
Virginia Held
Virginia Potter Held (born October 28, 1929) is an American moral, social/political and feminist philosopher whose work on the ethics of care sparked significant research into the ethical dimensions of providing care for others and critiques of ...
noted that Arendt's views evolved with the emergence of a
new feminism in America in the 1970s to recognize the importance of the women's movement.
Critique of human rights
In ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', Hannah Arendt devotes a lengthy chapter (''The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man'')
to a critical analysis of human rights, in what has been described as "the most widely read essay on refugees ever published". Arendt is not skeptical of the notion of political rights in general, but instead defends a national or civil conception of rights.
Human rights, or the Rights of Man as they were commonly called, are universal, inalienable, and possessed simply by virtue of being human. In contrast, civil rights are possessed by virtue of belonging to a political community, most commonly by being a citizen. Arendt's primary criticism of human rights is that they are ineffectual and illusory because their enforcement is in tension with national sovereignty. She argued that since there is no political authority above that of sovereign nations, state governments have little incentive to respect human rights when such policies conflict with national interests. This can be seen most clearly by examining the treatment of refugees and other stateless people. Since the refugee has no state to secure their civil rights, the only rights they have to fall back on are human rights. In this way Arendt uses the refugee as a test case for examining human rights in isolation from civil rights.
Arendt's analysis draws on the refugee upheavals in the first half of the 20th century along with her own experience as a refugee fleeing Nazi Germany. She argued that as state governments began to emphasize national identity as a prerequisite for full legal status, the number of minority resident aliens increased along with the number of stateless persons whom no state was willing to recognize legally. The two potential solutions to the refugee problem, repatriation and naturalization, both proved incapable of solving the crisis. Arendt argued that repatriation failed to solve the refugee crisis because no government was willing to take them in and claim them as their own. When refugees were forcibly deported to neighboring countries, such immigration was deemed illegal by the receiving country, and so failed to change the fundamental status of the migrants as stateless. Attempts at naturalizing and assimilating refugees also had little success. This failure was primarily the result of resistance from both state governments and the majority of citizens, since both tended to see the refugees as undesirables who threatened their national identity. Resistance to naturalization also came from the refugees themselves who resisted assimilation and attempted to maintain their own ethnic and national identities. Arendt contends that neither naturalization nor the tradition of asylum was capable of handling the sheer number of refugees. Instead of accepting some refugees with legal status, the state often responded by denaturalizing minorities who shared national or ethnic ties with stateless refugees.
Arendt argues that the consistent mistreatment of refugees, most of whom were placed in internment camps, is evidence against the existence of human rights. If the notion of human rights as universal and inalienable is to be taken seriously, the rights must be realizable given the features of the modern liberal state. She concluded "The Rights of Man, supposedly inalienable, proved to be unenforceable–even in countries whose constitutions were based upon them–whenever people appeared who were no longer citizens of any sovereign state". Arendt contends that they are not realizable because they are in tension with at least one feature of the liberal state—national sovereignty. One of the primary ways in which a nation exercises sovereignty is through control over national borders. State governments consistently grant their citizens free movement to traverse national borders. In contrast, the movement of refugees is often restricted in the name of national interests. This restriction presents a dilemma for liberalism because liberal theorists typically are committed to both human rights and the existence of sovereign nations.
In one of her most quoted passages, she puts forward the concept that human rights are little more than an abstraction:
The conception of human rights based upon the assumed existence of a human being as such broke down at the very moment when those who professed to believe in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships – except that they were still human. The world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human.
In popular culture
Several authors have written biographies that focus on the relationship between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. In 1999, the French feminist philosopher
Catherine Clément
Catherine Clément (; born 10 February 1939) is a French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic, born in Boulogne-Billancourt. She received a degree in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure, and studied under its faculty Cla ...
wrote a novel, ''Martin and Hannah'', speculating on the triangular relationship between Heidegger and the two women in his life, Arendt and Heidegger's wife Elfriede Petri. In addition to the relationships, the novel is a serious exploration of philosophical ideas, that centers on Arendt's last meeting with Heidegger in Freiburg in 1975. The scene is based on Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's description in ''Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World'' (1982), but reaches back to their childhoods, and Heidegger's role in encouraging the relationship between the two women. The novel explores Heidegger's embrace of Nazism as a proxy for that of Germany and, as in Arendt's treatment of Eichmann, the difficult relationship between collective guilt and personal responsibility. Clément also brings Hannah's other mentor and confidante, Karl Jaspers, into the matrix of relationships.
''Hannah Arendt'' (2012)
Arendt's life remains part of current culture and thought. In 2012 the German film, ''
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
'', directed by
Margarethe von Trotta
Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been referred to as a "leading force" of the New German Cinema movement. was released. The film, with
Barbara Sukowa
Barbara Sukowa (; born 2 February 1950) is a German actress of screen and stage and singer. She has received three German Film Awards for Best Actress, three Bavarian Film Awards, Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, Venice Film Festiva ...
in the title role, depicted the controversy over Arendt's coverage of the Eichmann trial and subsequent book, in which she was widely misunderstood as defending Eichmann and blaming Jewish leaders for the Holocaust.
Legacy
Hannah Arendt is considered one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century. In 1998
Walter Laqueur
Walter Ze'ev Laqueur (26 May 1921 – 30 September 2018) was a German-born American historian, journalist and political commentator. He was an influential scholar on the subjects of terrorism and political violence.
Biography
Walter Laqueur was ...
stated "No twentieth-century philosopher and political thinker has at the present time as wide an echo", as philosopher, historian, sociologist and also journalist. Arendt's legacy has been described as a cult. In a 2016 review of a documentary about Arendt, the journalist A. O. Scott describes Hannah Arendt as "of unmatched range and rigor" as a thinker, although she is primarily known for the article ''Eichmann in Jerusalem'' that she wrote for ''The New Yorker'', and in particular for the one phrase "the banality of evil".
She shunned publicity, never expecting, as she explained to Karl Jaspers in 1951, to see herself as a "cover girl" on the newsstands. In Germany, there are tours available of sites associated with her life.
The study of the life and work of Hannah Arendt, and of her political and philosophical theory is described as
Arendtian. In her will she established the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust as the custodian of her writings and photographs. Her personal library was deposited at Bard College at the Stevenson Library in 1976, and includes approximately 4,000 books,
ephemera
Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...
, and pamphlets from Arendt's last apartment as well as her desk (in McCarthy House). The college has begun archiving some of the collection digitally, which is available at The Hannah Arendt Collection. Most of her papers were deposited at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
and her correspondence with her German friends and mentors, such as Heidegger, Blumenfeld and Jaspers, at the
Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. The Library of Congress listed more than 50 books written about her in 1998, and that number has continued to grow, as have the number of scholarly articles, estimated as 1000 at that time.
Her life and work is recognized by the institutions most closely associated with her teaching, by the creation of Hannah Arendt Centers at both Bard (Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities) and The New School, both in New York State. In Germany, her contributions to understanding authoritarianism is recognised by the Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung (
Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism) in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth lar ...
. There are Hannah Arendt Associations (Hannah Arendt Verein) such as the Hannah Arendt Verein für politisches Denken in
Bremen
Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state con ...
that awards the annual Hannah-Arendt-Preis für politisches Denken (
Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking) established in 1995. In
Oldenburg, the Hannah Arendt Center at
Carl von Ossietzky University was established in 1999, and holds a large collection of her work (Hannah Arendt Archiv), and administers the
internet portal
A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayi ...
''HannahArendt.net'' (A Journal for Political Thinking) as well as a monograph series, the ''Hannah Arendt-Studien''. In Italy, the Hannah Arendt Center for Political Studies is situated at the
University of Verona
The University of Verona ( it, Università degli Studi di Verona) is a university located in Verona, Italy. It was founded in 1982 and is organized in 12 Departments. According to business newspaper ''Il Sole 24 Ore'', it is ranked as the best ...
for Arendtian studies.
In 2017 a journal, ''Arendt Studies'', was launched to publish articles related to the study of the life, work, and legacy of Hannah Arendt. Many places associated with her, have memorabilia of her on display, such as her student card at the University of Heidelberg (''see image''). 2006, the anniversary of her birth, saw commemorations of her work in conferences and celebrations around the world.
In 2015, the filmmaker Ada Ushpiz produced a documentary on Hannah Arendt, ''Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt''. The ''New York Times'' designated it a New York Times critics pick. Of the many photographic portraits of Arendt, that taken in 1944 by
Fred Stein (''see
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
''), whose work she greatly admired, has become iconic, and has been described as better known than the photographer himself, having appeared on a German postage stamp.(''see
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
'') Among organizations that have recognized Arendt's contributions to civilization and human rights, is the
United Nations Refugee Agency
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...
(UNHCR).
Contemporary interest
The rise of
nativism, such as the election of
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
in the United States, and concerns regarding an increasingly authoritarian style of governance has led to a surge of interest in Arendt and her writings, including radio broadcasts and writers, including
Jeremy Adelman
Jeremy Adelman (born 1960) is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, where he is also the director of the Global History Lab. Previously, he served as the director of the Council for Int ...
and Zoe Williams, to revisit Arendt's ideas to seek the extent to which they inform our understanding of such movements, which are being described as "Dark Times". At the same time
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
reported that it had sold out of copies of ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (1951).
Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998.
Early life ...
has addressed what she refers to as "the death of truth". In her 2018 book, ''The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump'', she argues that the rise of totalitarianism has been founded on the violation of truth. She begins her book with an extensive quote from ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'':
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist
Kakutani and others believed that Arendt's words speak not just events of a previous century but apply equally to the contemporary cultural landscape populated with
fake news
Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...
and lies. She also draws on Arendt's essay "Lying in Politics" from ''Crises in the Republic'' pointing to the lines:
The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs
Arendt drew attention to the critical role that propaganda plays in
gaslighting
Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality. The term derives from the title of the 1944 American film ''Gaslight'', which was based on the 1938 British theatre play '' Ga ...
populations, Kakutani observes, citing the passage:
In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true . ... The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness
It is also relevant that Arendt took a broader perspective on history than merely totalitarianism in the early 20th century, stating "the deliberate falsehood and the outright lie have been used as legitimate means to achieve political ends since the beginning of recorded history." Contemporary relevance is also reflected in the increasing use of the phrase, attributed to her, "
No one has the right to obey" to reflect that actions result from choices, and hence judgement, and that we cannot disclaim responsibility for that which we have the power to act upon. In addition those centers established to promote Arendtian studies continue to seek solutions to a wide range of contemporary issues in her writing.
Arendt's teachings on obedience have also been linked to the controversial psychology experiments by
Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist, best known for his controversial experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale.Blass, T. (2004). ''The Man Who Shocke ...
, that implied that ordinary people can easily be induced to commit atrocities. Milgram himself drew attention to this in 1974, stating that he was testing the theory that Eichmann like others would merely follow orders, but unlike Milgram she argued that actions involve responsibility.
Arendt's theories on the political consequences of how nations deal with refugees has remained relevant and compelling. Arendt had observed first hand the displacement of large stateless and rightsless populations, treated not so much as people in need than as problems to solve, and in many cases, resist. She wrote about this in her 1943 essay "We refugees". Another Arendtian theme that finds an echo in contemporary society is her observation, inspired by Rilke, of the despair of not being heard, the futility of tragedy that finds no listener that can bring comfort, assurance and intervention. An example of this being gun violence in America and the resulting political inaction.
''In Search of the Last Agora'', an illustrated documentary film by Lebanese director Rayyan Dabbous about Hannah Arendt's 1958 work ''The Human Condition'', was released in 2018 to mark the book's 50th anniversary. Screened at Bard College, the experimental film is described as finding "new meaning in the political theorist's conceptions of politics, technology and society in the 1950s", particularly in her prediction of abuses of phenomena unknown in Arendt's time, including social media, intense globalization, and obsessive celebrity culture.
Commemorations
Hannah Arendt's life and work continue to be commemorated in many different ways, including plaques (''Gedenktafeln'') indicating places she has lived. Public places and institutions bear her name, including schools. There is also a Hannah Arendt Day (Hannah Arendt Tag) in her birthplace. Objects named after her vary from
asteroids
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
...
to trains and she has been commemorated in stamps. Museums and foundations include her name.
''Arendt Studies''
''Arendt Studies'' is a
peer-reviewed
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
academic journal
An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
that examines the life, work, and legacy of Hannah Arendt. Established in 2017, it publishes research articles and translations, including the first English translation of Hannah Arendt's "Nation-State and Democracy" (1963) Notable contributors include
Andrew Benjamin,
Peg Birmingham,
Adriana Cavarero
Adriana Cavarero (born 1947) is an Italian philosopher and feminist thinker. She holds the title of Professor of Political Philosophy at the Università degli studi di Verona. She has also held visiting appointments at the University of Californ ...
,
Robert P. Crease, and
Celso Lafer
Celso Lafer (born August 7, 1941) is a Brazilian jurist, full professor of Philosophy of Law at University of São Paulo, twice former foreign minister and a former commerce minister. He is of Lithuanian Jewish heritage.
Education
Lafer has a ...
. Articles published in this journal are covered in the international Hannah Arendt Bibliographie. ''Arendt Studies'' is also included in
JSTOR
JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
. The journal is edited by James Barry at Indiana University and published by the
Philosophy Documentation Center
The Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC) is a non-profit publisher and resource center that provides access to scholarly materials in applied ethics, classics, philosophy, religious studies, and related disciplines. It publishes academic journal ...
.
Family tree
See also
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American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
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German philosophy
German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Gottfried W ...
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Hannah Arendt Award
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List of refugees
This is a list of prominent people who fled their native country, went into exile and found refuge in another country. The list follows the current legal concept of refugee only loosely. It also includes children of people who have fled. The peopl ...
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List of women philosophers
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Women in philosophy
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Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
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* Bernstein, Richard (2019): Podcast conversation
"Hannah Arendt is Alarmingly Relevant"
Books and monographs
* Zohar Mihaely, Hannah Arendt and the Crisis of Israeli Democracy, Oregon, Pickwick Publications, 2022.
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text at ''Pensar el Espacio Público''*
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Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...
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full text available onInternet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
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Chapters and contributions
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* Guilherme, Alexandre and Morgan, W. John, 'Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)-dialogue as a public space'. Chapter 4 in ''Philosophy, Dialogue, and Education: Nine modern European philosophers'', Routledge, London and New York, pp. 55–71, .
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Theses
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