The Political and Anti-Political in Hannah Arendt’s Thought



Following Heidegger, Hannah Arendt essentially undertook a phenomenological uncovering of the structures of human action qua existence and experience rather than abstract conceptual constructions or empirical generalizations about what people typically do. Arendt made a phenomenological reconstruction of the nature of the political, then elaborates on them and refines them.

Course: Political Philosophy

Professor: Fr. Luis David, SJ.

Saint Joshep Jesuit Scholasticate - Vietnam

December 17, 2017



Introduction

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. The question with which Arendt engages most frequently is the nature of politics and the political life. Following Heidegger, she essentially undertook a phenomenological uncovering of the structures of human action qua existence and experience rather than abstract conceptual constructions or empirical generalizations about what people typically do. Arendt made a phenomenological reconstruction of the nature of the political, then elaborates on them and refines them. In addition, because Arendt lived in the times with some greatly crucial historical event such as Nazism and Stalinism that caused holocaust for her nation, going along with a great frigidity from people, she wanted to examine the historical and social forces that had come to threaten the existence of an autonomous political realm, and supported an authentic politics.[1]

In this paper, I just focus on two basic concepts of her, politics and anti-politics, in her two works, The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition. 

 I.      Anti-politic

Arendt’s concept of anti-politics is presented through her analysis of the so-called “the rise of the social” and the totalitarianism.

1.   The rise of the social

a.    Distinguishing between the private and the public

For Arendt, “the rise of social” is one of reasons leading to an anti-politics. Drawing on the Aristotelian distinction of the oikos (the private realm of the household) from the polis (the public realm of the political community),[2] Arendt wanted to distinguish between her concept of politics and what is anti-politics. In the ancient Greek, life was divided into two realms: the public and the private realm. In the public sphere, action is performed and one could freely distinguish oneself; there is pubic space for dialogue; it was the sphere of real freedom. But the private sphere correspond to the household ruled by its head, in which freedom do not exist, one is tied to the necessity and not be human fully.[3]

Then, by that distinction, she solves the problem of misunderstanding and equating the political and social Realms, that is an inquiry of what is real politics and what is not. Since the rise of the ancient city-state, there always is the distinction between a private and a public sphere of life corresponds to the household and the political realms, but when the social realm has raised, it has neither been private nor public.[4]

b.    What is the rise of social?

So, for Arendt, what is the rise of society or what is social realms? The rise of the social is the rise of the "household" (oikia) or of economic activities to the public realm; housekeeping and all matters pertaining formerly to the private sphere of the family have become a "collective" concern.”[5] This means "society" is where collective of families are economically organized into the superhuman family.[6] The social realm is concerned with providing for biological needs, but it does so at the level of the state, it transforms the private care for private property into a public concern. In this society, its members has only one opinion and one interest,[7] which were represented by the household head.[8] In the market economy, everything has become an object of production and consumption, of acquisition and exchange.[9]

c.     Political consequence of the rise of the social

Therefore, once again, social realm is not the public realm which is really political realm for Arendt. Considering man as social animal is anti-political. In that ‘society’, the old borderline between private and political is blurred; both of two realms, private and public, are affected.[10] Human is tied to the necessity so not be human fully, he is only as a specimen of the animal species man-kind.[11] Men became centered around the one activity necessary to sustain life.[12] The new social realm transformed all modern communities into societies of laborers and jobholders.

Society also destroys the public ream which is condition for being a political being. Politics is nothing but just a function of society, in which action, speech, and thought are primarily superstructures upon social interest. He do not has freedom. Society tend to "normalize" its members, to make them behave without spontaneous action or outstanding achievement.[13] Human action is not coming from an individual and independent decision but as a means to adjust to the standards which exist within the society.

2.   The space of totalitarianism.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt gives an analysis of the origins of communism and fascism-terrorism (both as totalitarianism), which cause the holocaust for the Jews. She call these kinds of politics as anti-politics.

a.   Contemporary social phenomenon

At first, the reason that make the thought of totalitarianism being accepted is that of the historical situation at that time. In that situation, the masses and mob emerged, who did not believe in anything visible but just believed in something as imaginations.  “What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.”[14] They want “to escape from reality because in their essential homelessness they can no longer bear its accidental, incomprehensible aspects”, they have a borderline experience of loneliness which they usually suffered. They long for fiction, something is superior to mere occurrence.[15]

b.    The demagogic propaganda and terror

In that very real history, the mob “be attracted by the momentum of totalitarian itself” naturally, and totalitarian movement used propaganda and terror to control and dominate the masses. In totalitarian countries, propaganda and terror go together as two sides of the same coin.[16] Propaganda is part of "psychological warfare", an instrument of totalitarianism for dealing with the non-totalitarian world. On the contrary, terror is the very essence of its form of government… killing small socialist functionaries or influential members of opposing parties.[17] Totalitarianism keep their own goal secret and demagogue their citizen by introducing unrealistic ideal which fit the characteristics of the masses.

c.     Political human right in totalitarian countries

When total movement is realized into total state, terror is used to govern the organization. It clearly shows its characteristics which Arendt call anti-political. The ultimate goal of this politics is not for human but rather for the fabrication of mankind. They ready to “eliminates individuals for the sake of the species, sacrifices the “pars” for the sake of the “whole”".[18] They want to eliminate every competing non-totalitarian reality by terror for they want to control totally. Sarcastically speaking, freedom of opinion was not abolished in this total state, but it is just for those who were brave enough to risk their necks, and voluntary to get "punishment".[19] That make citizens do not have opinions about, and interests in, the handling of public aairs.[20] 

Furthermore, total terror substitutes for communication between men, which makes men becomes adherent as one man. There is just one individual, that is, every person be reduced to a never changing identity of reactions, these reactions be exchanged at random for any other.[21] They destroy the space between men and there is no contact between them. In this organization, there is no plurality, and there is no new beginning too. Terror forces man into the movement of history or nature, which supposedly uses humankind as its material, he is as an animal laborans, for he does not have public space to action.[22]

In addition, in The Human Condition, Arendt continually present another analysis of totalitarian, as Anti-political. She cover some historical events such as the discover and exploration of the whole earth, mapping all the land. Moreover, there is technical invention, such as the telescope, through which all earthly space has become small and nearby. However, all of those things make a greater distance between himself and his surroundings, alienating man from world or earth.[23] Humans are no longer discovering themselves and know what reality is instead of just knowing its shadows. They just know more information instead of coming to meet and have real communication with each other.

In short, those ideologies go along with the expansion of colonial imperialism and the bourgeoisie. They are as pathology eroding the public environment as the space for personal freedom, action, and disclosure; limiting the plurality; attaching humans to the necessary needs and structure organization. In short, those kinds of politics are not for the right of men, for the fully development of one as a human beings, which is the anti of a genuine political being analyzed hereafter.

 II.      Politic

Obviously, Arendt firstly critique of the so-called ‘anti-politics’ bear her concept of what is real politics as a standard value. This ideology had been continually developed until her death, particularly in book of The Human Condition [1958]. Her politics come from her phenomenological approach of human beings as active beings. She went on to establish conditions for political experience by philosophy of reconstruction; coming back to the source of Greek political philosophy and democracy to understand the human as active beings (vita Activa), which is distorted in modern times which considers it as subordinated to and becomes instrumental for the ends of the ideas.[24] This does not mean that truth and knowledge were no longer important, but that they could be won only by "action" and not by contemplation.[25]

1.   Vita Activa: Labor, Work, Action

She divides human activity into three kinds: labor, work, and action, according to hierarchy of important. She affirms that the modern has reversed the order of these kinds of actions.

a.      Labor: Humanity as Animal Laborans

Labor is the first and lowest step of action, which expresses undenied connection of human to the earth, as being related and care for creature. Labor is human activity directed at meeting biological necessities for self-preservation and the reproduction of the species, necessarily preserve the existence of human. Labor is thus a cyclical, repeated process that carries with it a sense of futility.[26] Labor activity lacks of freedom for its attaching human to needs.

In ancient times, labor was the primary activity of the slave class. They were not involved in the public or political environment but in the private space of the family and served the needs of the survival of the household. Since technology and science developed, people use a variety of modern techniques as means to create products in order to support their survival needs, but that activity is also a form of labor. So, If only at the labor level, human activity is similar to that of animals; there is no real freedom and politics. Thus, “Arendt is highly critical of Marx's elevation of animal laborans to a position of primacy in his vision of the highest ends of human existence”. Because for Marx, “labor (and not God) created man or that labor (and not reason) distinguished man from the other animals”.[27] The public place, the agora, was not a meeting place of citizens at all, but as a market one to exchange their products.

b.      Work: Humanity as Homo Faber

Arendt affirms that characteristic of work is that it creates more durable environment for human than that of labor. If the product of labor serves the private environment, artifacts from work enter the public sphere to form the world for collective existence of human.

Labor and work always are different in terms of content and concepts.[28] Work distincts with labor because it does not bound to demand of animal;  instead it is in the realm of rationality, with and end and intention, so work bear with some kind of freedom;  work create the public sphere for dialogue and union of human. However, the distinction between labor and work is often forgotten in the modern world.[29] The world created by work has been harmed by what Arendt calls "the rise of the social”. The world of labor and consumption dominates the public sphere, and makes people unable to reach higher ends. Values such as sustainability and stability are replaced by productivity and abundance. This makes the world more and more distant from the conditions that promote the common world of man, this is what Arendt refers to as "world alienation". 

However, the world that work create is just the premise for the existence of the political community, it is not for the real politics. For Arendt, work is still subject to a certain kind of necessity, that which arises from its essentially instrumental character. As technê and poiesis the act is dictated by and subordinated to ends and goals outside itself; so cannot be fully free.[30]

c.       Action: Humanity as Zoon Politikon

Action is understood as the act of speech in the public sphere. In ancient times, there is public space in which human come to meet and have dialogue with other. Action is the highest kind of human activities, is the truest way expressing or disclosure oneself, to be human beings fully. Action differ from work in the point that, by action, men disclosure his self directly through speech. Action express the inner human freedom. Here we can see the decisive influence of Augustine upon Arendt's thought, defining action as freedom, and freedom as action. Men are free...as long as they act, for to be free means to act.

Action, in the “polis as standing for the space of appearance, is the way that man exist not merely like other living but as an appearance explicitly. That public space is not the city-state in its physical location, rather wherever individuals gather together politically in the manner of speech and action.[31] Hence, individuals can realize their humanity and experience the meaningfulness of life. Definitely, Arendt assimilates this type of activity is the true way of existing as political beings; that is why she call human as ‘zoon politikon’.

With these distinctive notions in analyzing the Vita Activa above, Arendt wants to reconstruct the phenomena of human as a being of action, from which she built her political ideology.

2.   Action - Politics (Plurality, Natality, Promise-Keeping, Forgiveness)

Reconstructing into the ancient times, Arendt emphasized the action as mode for the fully developed existing of human beings. By which she clarifies her concept of politics, which is expressed through some her basic concepts such as plurality, equality, distinction, natality, promise-keeping, forgiveness.

a.      Plurality: Equality, Distinction

Following Heidegger, Arendt see human as dasein, as ‘being-with’, human live without separating with others. She traced to the original meaning of the word ‘to live’ (vivere), it means ‘to be present with other’ (inter homines esse).[32] There is a plurality that she defines as “the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world, because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live”.[33]

Human beings appear to each other, not indeed as physical objects, but qua men. This appearance, as distinguished from mere bodily existence, but as human. Men can very well live without laboring and working, but a life without speech and without action, on the other hand is literally dead to the world; it has ceased to be a human life because it is no longer lived among men.[34]

Arendt affirm that human freedom is expressed and human knowledge be gotten not only by contemplative but also by action. The real politics must be one that support the plurality. Every ones equally coming express themselves as distinctive beings by action and speech.[35] One can only see the uniqueness of one person when he can freely perform his action and speech. Moreover, one’s action cannot be justified for their own sake, but only by public recognition and the shared rules of a political community, so that he cannot fall into decisionism or autonomy. For Arendt, the politics is just a fiction unless it has a public space in order that humans can present to see and give meaning to, understand and recognize the uniqueness of each other.

b.      Natality

If Heidegger says human as “being-in-the world”, going on the way forwarding the death, Arendt on the contrary emphasizes the natality of each one. When being born into the world, each one contribute to build the world and realize themselves by their active life. More clearly, by natality, Arendt means the capacity to begin, to start something new, to do the unexpected and unanticipated and unpredictable. Human beings come into the world as a new beginning. So, action as the realization of freedom is therefore rooted in natality, not as something certainties. For Arendt, the beginning that each of us represents by virtue of being born is actualized every time we act, that is, every time we begin something new, every time we act and speech.[36] And those new beginning create a true man, as what saint Augustine says and Arendt recite in her book: “that a beginning  made man was created".[37] Thus, for Arendt, the real politics must be one that has space in which every one, by act and speech, can bring the new things into his life and the world, so that he become more as human beings.

c.       Promise-Keeping, Forgiveness

Because the consequence of action can neither be controlled nor be reversed, unpredictability and irreversibility, and human cannot withdrawal from the sphere of interaction with others, So for Arendt, human need to rely on two faculties inherent in action itself, the faculty of forgiving and the faculty of promising, which are connected to temporality: look back into the past and look forward into the future.

“Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever.” On the other hand, “without being bound to the fulfillment of promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be condemned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each man's lonely heart”.[38]

In short, the authentic politics is rooted in human nature as a political existence, which support the conditions in which human have freedom of action, public disclosure, so that they can human truly. Everyone are active citizenship, realize their powers of agency in the world. So, she critique those kinds of thought that reverse the hierarchy of human activities so that human miss their real political aspect of his live. Further, for Arendt, the role of the political theorist is not to lay down the laws and provide a framework for political action but to judge the significance of political events in daily life for the world he shares with others.

Conclusion

Arendt's concept of politics is widely supported, and also be criticized for her rigid distinction between the "private" and "public", between "political" "social”. There still have someone concerning that whether her politics is as conservatism, liberalism, and socialism or not. Moreover, Arendt’s critique toward her temporary industrialization and technologization will not so much fit to our times. For, there is still so much thing from that contributes to the public sphere. And even whether her concept of social is true or not is what others care for. Likewise, how she deal with the socialization and specialization necessary occurring in history.[39] There are still many question fot her but because of this paper’ limitation, those questions are not dealt with.

In my reflection, Vietnam temporary politics is near to what Arendt call the anti-politics. Almost Vietnamese today do not concern with something related to our country politics. There is still few ones caring for and trying to do something for their country. However, under really strict controlling from government (communist party), people can do some little things, and especially they will easily get punishment, prison, being confined. Almost Vietnamese no longer have genuine desire for action and speech, rather they desire for conformity, satisfying their lives.

Actually, Arendt gives me hint to understand our country political situation, and inspires in me something leading to the real politics which is really built upon and for human. Living for this politics, human should live actively. We may have an openness to discourse, a willingness to cooperate, and care for the common. We practice reflecting skill so that we do not only know what but how and why we obey any rules. We do this just by starting and doing something little new from daily life.


 

 

Biography

 

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition, 2nd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951. Third edition with new prefaces, 1976.

Entreves and Passerin, Maurizio. "Hannah Arendt". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed by 12/12/2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/arendt/.

Yar, Majid. "Hannah Arendt". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed by 12/12/2017. http://www.iep.utm.edu/arendt/.



[1] Majid Yar, "Hannah Arendt", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed by 12/12/2017, http://www.iep.utm.edu/arendt/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, 32. 38.

[4] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 28.

[5] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 33.

[6] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 29.

[7] In this point, Arendt also critique Marx by his hypothesis of a natural "harmony of interests". This is a communistic fiction.

[8] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 39-40.

[9] Entreves and Maurizio Passerin, "Hannah Arendt", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed by 12/12/2017, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/arendt/.

[10] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 38.

[11] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 46.

[12] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 46. 126.

[13] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 40.

[14] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976, 351.

[15] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 352.

[16] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 341.

[17] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 344.

[18] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 465.

[19] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 433.

[20] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 309.

[21] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 438. 

[22] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 475.

[23] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 250-251. 

[24] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 21.

[25] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 290.

[26] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 100.

[27] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 86. 130.

[28] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 80.

[29] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 85.

[30] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 212.

[31] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 198–199.

[32] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 7-8.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 176.

[35] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 175.

[36] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 9.

[37] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 479.

[38] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 237. 236-247.

[39] Majid Yar, "Hannah Arendt", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed by 12/12/2017, http://www.iep.utm.edu/arendt/.


0 Comments:

Đăng nhận xét