In 1939, in the early phase of WW2, a now-famous book appeared. Written by a young expert in corporate management, Peter Drucker, The End of Economic Man, offered one of the first theories of the origins of totalitarianism. For Drucker, homo economicus, the self-interested individual who is apolitical for the most part, is central to a productive society. Much good, thinks Drucker, comes out of a society comprised of people who are incentivized to be productive and to maximize their utility. Totalitarianism, in Drucker's view, wipes out such market-situated individuals. The economy and state are fused, and the liberty of the individual quashed. The answer for Drucker lies in the capitalist liberal order which emphasizes the individual pursuit of "happiness;" well away from the political realm.
A young German Jew and philosopher who had escaped from Vichy France and was stateless during the war years read the book and thought it was completely wrong. The atomization of the individual (i.e. self-interested and unattached to broader social projects and traditions) is a precondition for Totalitarianism, not a means of overcoming it. . Drucker had said that "political man is dangerous" while "economic man" is the antidote to Totalitarianism. Arendt inverts that in her work on totalitarianism and later political philosophy.
Published in 1958, The Human Condition lays out Arendt's mature political theory. The book is unclassifiable in terms of political and philosophical labels. While it certainly has roots in civic republicanism, it also makes individuality and self-disclosure (concepts associated with existential-phenomenology ) vital to her conception of politics and public life. She turns back to the Greeks, and in particular, Aristotle from whom she thinks we can learn some important lessons in the modern era. Arendt interweaves individuality and self-disclosure on the one hand and politics and civic engagement on the other. It is in the sphere of civic life that the truly political is to be practiced (as in republicanism and ancient Greek democracy, where politics were conducted at The Assembly.). But our civil society today is permeated by economic rather than primarily political relations. It is characterized by consumerism and is culturally and politically anemic by Arendt's standards.
Economics for the Greeks was a private matter, but for us has become societal and political. The root word of economics in Geek means 'household" (Oikos) and it would have been understood as something like "managing the household well." But we've come to prioritize economics in discussions of the state, while characterizing individual identity and self-expression as something best confined to the private realm. We tend to avoid, even fear political life, This is largely because Liberalism arises in the West out of a prior situation in which devastating religious wars had become the norm. So our world, (and this is oddly true of Socialist States as well) is one in which individuals at the political level are encouraged to cultivate their social lives in a way that is apolitical. People go out for entertainment, or to dine, but how often do we see public assemblies, rallies, and the like? Usually when we see these we think of conflict or crisis. But once individual meaning and the political sphere were inextricably linked, as in the Poleis or City States of Ancient Greece. Political life has been forgotten. The socio-economic sphere, once relegated to the household, has ascended to a level in which it suffuses public life in all its apolitical glory. Social life takes place largely in the economic sphere in the modern world. Shopping, dining out, going to the movies-- none of these involve political action. But Arendt, like Aristotle and the Greeks generally, believes that life, in the absence of the political, is impoverished.
She imagines a reversal of the picture I have drawn here. We should meet in public to discuss those things that concern us most. Maybe this can't be the basis for policy directly as in the voting process in a small Polis; but it is certainly possible for people to interact in public so as to discuss and collectively express their views and desires regarding political policies and decisions that affect them.
If you want a mental picture of Arendt's "public sphere" picture a lot of young people out in the streets and on campuses in the 1960s. She loved talking about the seeming re-invigoration of political life in the 60s. She may have thought the youth at that time were naive, she may not have agreed with all the slogans and ideas, but that's not the point. What she found encouraging was the sight of students,professors and ordinary individuals from all walks of life and social strata talking out in the street (not a private but public venue) and articulating their views. She was heartened by the sight of young people finding meaning and gratification in the attempt to help shape political outcomes through collective action. So she believes firmly that politics in the modern age must cultivate a healthy and vibrant public sphere. The exact opposite of a state in which behavioral experts and managers "implement policies" from on high. Concrete individuals, not faceless bureaucrats, are the roots on which the future must grow. Anything less full-blooded and human is artificial, sterile, "inauthentic."
Political life is to be understood as a basic part of what, borrowing from Aristotle, she calls the Vita Activa or Active Life rather than contemplative life, such as that of a monk, or solitary thinker. (Later, in the late 60s, she will have much to say about contemplative life in the book, Life of the Mind.) The Active Life is broken down by Arendt into three domains: Labor, Work and Action.
Labor concerns the recurrent tasks that must be performed in order to survive. In an economic context, the paradigm case is probably subsistence farming. The individual or small group (family perhaps) grows food that it ultimately consumes, and then is compelled to do so again and again and again, season by season, in order to live. Repetition and consumption thus define Labor. In modern labor, whether at home unpaid or in the market, another example might be cleaning. Janitors, cleaning people, or in the private sphere family members, must clean things up, mop floors, do the dishes, sweep and vacuum, etc. Again, the thing to note is that once a cycle of cleaning is done, nothing durable results because the dirt and dust will settle again soon enough and the labor of cleaning will be necessary once again in a cycle over and over and over.
Work on the other hand, has to do with the creation of durable goods including such material and cultural artifacts as buildings, infrastructure, clothing, works of art, poetry, music , literature etc. These cultural artifacts define our "World" (she is borrowing here from her mentor Heidegger). The World is what shapes a people's experience and provides space for (inter)-action. We dine at the table, using durable dishes and glasses at home or at a restaurant. We walk through the corridors of a museum. Such acts situate us in a Culture, in a meaningful social environment which is what is meant by World. The World is a product of humans, the Earth is not-- a Heideggerian distinction.
Action is what I described above with the example of 1960s rallies and activism which so heartened Arendt.. But we don't see much of this except when there is a perceived crisis in the modern era. She laments that fact, and considers politics to be the paradigmatic case of Action. Deeds, and speeches are at the heart of Action; and Action is at the heart of political life. Politics presupposes a meaningful cultural environment (World) that cannot be reduced to mere labor and consumption, as seems to be the case today. The fetish of "privatization," about which we hear so much in politics today, would certainly disturb Arendt.
Political life, as I pointed out above, is contrasted with economic life. It bears repeating because modern politics and economics are joined at the hip in any modern type of government. Politics for Arendt is the most uniquely human form of action. In its true sense (again think of Ancient Greece, as our situation is quite different) political life is the context in which we say what most matters to us; where we disclose our identities, wants, and hopes . It is in politics that we can meaningfully do and say things before our peers. We are visible. I see other individuals and they me, and the individual is not shunted off like an atom or monad, but ever visible as a part of ongoing public life. Discussion, debate, deliberation, dialogue all facilitate the forging of meaningful identities. Here we must be careful. Today identity politics has come to mean something very different. Remember, at the root of humanity for Arendt is individuality and not group membership. Individuality cuts beneath such groupings as blacks,whites, Jews, Hindus, Christians, Homosexuals, etc. etc. These are demographic categories and cannot be bearers of that property, individuality. It is the differences between us and not the sameness (i.e. identity) that must be fostered and fed into the political realm so that it truly reflects who the people are, what she calls "the plurality." Thus, for Arendt, the existential components of identity turn out to depend on political life for their emergence and protection by means of rights.
This is a very unique view, as it seamlessly combines existential themes of authentic individuality as a basis for meaning, with political theory which usually gets presented in terms of abstract categories, institutions and regime categories. Notice there's no exact regime that corresponds to this description. It functions as a philosophy of ideal political life, which is, for Arendt, fully human and meaningful life. There is not dicihotomy between "society" and 'THE individual" -- that stony abstraction of social and political theory ( i.e. which individual? )
It should be said that none of this means that Arendt thinks politics is the only basis for the construction of meaning. Like Aristotle, she is aware of the importance of the inner life of contemplation. Indeed, Aristotle is not always clear about which is more important-- but fortunately it's not always necessary to choose between them. The important point here, is that in a healthy polity, like a City State that is flourishing, people want to go out and assemble, discuss, propose ideas, listen to others -- and all before your peers. In modern life this healthy public impulse has atrophied. We stay at home and get doctors to excuse us from jury duty. We look suspiciously at activists who seem oddly concerned with that dreadful thing called "politics." We read news and watch TV and log onto political websites; but not to truly listen to and speak before others. For, worst of all, we sometimes consume political discourse, but we seem sadly stunted when it comes to actually producing discourse or speech of a political kind. We trade in pre-packaged political small talk, taking our cues from the chattering classes. All of this reflects, for Arendt, a sort of political condition of being "out of shape" in the sense that an athlete who stops practicing becomes "out of shape."
Arendt never claimed to have "the answer' (if there is one) to the problem she diagnoses so carefully. But she produced a body of work important to all of us today. Her theory of the roots of Totalitarianism; her controversial observations and thoughts regarding Eichmann, and by extension those who did or would do the atrocious things that high ranking N@zi war criminals did; all this and more makes for a rich and relevant legacy with much food for our thoughts today.
Finally, as there has been an excellent series of posts on book chapters of her classic The Origins of Totalitarianism on the Biopolitics and bionews channel https://disqus.com/home/dis... , I want to draw a bridge, as it were, between the theory I summarize above and the earlier book on Totalitarianism which is where many of the ideas discussed here, first took shape. Again, she was adamant in her rejection of the managerial school of politics which was trumpeted by Drucker. Recall that he holds that incentivizing atomized, apolitical, market-situated individuals (homo economicus) is the best antidote to Totalitarianism. Everyone is busy and productive as they enjoy private life. But cultivating the garden of family and friends is but a sliver of the possible range of human interaction. The creation of culture through Work , and , most of all, the creation of meaning , laws and institutions in the public world of politics is what insures that we not descend to the level of fascism,in which no individuality in public can be tolerated. In other words, her basic insight into Totalitarianism is that atomization of the individual and the neglect of political life as described here, far from being the cure, is a big part of what makes such systems possible. Such regimes cannot take root in societies in which the citizens are willingly active politically, not as a chore, but a meaningful and rewarding way of life. Who, in such a condition, would surrender the basis of their own meaning and identity to the authority of a single leader or bureaucracy?
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This is a short clip of Hannah Arendt discussing labor and consumption, and the "dethroning" of the importance of the political in the modern period as discussed in the post.
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