THE PARIAH AS REBEL

1.THINKING WITHOUT A BANISTER

What is Arendt’s conception of philosophy?

2.THE BANALITY OF EVIL

How does Arendt conceive of totalitarianism?

3. THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS

Is cosmopolitan law necessary to overcome statelessness?

1. THINKING WITHOUT A BANISTER

HANNAH ARENDT (1906-1975)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTIONS: 26 October 1906: born in Hannover (Germany). 1909: emigration to Königsberg. 1913: death of her father. 1924-1928: study of philosophy, theology and Greek in

Marburg, Freiburg and Heidelberg. 1929: marriage with Günther Stern (Anders). 1933: imprisonment by the Gestapo and escape to Paris. 1940: marriage with Heinrich Blücher and detention in the

concentration camp Gurs. 1941: immigration to the United States. 1941-1944: editor of the journal ‘Aufbau’. 1953-1956: Professor at Brooklyn College (New York). 1963-1967: Professor at the University of Chicago. 1967-1975: Professor at the New School of Social

Research (New York). 4 December 1975: death.

IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (1929). Rahel Varnhage: Lebensgeschichte einer

deutschen Jüdin aus der Romantik (1939). The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition (1944). The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). The Human Condition (1958). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality

of Evil (1963). On Revolution (1963). On Violence (1970). Das Denken (1973). Das Wollen (1974).

ANTI-FOUNDATIONALISM

Arendt is philosophy is not about epistemology, but about politics.

Since Plato philosophers tried to impose their standards of truth upon politics.

Thinking without a banister (Denken ohne Geländer) > there is not a fixed foundation upon which to base thinking.

A critic of the logocentric tradition > suppresses plurality.

PHILOSOPHICAL STYLE

Personal experiences of political events as point of departure.

A mixture of a narrative and analytical style.

The integration of different kind of discourses (literature, history, philosophy, etc.).

HEURISTIC VALUE

1. History (Goldhagen).

2. Post-structuralism (Kristeva).

3. Post-marxism (Mouffe).

4. Critical theory (Habermas).

5. Queer theory (Butler).

6. Sociology (Sennett).

7. Feminism (Benhabib).

2. THE BANALITY OF EVIL

THE JEWISH QUESTION

The Jewish question

- refers to designate a whole series of shifting, loosely related, historical, cultural, religious, economic, political, and social issues;

- is an expression initially gained popularity in the writings of anti-semites;

- is related to an underlying anxiety about the fate of the Jewish people in the modern age.

Arendt: “I have refused to abandon the Jewish question as the focal point of my historical and political thinking.”

OUTLAWS

Outlaws > Jewish parvenu and the Jewish pariah.Rahel Varnhagen: despite her parvenu tendencies

and aspirations, she finally affirms herself as a rebel, i.e. a pariah.

There is a hidden tradition of the jew as a pariah.Schlemihl > lord of dreams (Traumweltherscher).Conscious pariah > a political response to the

situation (for example Bernard Lazare or women who refuse to accept or assimilate to prevailing social relationships).

TOTALITARIANISM

Arendt is mainly interested in the origins of totalitarianism and not the causes.

What are the two main origins:

1. Totalitarianism.

2. Anti-Semitism.When are these origins triggered to become

dangerous > the end of the nation-state.Significant of national socialism: the banality

of evil.

3. THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS

THEORY AND PRACTICE

The Origins of Totalitarianism > to show that National Socialism and Stalinism is mainly the product of European and Anti-Semitism and Imperialism.

The Human Condition > what kind of action and thinking led to National Socialism and Stalinism.

Vita contemplativa > theory.Vita activa > praxis.This philosophical opposition makes us blind for

a more differentiated view on human action.

THREE FORMS OF HUMAN ACTION

Vita activa comprehends three forms of action:1. Labour (ponos) > biological reproduction.2. Work (poiesis) > the production of tools and things.3. Action (praxis) > showing your uniqueness via deliberation.

THE MODERN AGE

A political crisis caused by the oppression of action.

The animal laborans dominates the zoon politicon > instrumental reason.

The oikos becomes more important than the polis.

The current reconfiguration of the relation between the public realm and the private realm implies a depolitization.

THE RIGHTS OF STATELESS MIGRANTS

The experience of statelessness (so-called illegal immigrants).

The tension between inclusive human rights and the demand for territorial national sovereignty.

Human rights were understood to be inalienable, ahistorical universal rights which were to be upheld even against the sovereignty of the state.

Problem: how can human rights be guaranteed and protected?

Arendt > the most basic right is “the right to have rights (and that means to live in a framework where one is judged by one’s actions and opinions) and a right to belong to some kind of organized community.”

“That the soft water in movement

In time will winn from the mighty

hard stone

You know, the hard will lose.”

Bertold Brecht

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