This item was submitted to Loughborough University as a PhD thesis by the author and is made available in the Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions. For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ I • Lo~;~ghb_orough .Umvers1ty University Library Author/Fll!ng Title ..................................k.APDS/ 1..................... D. ························································································ Class Mark .................. T............................................ Please note that fines are charged on ALL overdue items. ~m[l~il~\ilil I1111 I11 Ill\ 11 Ill 11111 The Clash ofIdentities- Discourse, Politics, and Morality in the Exchange ofLetters between Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem By David Kaposi A Doctoral Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University June2008 © by David Kaposi 2008 ~ Lour,hb:mmgh Unil'crsily Pilkington Library Date Lf/~/01 Class -r ~~~ D'fO"!.b1lf/t>3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are simply too many people, places, and events to be fully enumerated here. One should certainly not start with the buzzing and inspirational pub-life of Loughborough (which heading, naturally, should only cover proper ,old-man" pubs) but, then, one should not finish with it either. 1 I will restrict this space for people. My supervisor, Mick Billig proved to be a person I could never possibly imagine beforehand. His contribution cannot really be expressed in words. He is virtually present in every single line of this thesis, even where he is not aware of it and where I am not aware of this either. In his absence, Charles Antaki managed to fill the void, which is no small achievement. I thank him for complementing Mick's approach and making me realise that structuring a text contributes to its substance. Steve Reicher and John Richardson helped me with their insightful suggestions during my viva and, what is more, helped me to think about the next steps. The Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University is such a place where intellectual freedom is taken for granted, and where this concept can fully be exercised in practical term. I consider myself extremely lucky to have been presented with the opportunity to work here on my thesis. Freedom, however, does not equal mere intellectual wanderings. The presence of the Discourse and Rhetorical Analysis Group at the department provides an environment where one's thoughts can be nurtured and developed. Apart from those who, in one way or another, directly influenced the outcome of my project, I must include the many friends who helped me through the not-always-rosy years. In alphabetical order (and fully aware that I will accidentally fail to mention all of them), I thank Anghel Beldarrain-Durandegui, Lisa Chen, Alex Kganetsano, Kosum Omphumuwat, Laura and Cristian Tileaga, Ana and Alex Wade; and, most certainly, full and associated members of the Beech House (Simona, Mike, Wills, 1 I therefore put it in a footnote. In order of significance: Swan-in-the-rushes (for its real ale, loyalty card-scheme, Monday night quiz, and friendly smoking atmosphere); Moon and Bell (for its being the "Shrine" and the presence of The Professor); The Gallery (for always showing the Arsenal game); The Three Nuns (for showing QPR games, if occasionally); The Orange Tree (for their giant yorkie). Kingston-upon-Thames's Park Tavern, and Albert should be mentioned here too. Mary, Geetha etc.) for their invaluable friendship. Special mention must be made here of Ivaylo Nikolov (who thinks he is writing on fiscal policies but is in fact a philosopher}, as well as James Cool (who thinks he is a DJ-cum-revolutionary-cum­ fast bowler while is in fact a proper all-rounder). I left Hungary but I have not left my friends. There is simply no space to enumerate all of them but they won't ever come across this thesis in the library anyway. At the time of writing this, my football club (MTK) have chances to win the league. They will certainly mess it up so it is probably the best moment where I can express my gratitude to this club for its existence. My parents' and grandmother's contribution to this dissertation is so obvious that it virtually defies words. And finally, my ''partner in life" (copyright Ivaylo Nikolov), Jutka Ferencz is by any means the person who understood to the fullest extent what it means to write a thesis. If my conceptual imagination amounts to half of her visual one- this thesis must be a rather enjoyable one. Again, sentimentality overcomes me so I'd better stop here. Thank you. ABSTRACT This thesis analyses the fabled public exchange of letters that occurred between political theorist Hannah Arendt and historian of Jewish religion Gershom Scholem in 1964 following the historic trial of Adolf Eichmann and Arendt's subsequent publication of her report of the event, Eichmann in Jerusalem. The thesis covers the historical issues that form the contextual background to the exchange. It involves the introduction of the two participants as defining Jewish intellectuals of the past century, the course of the trial itself and the political and ideological problems it entailed as well as the turbulent history of the reception of Arendt's book. It is down to these four factors that guaranteed the eminence of the exchange of letters analysed in the thesis. Oft-quoted as the exchange is, there has been no proper analysis of it to this date. To accomplish this task, the thesis adopts the theoretical-methodological framework of discourse analysis in general, and the version of rhetorically oriented discursive psychology, proposed mainly in the publications of Potter and Wetherell (1987) and Billig (1996}, in particular. This approach allows the thesis to provide a fine-grained analysis of the various ways of textual construction. Firstly, the ways examined concern the significance, worth and value of the debate itself, as formulated by both of the participants. Secondly, they involve the construction of the attempt to establish definite versions of the content of the book. Thirdly, they cover the textual acts of accounting for that content, or the practice of misinterpretation of that content, respectively. What all these three aspects have in common is the positioning of the problems touched upon in a moral and political context, and ultimately approaching them in terms of the identities of the participants. In this sense, versions of the events and ways of accounting for it will not only aim at producing accurate descriptions of events but in the forms of an implied morality or politics an implied "action-plan" for the future as well. The construction of Arendt and Scholem is, hence, analysed in terms of its argumentative organisation in order to undermine the other's counter­ version and to establish its own as the definite one. While, structurally, there are many similarities in the two letters, what distinguishes them is that they conceive of their objects (i.e. the text), subject positions, and political or moral values according to which they should be assessed in quite diametrically opposite ways. This thesis not only registers the various rhetorical ways the participants fashion their versions as definite ones, but also accounts for the differences in their contents. Keywords: Hannah Arendt, Gershom Scholem, Eichmann Trial, Jewish identity, discourse analysis, discursive psychology, rhetoric CONTENTS Acknowledgements Abstract 1. Introduction 1 2. Historical Background: Two Unique Intellectuals on a Unique Historical Scene 2.1. Introduction 8 2.2. The People 10 2.2.1. Hannah Arendt, political theorist 10 2.2.2. Gershom Scholem, historian of Judaic ideas 23 2.3. The Scene 37 2.3.1. The trial of AdolfEichmann 37 2.3.2. Eichmann in Jerusalem and its reception 52 2.4. Conclusion 59 3. Methodological and Theoretical Framework: Discourse Analysis on Balance 3.1. Introduction 60 3.2. Quoting the Recondite Text: The Brief History of the Reception of the 61 Exchange between Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem 3.3. Principles of Discourse Analysis 66 3.4. Ways of Analysing Discourse 71 3.4.1. Bottom-up: conversation analysis and ethnomethodology 71 3.4.2. Middle-of-the-road: discursive psychology 76 3.4.3. Top-down: critical discourse analysis 87 3.5. Conclusion: Reclaiming the Middle-of-the-Road 92 4. Thou Shall Not Judge: Gershom Scholem on a Historical Judgment and the Act of Historical Judgment 4.1. Introduction 97 4.2. Aspects of a Non-Factual Criticism: the What and the Why 98 4.3. The What: Presenting a Historical Judgment 104 4.3.1. Setting up the scene: the description of a book for criticism 104 4.3.2. Instances of "historical judgment": on the "weakness" of the book 110 4.4. Assessment of the Act of Historical Judgment 119 4.5. Conclusion: Towards the Why 129 5. Beyond a Boundary: The Genealogy of an Anti-Semitic Book 5.1. Introduction 132 5.2. From the Text to a Person 132 5.3. "Us" and "You": The Unbearable Lightness of"Being" 138 5.3.1. The right sort of morality 138 5.3.2. The eternal procedure: un- and re-making a Jew 145 5.3.2.1. A description that is not really one 145 5.3.2.2. A prescription that is not really one 151 5.4. Warranting for a Moral Position: The Genealogy of a Pathology 155 5.5. Prospective Conclusion 163 6. Ecce Textus: Hannah Arendt and the "Reformulation" of the Debate 6.1. Introduction 166 6.2. Reformulating Significance, Reformulating Fundamentals 167 6.3. On One Statement, that is "Simply False": the Naturalisation of 176 Jewish Identity 6.4.