Hannah Arendt: Re-Thinking 'The Social'

100 Pages·2011·3.2 MB·English

by  Trevor Norris

HANNAH ARENDT: RE-THINKING "THE SOCIAL"
HANNAH ARENDT: RE-THINKING "THE SOCIAL"
By
TREVOR NORRIS, B.A., B.ED.
A Thesis
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree
Masters of Arts
McMaster University
©Copyright by Trevor Norris, August 2002
/
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MASTERS OF ARTS (2002) McMaster University
(Religious Studies) Hamilton, Ontario
TITLE: Hannah Arendt: Re-Thinking "The Social"
AUTHOR: Trevor Norris, B.A. (McMaster University), B.Ed. (University of Toronto)
SUPERVISOR: Dr. Zdravko Planinc
NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 88.
111
This work connects two central texts by Hannah Arendt: The Human Condition
and Thinking, volume one of The Life oft he Mind. My approach will be to examine the
rise of "the social" as outlined in The Human Condition, followed by a consideration of
Arendt's response to this rise in Thinking. In doing so we will observe that both action
and thought are grounded in the human condition of plurality.
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Although this thesis was written :in solitude, it would not have been possible
without others. I would like to thank Nora Barna and my family for their constant
support, my colleagues Peter Killam, Rob Virdis and Craig Perfect for their
encouragement, and Zdravko Planinc and Louis Greenspan for their helpful guidance
and suggestions.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
111
Aclrnowledgements
IV
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
i) Modernity 1
ii) Arendt's response to modernity 4
iii) A descriptive outline of the thesis 5
CHAPTER TWO: THE RISE OF "THE SOCIAL"-
CONTEXT AND CRISIS
I) Context
i) Arendt's distinctions 9
-Vita actl1va and vita contemplativa 11
-Conditions, activities, and spheres 13
ii) History: philosophy and Christianity 21
II) Crisis
i) The rise of ''the social" 24
ii) Critics of "the social" 30
CHAPTER THREE: RESPONSE TO "THE SOCIAL"-
ACTION AND REVOLUTION
I) Action
i) Action as redemption of work and labor 43
ii) The potentia1~ties of action 46
iii) The ontological roots of action 48
iv) Action: discourse and disclosure 49
II) Revolutions 51
i) The French Revolution 52
ii) The American Revolution 54
iii) 20th Century revolutions 55
VI
CHAPTER FOUR: RE-TIDNKING "THE SOCIAL"
THOUGHT AND PLURALITY
I) Thought
i) The Human Condition and The Life a/the Mind: Thinking 58
ii) Thought vs action, contemplation, cognition, and intimacy 61
iii) Reason's need 66
iv) Speech as link between thought and action: the urge to appear 67
II) Plurality
i) Plurality and. Rebellion 68
ii) Judging 75
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS
I) Critiquing Arendt
i) Plato and Socrates: a dubious distinction 78
ii) Arendt's suspension of political prescription 82
II) Summary 85
Bibliography 89
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
i) Modernity
We live in an age in which the central role of politics is to facilitate unrestrained
economic progress. Indeed, this is the criterion according to which political leadership
is now measured. Thus does economics, currently at the very heart of political life, also
come to dominate our ethical self-understanding. Moreover, our rapidly accelerating
economic globalization seems to have become an irreversible characteristic of
modernity, such that, in our current market-driven culture, all things become objects of
consumption. Yet, we remain tragically limited in our ability to discern the forces that
transform all things in the world into commodities and all human beings into
automatons, themselves commodified through their thoughtless and relentless
preoccupation with the cycle of consumption and production.
We can see this dynamic in various phenomena, most notably, in the fiscal
backgrounds of many of our modem political leaders as well as in the fiscal character
of modem political speech. Note the recent trend in which Canadian political leaders
have risen to power from previous positions as Minister of Finance. Examples include
Ontario's new premier, Ernie Eaves, who rose from that position to become the
successor to Mike Harris, Ontario's Progressive Conservative premier between 1995
and 2002. Similarly, Stockwell Day, fonner Finance Minister of Alberta, rose to
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become federal leader of the Canadian Allliance. Further, Paul Martin, Canada's former
Minister of Finance, appears likely to replace Chretien as Canada's Prime Minister.
The modem understanding of political leadership and of the nature of political
rule was exemplified in fue response of the Bush administration to the tragic events of
September 11, 2001. In the months following that event, Bush repeatedly called upon
the American people to express their patriotic commitment and their resistance against
terrorism through shoPPlng. In short, America's well being was seen as contingent on
"consumer confidence," which political leaders assumed responsibility for both
inspiring and sustaining. In Canada (and in a somewhat similar vein), Chretien recently
stated that the reduction of poverty and starvation in Africa should be understood
neither as a humanitarian act nor as an issue of social justice, but purely in economic
and instrumental terms. Africans, too, he insisted, must be trained in the role of
consumers. "It is not charity, it's an investment, because if you take somebody who is
very poor and you make that person less poor then he becomes a consumer of goods
and services from the developed world."! Such language has even entered the field of
education, where students are now referred to as "consumers" and where academic
disciplines are increasingly valued by both smdents and their parents in relation to their
potential to lead to lucrative employment.
In the province of Ontario, in 1995, the Progressive Conservative government
swept into power under the leadership of Mike Harris and was re-elected by a wide
The Globe and Mail, "Canada, Britain optimistic on 08 Africa deal," Tuesday,
May 14,2002.
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margin in 2000. In a recent speech, Harris: insisted that ''what matters most to [the
people of Ontario] is prudent management of their money." He pointed to two models
of such "prudence": family households and small businesses. Concerning the former,
Harris stated that "every day, hard-working families across this great province make
responsible decisions about their own budlgets. They expect governments to do the
same. Even when those decisions are diffiicult."z Concerning the latter, the government
proclaimed its intention ~o "embrace the innovation demonstrated by so many
successful small businesses.,,3 While no one would challenge the principal of fiscal
responsibility, what these examples demonstrate is the extent to which economic
concerns have succeeded in rising to an unchallenged position of political dominance.
By describing the task of political rule in terms of economic efficiency (appealing to
his voters by championing the household and small business, both central to those
voters' concerns), Harris shows the extent to which political speech has become
captured by an aggressive fiscal ideology and! political practice reduced to that of
administering an economy.
These examples, drawn from recent public statements by Ontario's provincial
government, reflect some of the dominant assumptions of modernity, assumptions that
cross provincial borders and politica ll boundaries. They are the logical outcome of the
historical usurpation of politics by the instrumental concerns of economic utility.
2 The Budget of the Province of Ontario, February, 2001:
www.gov.on.calFinibudO 1e lbud_ highlights.htrn.
3
Ibid.