Reading Arendt's on Revolution After the Fall of the Wall
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What Is Wrong in Heidegger's Revolution?
CHAPTER 4 WHAT IS WRONG IN HEIDEGGER’S REVOLUTION? One of the consequences of Heidegger’s active participation in the National Socialist revolution is that the year 1933 functions as a kind of prism, separating Heideggerians and Heidegger’s detractors into different groups. At the same time, the different views and critiques provide light on Heidegger’s thought on revolution. The conundrum that Heidegger was both a Nazi and possibly the most influential philosopher of the 20th century forms a kind of entry-level exam for all wannabe revolutionary philosophers. This is also the reason why Heidegger’s thought on revolution forms a necessary background for Žižek. A SMALL MAN LIVING IN HARD TIMES Maybe the saddest but still quite an understandable apology—heard from some of Heidegger’s pupils1, from some commentators who haven’t looked at the matter in detail and from many orthodox Heideggerians who want to continue along the lines of the defence prepared by Heidegger himself—is the claim that Heidegger was basically an apolitical man, not very well aware of social questions, who is swept away, very briefly, in the powerful current of Nazism. Often the claim is combined with the general backdrop that philosophers and deep thinkers are not even supposed to be very sensitive towards their immediate surroundings. They deal with grander, deeper, if not eternal things. Forwarded by a philosopher, such a view is understandable, because it at the same time provides its presenter a kind of diplomatic immunity. For the same reason it is very sad, implying that philosophy should happen in an ivory tower (and, by being a comment on philosophy and politics, it manages to pull the rug from under itself). -
3 Reading Arendt's on Revolution After the Fall of the Wall
3 READING ARENDT’S ON REVOLUTION AFTER THE FALL OF THE WALL Dick Howard* RESUMO – O artigo revisita a obra de Hannah ABSTRACT – The article revisits Hannah Arendt’s Arendt On Revolution e os eventos históricos da On Revolution and the historical events of the revolução americana, de forma a reformular os American revolution so as to recast what Arendt chamados “problemas da época”. Embora todo ator called “the age’s problems”. Although every político reivindique que as suas políticas sejam a political actor claims that its policies are the encarnação da vontade unida da nação em uma incarnation of the united will of the nation in a democracia, abre-se a porta da antipolítica na democracy, the door to antipolitics is opened if the medida em que a natureza simbólica – e portanto symbolic – and therefore contested – nature of the contestada – do povo soberano é reduzida à sua sovereign people is reduced to its temporary reality. realidade temporária. Tal é a lição crucial a ser That is the crucial lesson to be drawn still today extraída ainda hoje da obra The Origins of from The Origins of Totalitarianism, which can be Totalitarianism, que pode ser lida como uma read as an attempt to think the most extreme tentativa de pensar a expressão mais extrema da expression of antipolitics. antipolítica. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Antipolítica. Arendt. Demo- KEY WORDS – Antipolitics. Arendt. Democracy. cracia. Revolução. Revolution. Introduction: From where do you speak, comrade? Two decades after the fall of the Wall seemed to announce – by default, as an unexpected gift – the triumph of democracy, optimism appears at best naïve, at worst an ideological manipulation of the most cynical type. -
Prof. Dr. Dr. Jörg Monar Recteur/Rector 13 November 2019 OPENING CEREMONY ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2020 Dear President of The
Prof. Dr. Dr. Jörg Monar Recteur/Rector 13 November 2019 OPENING CEREMONY ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2020 ALLOCUTION PROMOTION HANNAH ARENDT Dear President of the European Council, Dear President of the Administrative Council, Mijnheer de Gouverneur, Mijnheer de Burgermeester, Your Excellencies, Dear Friends and Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Students, One of the most well-known and often-cited concepts of political anthropology is Aristotle’s classification of the human being as a ζῷον πολιτικόν, as a “political animal” or perhaps better, “living being”, in his Πολιτικά written around 330 BC. According to him - who we can regard as the father of political science - it is only through man being part of a political community, the πόλις, that he can fully realise his nature and potential. The history of mankind has shown, and our world of today keeps showing, that this political dimension of our existence accounts for much of what we have been able to achieve as humans in terms of social, legal, scientific, economic, organisational and even the moral progress, well beyond the horizons of the Greek city-states which formed the basis of Aristotle’s analysis. Yet at the same time this political dimension has also all too often been a pathway to the abysses of human nature, to unrestrained barbarism and the infliction of boundless suffering by some on their fellow human beings. │Hannah Arendt – PATRONNE OF THE PROMOTION 2019-2020] 2 How can it happen, how can it be explained that what belongs to our essence, what accounts for so much of the positive potential of our living together, the political dimension of our existence, can turn into the large-scale destruction of values and lives, the generation of evils poisoning an entire generation or more? In 1933 a 26-year old, intellectually wide awake and strongly-willed young researcher, Hannah Arendt, was confronted with one of those turns of politics into hell, arguably one if not the most calamitous in history, the coming into power of the Nazi regime in Germany. -
Cults of Personality, Preference Falsification, and the Dictator's
Cults of personality, preference falsification, and the dictator's dilemma Charles Crabtreex, Holger L. Kerny, and David A. Siegelz Abstract: We provide a novel rational explanation for why cults of personality exist: they solve the dictator's adverse selection problem in assigning subordinates to roles within the regime. Participation in a cult of personality is psychologically costly whenever it involves preference falsification, with the costs varying across individuals. Importantly, low psychological costs of preference falsification are correlated with traits the dictator values, such as unscrupulousness and ruthlessness, which we collectively term disposition-based competence. Under a wide variety of circumstances, this correlation makes participation in cults of personality informative from the dictator's point of view, allowing him to hire loyal and competent subordinates for the most important regime positions. In contrast to earlier formal work, our model implies that dictators can use cults of personality to avoid the loyalty-competence trade-off when promoting subordinates. We thank Quintin Beazer, Jens Grosser, Timur Kuran, Andrew Little, Eddy Malesky, Melanie Manion, Arturas Rozenas, Rory Truex, Nils Weidmann, and participants at the 2017 MPSA Conference and the 2017 ESTA workshop at Konstanz University for their very helpful feedback. x PhD cand., Department of Political Science, University of Michigan. y Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Florida State University. z Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Duke University. In 2001, Saparmurad Niyazov, who ruled Turkmenistan from 1985 to 2006, announced the publication of his first book. Called Ruhnama (The Book of the Soul), it contained answers to \all of life's questions" and became required reading in all schools, universities, and workplaces. -
The Limits of Nonviolence in Arendt's 'Civil Disobedience'
From Resistance to Revolution: The Limits of Nonviolence in Arendt’s ‘Civil Disobedience’ Caroline Ashcroft Queen Mary University of London [email protected] Abstract: Arendt’s work on civil disobedience sets out an optimistic portrayal of the possibilities of such forms of action in re-energizing the spirit of American politics in the late twentieth century. Civil disobedience should not simply be tolerated, she argued, but incorporated into the legal structure of the American political system. Her work is usually seen to promote an idea of civil disobedience that is thus bound to existing constitutional principles and essentially nonviolent. However, by looking at Arendt’s discussion and critique of various practices of civil disobedience in 1960s and 1970s America, specifically in relation to the nonviolence movement influenced by Martin Luther King, and on the other side, the more militant Black Power movement, a different idea of civil disobedience emerges. This paper argues that whilst, for Arendt, civil disobedience within America certainly possesses the constitutionally restorative potential she assigns to it, in a broader sense – theoretically, globally, and even in terms of alternative ideologies within America – her conception of civil disobedience is in itself neither necessarily constitutional, nor nonviolent. It is, instead, a form of revolutionary action, whose limits are set only by politics itself, and specifically, Arendt’s criterion of publicity. Keywords: Hannah Arendt, Civil Disobedience, America, Publicity, Martin Luther King, James Forman 1 From Resistance to Revolution: The Limits of Nonviolence in Arendt’s ‘Civil Disobedience’ 1. The Legitimacy of Civil Disobedience Hannah Arendt famously saw in civil disobedience a means by which to reenergize the American political system: to restore to it its original spirit through the political actions of the people. -
Somaly Mam, Nick Kristof, and the Cult of Personality | Jacobin 6/16/14 4:20 PM
Somaly Mam, Nick Kristof, and the Cult of Personality | Jacobin 6/16/14 4:20 PM jacobinmag.com 6.16.14 A couple of self-promoting showoffs pale beside proliferating government machinery that now churns out salaries and prestige for thousands worldwide caught up in a movement based on fraud. A Cambodian activist against sex slavery, Somaly Mam, recently resigned from her foundation after an outside investigation confirmed she had lied to attract donors and supporters. The revelations of Mam’s fraudulence are old news, however — Simon Marks’s reports have been appearing in the Cambodian Daily since 2012, and many other debunkings and doubts circulated much earlier among institutions, researchers, and activists trying to reverse unfounded sensationalism about CC-BY-SA-3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons sex trafficking. Newsweek published some of Marks’s work on May 21, provoking outrage in the New York media establishment — less towards Mam than one of her greatest fans, self-styled slave rescuer Nicholas Kristof. He is accused of hoodwinking liberal-identifying readers and letting down the cause of journalism. Both accusations miss the point. An editor from this media in-group asked if I would write for them about Somaly Mam’s resignation, having seen tweets indicating I don’t consider it significant. She suggested I write about problems of “accountability” with institutions like Mam’s, along with the “history and failures of the organization and others like it.” I asked if she was acquainted with my work, mentioning my research on projects to help and save women who sell sex, documented in Sex at the Margins, which originatedthe concept of a “rescue industry.” Since my analysis rarely gets into the mainstream, the focus of anything I do for such outlets would have to explain the basics about that industry. -
A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence by Hannah Arendt | the New York Review of Books
A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence by Hannah Arendt | The New York Review of Books EMAIL Tweet Share A Special Supplement: Refections on Violence Hannah Arendt FEBRUARY 27, 1969 ISSUE I These reflections were provoked by the events and debates of the last few years, as seen against the background of the twentieth century. Indeed this century has become, as Lenin predicted, a century of wars and revolutions, hence a century of that violence which is currently believed to be their common denominator. There is, however, another factor in the present situation which, though predicted by nobody, is of at least equal importance. The technical development of implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict. Hence, warfare—since times immemorial the final merciless arbiter in international disputes—has lost much of its effectiveness and nearly all of its glamor. “The apocalyptic” chess game between the superpowers, that is, between those that move on the highest plane of our civilization, is being played according to the rule: “if either ‘wins’ it is the end of both.”1 Moreover the game bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its “rational” goal is mutual deterrence, not victory. Since violence—as distinct from power, force, or strength—always needs implements (as Engels pointed out long ago),2 the revolution in technology, a revolution in tool-making, was especially marked in warfare. The very substance of violent action is ruled by the question of means and ends, whose chief characteristic, if applied to human affairs, has always been that the end is in danger of being overwhelmed by the means, which it both justifies and needs. -
Putin's Macho Personality Cult*
Communist and Post-Communist Studies xxx (2015) 1e11 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Communist and Post-Communist Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/postcomstud Putin's macho personality cult* Valerie Sperling Department of Political Science, Clark University, United States article info abstract Article history: Masculinity has long been Russian President Vladimir Putin's calling card. At the center of Available online xxx Putin's macho aura is his image as a tough leader who will not allow Western countries to weaken Russia or dictate what Russia's domestic and foreign policies should look like. This Keywords: article draws attention to the role of masculinity in the Putin regime's legitimation Vladimir Putin strategy, and how it became more obvious during the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine Russia in 2014 and the Russian annexation of Crimea. To the extent that there is a “personality Ukraine cult” in contemporary Russia, the personality at the center of it is defined in highly Crimea Barack Obama gendered terms, shaping the tenor of both domestic and foreign policy. © Masculinity 2015 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights Gender reserved. Legitimacy Domestic politics Foreign policy Since his third ascension to the Russian presidency, Vladimir Putin has attracted more attention than any other contemporary state leader. From the jacket of Time Magazine in September 2013, to the front pages of newspapers detailing Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014, there has been no shortage of coverage of Putin in the international press. Putin's omnipresence in the Russian media is even more striking. -
Arendt's Violence/Power Distinction and SARTRE's Violence/Counter-Violence Distinction: the Phenomenology of Violence in Co
CHAPTER SIX ARENDT’S VIOLENCE/POWER DISTINCTION AND SARTRE’S VIOLENCE/COUNTER-VIOLENCE DISTINCTION: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF VIOLENCE IN COLONIAL AND POST-ColonIAL CONTEXTS Kathryn T. Gines The theme of violence can be traced throughout Hannah Arendt’s major political writings such as The Human Condition and On Revolution where she draws connections between war, violence, and necessity (or libera- tion from necessity); The Origins of Totalitarianism where she examines Europe’s uses of violence in concentration camps, as well as massacre and imperialism in Africa; and, of course, On Violence where she condemns the violence of the Black Power movement and of anti-colonialism. The essay that follows will take as its starting point the violence/power dis- tinction and then the appropriate uses of violence versus non-violence as presented in Arendt’s On Violence. I argue that this distinction between violence and power is misapplied in Arendt’s critique of Jean-Paul Sar- tre and Frantz Fanon’s analyses of anti-colonial revolutionary violence in Algeria. Arendt wrongly interprets Sartre and Fanon’s analyses of violence and counter-violence in The Wretched of the Earth and Critique of Dialecti- cal Reason and her critique of violence proves to be unbalanced. On my view, she rejects their analyses because they argue for the use of violence by the oppressed to overcome the violent system of colonialism. I con- tend that it is because they argue for revolutionary violence (or counter- violence) against their oppressors that Sartre and Fanon are accused of glorifying violence for violence’s sake. In the concluding section of the essay, I briefly consider the possibil- ity that while Arendt’s critique of anti-colonial violence is misguided, her analysis might prove helpful when applied to the post-colonial context in which former anti-colonial leaders fighting for independence strike out violently against the people. -
Cultic Revelations
SPECTRUM HUNGAROLOGICUM Cultic Revelations: Studies in Modern Historical Cult Personalities and Phenomena Edited by Anssi Halmesvirta Spectrum Hungarologicum Vol. 4. 2010 JYVÄSKYLÄ – PÉCS Cultic Revelations: Studies in Modern Historical Cult Personalities and Phenomena Edited by Anssi Halmesvirta Spectrum Hungarologicum Vol. 4. 2010 SPECTRUM HUNGAROLOGICUM VOL. 4. Editors-in-chief: Tuomo Lahdelma Beáta Thomka Editorial board: Pál Deréky (Wien) Jolanta Jastrzębska (Groningen) Pál Pritz (Budapest) Ignác Romsics (Budapest) Tõnu Seilenthal (Tartu) György Tverdota (Budapest) Publisher: University of Jyväskylä, Faculty of Humanities, Hungarian Studies (www.jyu.fi/hungarologia) Technical editing by Gergely Dusnoki and Kristóf Fenyvesi CONTENTS Contents .............................................................................................. 3 Preface ................................................................................................. 5 Authors ............................................................................................... 7 Editor's Introduction ...................................................................... 13 Gábor Gyáni: The Creation of Identity Through Cults ............. 19 Balázs Apor: Communist Leader Cults in Eastern Europe: Concepts and Recent Debates .............................................. 37 Árpád Welker: The Kossuth Commemoration Year and its Impact on Hungarian Historiography ................... 63 Orsolya Rákai: Chameleon Cult: The History of Cult of Queen Elizabeth ................................................... -
Arendt on the Crime of Crimes
Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 2015 Arendt on the Crime of Crimes David Luban Georgetown University Law Center, [email protected] This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1473 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2588537 Ratio Juris (forthcoming) This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, International Law Commons, and the Military, War, and Peace Commons ARENDT ON THE CRIME OF CRIMES David Luban* [Forthcoming in Ratio Juris] Genocide is sometimes called the “crime of crimes,” but explaining what makes it the crime of crimes is no easy task.1 Hannah Arendt tried, but the claim of this paper is that she failed. The claim is simple, but the reasons cut deep. And I will argue that her failure has something to teach us about the difficulty of trying to find a stable position between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. I The Epilogue to Eichmann in Jerusalem offers Arendt’s analysis of the legal issues in the Eichmann trial. In light of the book’s reputation as an unsparing critique of the Eichmann trial, the most surprising feature of the Epilogue is that most of it (22 pages out of 27) mounts a spirited defense of the trial against critics of its legitimacy. Only in the final five pages does Arendt turn to “the failure of the Jerusalem court” in “not coming to grips with three fundamental issues…: the problem of impaired justice in the court of the victors; a valid definition of the ‘crime against humanity’; and a clear * University Professor in Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University Law Center; Class of 1984 Distinguished Visitor in Ethics, Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, United States Naval Academy. -
Introduction 1
Notes Introduction 1 . Seyla Benhabib, The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996, p. xxv. 2 . M a r g a r e t C a n o v a n , Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of Her Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 109. 3 . D a n a V i l l a , Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996, p. 8. 4 . B e n h a b i b , The Reluctant Modernism, p. 197. 5 . see, for example, Dana Villa, Arendt and Heidegger, p. 9. 6 . A m o s E l o n , The Pity of it All: A History of Jews in Germany, 1743–1933, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002, p. 353. 7 . There is, of course, a significant literature that picks up this theme; to develop this in more detail here would take us too far from the task at hand. 8 . Peter Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline, London: Routledge, 1994, p. xii. 9 . S t e p h e n E r i c B r o n n e r , Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward a Politics of Radical Engagement, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, pp. 97–98. 1 0 . C a n o v a n , Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation, p. 25. 1 1 . D a n a V i l l a , Public Freedom, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008, pp. 215–16. 1 2 . M a r g a r e t C a n o v a n , The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt, New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974, p.