Speech is what makes man a political
being.
Hannah Arendt, The
Human Condition (1958)
THE ARENDT CENTENNIAL AROUND THE US
Most of these celebrations have a common
theme, which is captured in the title of a conference to
be held in New York in December, 2006: HANNAH ARENDT
RIGHT NOW. They are concerned with revisiting
Arendt’s work to ask what it might mean for the
present situation in America, about which Arendt wrote so
often in her last essays, and the present situation in
the world. In a sense, these celebrations constitute a
desire that Arendt might be still living to offer her
commentary on current events, to be a public presence, an
example of concern for the public realm. So the
celebrations are, in effect, a eulogy, which is a type of
speech that Hannah Arendt described in these words
(quoted from Men In Dark Times) when she delivered one as
her teacher Karl Jaspers received the German Book
Trade’s Peace Prize:
[The} laudatio [is] a eulogy whose
task it is to praise the man rather than his work. How to
do this we can perhaps learn from the Romans, who, more
experienced in matters of public significance than we
are, tell us what such an enterprise should be all about:
in laudationibus …ad personarum dignitatem omnia
referrentur, said Cicero—“in
eulogies…the sole consideration is the greatness
and dignity of the individuals concerned.”
To enter the world of Hannah Arendt
(1906-1975) is to encounter the political and moral
catastrophes of the 20th century. Her life spanned the
convulsions of two world wars, revolutions and civil wars, and
events worse than war in which human lives were uprooted
and destroyed on a scale never seen before.
There is abundant evidence that Arendt's
understanding of what it means to think politically has
struck a responsive chord in the contemporary world. In
recent years, increasing numbers of people have turned to
her as a guide they trust in their need to understand for
themselves and realize in their own lives the courage it
takes to be free. The earliest of Arendt's writings in
the collection dates from 1925, when she was 19, and the
latest from 1975, the year she died. By far the greater
part of them comes from the period after her emigration to
the United States, in 1941, as World War II raged in
Europe.
Reading Arendt now against the backdrop
of the trial of Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq, and processes
of globalization means confronting profound political and moral
issues that emerge in classroom discussions in history, social
studies, and literature. Is sovereignty the highest good of the
state? Do nations have obligations to one another? Are there
universal human rights? Are they enforceable? Is evil a problem
of human nature or culture? What explains the rise of
totalitarian power and the use of terror and fear as
instruments of politics? As the language of good and evil
circulates in politics and the media, filters into all our
classrooms and affects the social dynamics of
“insider/outsider” operating informally on many
school campuses today, Arendt invites us to think. Think about
the roots of “the problem of evil,” think about the
meaning of human plurality and diversity, and think about the
use of terror and violence by both state and non-state actors
to resolve conflict or redress grievances. What is the human
condition?
Hannah Arendt was an open spirit who
cannot be easily placed within the philosophic trend of her
time. Nor did she fit well into the framework of established
academic discourse of her
time. Against the background of horrible
experiences as a Jewish citizen in a Europe dominated by
National Socialism, she sought to create a world worthy of
human habitation.
This was what drove her wish to
understand the world and act in it. She did not concentrate on
the basic questions of a political theory, but was just as open
for culture and literature, as well as for current problems of
political life. She was a committed observer of everyday
politics.
Since the tradition of political
philosophy was unable to prevent the rise of totalitarianism,
she sought to create a new foundation for political action. To
her this laid in the realisation that political acting is
freedom, and creates freedom. She stood up for agreements based
on common speaking and acting.
A stateless person herself for many
years, she dealt intensively with the issue of minorities and
stateless people. Since human rights often depend on a
protective location, she pleaded for the universal right to
having rights.
