HANNAH ARENDT: RE-THINKING "THE SOCIAL" HANNAH ARENDT: RE-THINKING "THE SOCIAL" By TREVOR NORRIS, B.A., B.ED. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of Arts McMaster University ©Copyright by Trevor Norris, August 2002 / 11 MASTERS OF ARTS (2002) McMaster University (Religious Studies) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Hannah Arendt: Re-Thinking "The Social" AUTHOR: Trevor Norris, B.A. (McMaster University), B.Ed. (University of Toronto) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Zdravko Planinc NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 88. 111 This work connects two central texts by Hannah Arendt: The Human Condition and Thinking, volume one of The Life oft he Mind. My approach will be to examine the rise of "the social" as outlined in The Human Condition, followed by a consideration of Arendt's response to this rise in Thinking. In doing so we will observe that both action and thought are grounded in the human condition of plurality. IV Although this thesis was written :in solitude, it would not have been possible without others. I would like to thank Nora Barna and my family for their constant support, my colleagues Peter Killam, Rob Virdis and Craig Perfect for their encouragement, and Zdravko Planinc and Louis Greenspan for their helpful guidance and suggestions. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 111 Aclrnowledgements IV CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION i) Modernity 1 ii) Arendt's response to modernity 4 iii) A descriptive outline of the thesis 5 CHAPTER TWO: THE RISE OF "THE SOCIAL"- CONTEXT AND CRISIS I) Context i) Arendt's distinctions 9 -Vita actl1va and vita contemplativa 11 -Conditions, activities, and spheres 13 ii) History: philosophy and Christianity 21 II) Crisis i) The rise of ''the social" 24 ii) Critics of "the social" 30 CHAPTER THREE: RESPONSE TO "THE SOCIAL"- ACTION AND REVOLUTION I) Action i) Action as redemption of work and labor 43 ii) The potentia1~ties of action 46 iii) The ontological roots of action 48 iv) Action: discourse and disclosure 49 II) Revolutions 51 i) The French Revolution 52 ii) The American Revolution 54 iii) 20th Century revolutions 55 VI CHAPTER FOUR: RE-TIDNKING "THE SOCIAL" THOUGHT AND PLURALITY I) Thought i) The Human Condition and The Life a/the Mind: Thinking 58 ii) Thought vs action, contemplation, cognition, and intimacy 61 iii) Reason's need 66 iv) Speech as link between thought and action: the urge to appear 67 II) Plurality i) Plurality and. Rebellion 68 ii) Judging 75 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS I) Critiquing Arendt i) Plato and Socrates: a dubious distinction 78 ii) Arendt's suspension of political prescription 82 II) Summary 85 Bibliography 89 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION i) Modernity We live in an age in which the central role of politics is to facilitate unrestrained economic progress. Indeed, this is the criterion according to which political leadership is now measured. Thus does economics, currently at the very heart of political life, also come to dominate our ethical self-understanding. Moreover, our rapidly accelerating economic globalization seems to have become an irreversible characteristic of modernity, such that, in our current market-driven culture, all things become objects of consumption. Yet, we remain tragically limited in our ability to discern the forces that transform all things in the world into commodities and all human beings into automatons, themselves commodified through their thoughtless and relentless preoccupation with the cycle of consumption and production. We can see this dynamic in various phenomena, most notably, in the fiscal backgrounds of many of our modem political leaders as well as in the fiscal character of modem political speech. Note the recent trend in which Canadian political leaders have risen to power from previous positions as Minister of Finance. Examples include Ontario's new premier, Ernie Eaves, who rose from that position to become the successor to Mike Harris, Ontario's Progressive Conservative premier between 1995 and 2002. Similarly, Stockwell Day, fonner Finance Minister of Alberta, rose to 2 become federal leader of the Canadian Allliance. Further, Paul Martin, Canada's former Minister of Finance, appears likely to replace Chretien as Canada's Prime Minister. The modem understanding of political leadership and of the nature of political rule was exemplified in fue response of the Bush administration to the tragic events of September 11, 2001. In the months following that event, Bush repeatedly called upon the American people to express their patriotic commitment and their resistance against terrorism through shoPPlng. In short, America's well being was seen as contingent on "consumer confidence," which political leaders assumed responsibility for both inspiring and sustaining. In Canada (and in a somewhat similar vein), Chretien recently stated that the reduction of poverty and starvation in Africa should be understood neither as a humanitarian act nor as an issue of social justice, but purely in economic and instrumental terms. Africans, too, he insisted, must be trained in the role of consumers. "It is not charity, it's an investment, because if you take somebody who is very poor and you make that person less poor then he becomes a consumer of goods and services from the developed world."! Such language has even entered the field of education, where students are now referred to as "consumers" and where academic disciplines are increasingly valued by both smdents and their parents in relation to their potential to lead to lucrative employment. In the province of Ontario, in 1995, the Progressive Conservative government swept into power under the leadership of Mike Harris and was re-elected by a wide The Globe and Mail, "Canada, Britain optimistic on 08 Africa deal," Tuesday, May 14,2002. 3 margin in 2000. In a recent speech, Harris: insisted that ''what matters most to [the people of Ontario] is prudent management of their money." He pointed to two models of such "prudence": family households and small businesses. Concerning the former, Harris stated that "every day, hard-working families across this great province make responsible decisions about their own budlgets. They expect governments to do the same. Even when those decisions are diffiicult."z Concerning the latter, the government proclaimed its intention ~o "embrace the innovation demonstrated by so many successful small businesses.,,3 While no one would challenge the principal of fiscal responsibility, what these examples demonstrate is the extent to which economic concerns have succeeded in rising to an unchallenged position of political dominance. By describing the task of political rule in terms of economic efficiency (appealing to his voters by championing the household and small business, both central to those voters' concerns), Harris shows the extent to which political speech has become captured by an aggressive fiscal ideology and! political practice reduced to that of administering an economy. These examples, drawn from recent public statements by Ontario's provincial government, reflect some of the dominant assumptions of modernity, assumptions that cross provincial borders and politica ll boundaries. They are the logical outcome of the historical usurpation of politics by the instrumental concerns of economic utility. 2 The Budget of the Province of Ontario, February, 2001: www.gov.on.calFinibudO 1e lbud_ highlights.htrn. 3 Ibid.