Hannah Arendt, in and on America: An Émigré from Germany in the Promised Land By Lois M. Genovese A Thesis submitted to the Graduate School – Camden Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Graduate Program in Liberal Studies Written under the direction of And approved by ______________________________________ Dr. Andrew Lees Camden, New Jersey, October 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Hannah Arendt, in and on America: An Émigré from Germany in the Promised Land By Lois M. Genovese Thesis Director: Dr. Andrew Lees Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) captured the interest and imagination of scholars and the literati by developing two important concepts: totalitarianism and the banality of evil which influenced the second half of 20th century political thinking and has continued to permeate political and social theories and cultural descriptions. Her theories and analyses provided questions and answers which caution us today on both foreign and public policies and issues of governance and power. Quotes from Arendt’s writings could easily be the subtext for most front page headlines as her range of ideas extended from the social (segregation and education) to the most esoteric philosophic and political systems. This paper will introduce the unique contributions of Hannah Arendt’s major theories and present an overview of Arendt’s important mid-twentieth century political theories formulated while in America, the nation she adopted, and will offer examples of their importance today. Hannah Arendt’s body of work, much of which was translated from German, her ii native language, into English (and other languages) with continuous reprinting and some revised editions, has become essential scholarship. Three selections have been consistently cited as her major works: The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), The Human Condition (1958), and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). This research relied upon recent publications of Arendt’s essays, interviews, lectures, and correspondence, most interestingly, Arendt’s correspondence with her teacher, philosopher Karl Jaspers, from 1926 until Jaspers’ death in 1967. Arendt’s letters were consulted to and from her husband, Heinrich Blucher, (1936-1968) which provided Arendt with essential intellectual support. They were both professors and members of the New York intelligentsia. The correspondence between Arendt and American writer, Mary McCarthy, (1949-1975) provided Arendt with not only the comradeship between confidants, but also a quiet and trusted therapy needed and respected by each woman. Hannah Arendt’s written and spoken words will form the basis of this presentation. iii 1 Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) captured the interest and imagination of scholars and the literati by developing two important concepts: totalitarianism and the banality of evil which influenced the second half of 20th century political thinking and has continued to permeate political and social theories and cultural descriptions. Her theories and analyses provided questions and answers which caution us today on both foreign and public policies and issues of governance and power. Quotes from Arendt’s writings could easily be the subtext for most front page headlines as her range of ideas extended from the social (segregation and education) to the most esoteric philosophic and political systems. This paper will introduce the unique contributions of Hannah Arendt’s major theories and present an overview of Arendt’s important mid-twentieth century political theories formulated while in America, the nation she adopted, and will offer examples of their importance today. Arendt defies labels. She has been described as an enigma, as politically both conservative and liberal. Yet an understanding of the underlying basic truths she espoused, the need for careful thought and action, and an understanding of the past as a story for the present rather than as a series of lessons, place her in the context of an independent voice of reason irrespective of religion, tradition, or nationality. Her limited public persona was straightforward, considered too blunt, yet awe- inspiring, sardonic and brilliant which may have enlisted what some critics describe as a cult-of-personality following. Although frequently listed as a political philosopher, Arendt denied she was a philosopher but instead, a political theorist. Eleven years before her death, in a 1964 West German interview, Arendt, with a typically straightforward response, stated: “I do not belong to the circle of 2 philosophy. My profession, if one can speak of it at all, is political theory. Interviewer: I consider you to be a philosopher… Arendt: Well, I can’t help that, but in my opinion I am not.” 1 Arendt’s profession, her vocation, if one can speak of it at all, encompassed many years as a professor of political philosophy at Princeton University, the University of Chicago, the New School for Social Research in New York City, and as a visiting professor to others. Arendt’s vocation was that of political philosopher, her avocation was one of political theory and action. Hannah Arendt espoused what she taught – thought and action—and exemplified the best and worst of both. She championed her beliefs in the face of extraordinary criticism, risked accusations of being politically incorrect, and was shunned by the very associations she once supported as a volunteer. Yet she frequently revised her thinking, and her written works, if essential to the integrity of her beliefs and her changing analyses. She revised one of her landmark works, On the Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) in a 1966-67 edition with remarks in the ‘Preface to Part One’ offering a second glance at the Jewish Question and the historical existence and significance of antisemitism as it related to totalitarianism: Twentieth-century political developments have driven the Jewish people into the storm center of events; the Jewish question and antisemitism, relatively unimportant phenomena in terms of world politics, became the catalytic agent first for the rise of the Nazi movement and the establishment of the organizational structure of the Third Reich, in which every citizen had to prove he was not a Jew, 1 Essays in Understanding, “’What Remains? The Language Remains’: A Conversation with Gunther Gaus,” 1-2. 3 then for a world war of unparalleled ferocity, and finally for the emergence of the unprecedented crime of genocide in the midst of Occidental civilization. That this called for not only lamentation and denunciation but for comprehension seemed to me obvious. This book is an attempt at understanding what at first and even second glance appeared simply outrageous. (xiv). Beginning with Part One of three in The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt presented a history of the Jews, of antisemitism and Jews and society, and finally of the Dreyfus Affair at the end of the nineteenth century. With writings and analyses as comprehensive and detailed as Arendt’s have been on antisemitism and the Jewish question throughout history, a look at her life and ethnic and religious background is relevant to her body of work and the lens through which she viewed the world and her life. Hannah Arendt’s body of work, much of which was translated from German, her native language, into English (and other languages) with continuous reprinting and some revised editions, has become essential scholarship. Three selections have been consistently cited as her major works: The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), The Human Condition (1958), and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). This research relied upon recent publications of Arendt’s essays, interviews, lectures, and correspondence, most interestingly, Arendt’s correspondence with her teacher, philosopher Karl Jaspers, from 1926 until Jaspers’ death in 1967. Arendt’s letters were consulted to and from her husband, Heinrich Blucher, (from 1936-1968) which provided for Arendt the intellectual support between the spouses which they referred to as exchanges in time and space “within 4 four walls.”2 They were both professors and members of the New York intelligentsia. The friendship between Arendt and American writer, Mary McCarthy, (from 1949-1975) provided Arendt with not only the comradeship between confidants, but also a quiet and trusted therapy needed and respected by each woman. Hannah Arendt’s written and spoken words will form the basis of this presentation. As a scholar at a young age, her life in Germany until 1933 set the direction of her life’s work, if one can speak of it at all. Born a German Jew to a non-religious family in the East Prussian city of Königsberg, Hannah Arendt was privileged to have had early parental support with an introduction to intellectual pursuits and an education in the classics. She studied the classics and Christian theology at the age of seventeen at the University of Berlin, and then moved on to the Universities of Marburg and Heidelberg where she studied under the prominent philosophers Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers respectively. Arendt earned a doctorate at the age of twenty-three with Jaspers, completing a dissertation on Saint Augustine of Hippo’s concept of love. According to Arendt biographer, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl in Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World,3 Arendt’s intellectual depth and unique intensity, although “not rare” in the university circles around Arendt’s time, stood out among her peers and was recognized by the great philosophers with whom she studied: Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, and Edmund Husserl (61). Socially, Arendt immersed herself in an intellectual circle self-proclaimed as the “Greek Circle,” but she enjoyed being alone 2 From Within Four Walls: The Correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blucher 1936 – 1968. 3 Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, (Yale UP, 2004), 2nd ed. 1982 Young-Bruehl’s 1982 work is considered the definitive biography of Arendt and is cited in most works on Arendt. Young-Bruehl completed her doctoral dissertation in philosophy under Arendt. 5 from the time she was a child, reading, writing and studying, described as having an interesting internal existence. A combination of introvert and extrovert and purely intellectual, she was pampered by her mother, her patrons, and her teachers who intentionally and thoughtfully guided Arendt’s education and her intellectual curiosities.(35-36). Hannah’s father died of a worsening syphilitic condition that he had contacted as a young man. Her recollections of him were idealized as she witnessed his gentle and scholarly ways, yet incapacitating physical disabilities as a young child and was only eight years old when he died (16-17). Arendt’s perception of her “Jewishness” demonstrated her unique independence from traditional influences, which Young-Bruehl attributed to her mother’s influence and approach to the Jewish Question, “…I do not believe that she [my mother] had any special ideas about this….The question did not play a role for her.”4 Arendt continued to explain that the experience of antisemitism seldom occurred for her, yet her earliest recollection were remarks which came from children playing on the street. She claimed that at that point, she became “enlightened.”5 Somewhat stoic about her Jewishness, “I found the so-called Jewish question boring,”6 holding an image of herself first and foremost as a German with continual devotion to German culture and especially to the language: “I have always consciously refused to lose my mother tongue. …Always. …What is one to do? It wasn’t the German language that went crazy.”7 Yet, as age and experience began to teach the lessons of life, Arendt began a passionate interest in the Zionist movement and the conditions of the stateless 4 “A Conversation with Gunther Gaus,” Essays in Understanding. 6. 5 Ibid, 6. 6 Hannah Arendt Karl Jaspers Correspondence 1926 – 1969, Letter135, 197. 7 Essays in Understanding, 13. 6 which directly connected her to the rise of the National Socialists in Germany and the end to the Germany of her youth. As early as the 1920’s and as a university student, Arendt blended her devotion to studies in theology and philosophy, politics, power, and humanity with writings inspired by her intellectual mentors. Although philosopher Karl Jaspers became her teacher and lifelong mentor, it was philosopher Martin Heidegger who captured her intellectual curiosity along with her heart when she was nineteen years old in 1923. Heidegger was seventeen years older, Catholic, married, and considered charismatic. He attracted students to matriculate at Freiburg with the hope of studying with him. 8 Young-Bruehl offered samples of Arendt’s poetry during the period with Heidegger where the poetic form was used by Arendt as a tool for assessing the reasons for their affair and their eventual break. From Heidegger, Arendt became deeply interested in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, on passionate thinking and on “something remarkable in even the most matter-of-fact and banal things. …a mere unnoteworthy nothing which everyone takes for granted, which is not even worth talking about.” (Young-Bruehl, 51). Early on, she thought deeply about the banality of life as she experienced it and assumed it to be. Almost forty years later, Arendt revisited her thoughts on banality and judged the Nazi, Adolph Eichmann for crimes against the Jews, and therefore crimes against humanity, as an example of the banality of evil. 9 The term, the banality of evil, used to describe Eichmann during his war crimes trial, became highly recognized and continues to be used and misused. 8 Young-Bruehl, Ch.2. 9 Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. 252. The banality of evil, which appears in the title of Arendt’s Eichmann trial report, has become a euphemism for the opposite of radical evil, also used by Arendt. 7 With her doctoral dissertation completed in 1929, recently married and actively involved in the Zionist movement, Arendt and her husband moved to Berlin to begin a life of study, writing, and teaching. Her correspondence with Karl Jaspers during this period evolved from student-teacher requests and impressions to serious discussions on philosophy, the German character, and on being Jewish. Referring to the importance of Karl Jaspers in her life, she stated: “And if I may say so – I grew up without a father -- …I don’t want to make him [Jaspers] responsible for me, for God’s sake, but if anyone succeeded in instilling some sense in me, it was he.” 10 Although Jaspers was not Jewish, his wife was, and they suffered constant threats of camp deportation right up until the end of the war. Jaspers continued to be a mentor, friend and literary collaborator with Arendt until his death in 1969. His presence in her life was important to her work and also to her personal life and, the correspondence between them, compiled and published ten years after her death in 1985, revealed much to substantiate their intellectual and spiritual closeness. The year 1933 became a turning point of no return for Hannah Arendt with the rise of the Nazis and Adolph Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of Germany. The burning of the Reichstag soon after, impacted the safety of Arendt’s husband, Gunther Stern, a Jewish philosopher with leftist sympathies. The Communists were blamed and the National Socialist Party began to gather information on those who they deemed opponents of Nazi Germany, which included the Jews. In a 1964 West German television interview, Arendt responded to the question as to whether or not the 1933 events affected her political disinterest to that point. She responded: “Yes, of course. Indifference was no longer possible in 1933. It was no longer possible even 10 Essays. “What Remains? The Language Remains: A Conversation with Günter Gaus.” 22.