Hannah Arendt: self, community, and the specter of totalitarianism

The argument that I present is that Arendt falls short of providing a mitigation of the political crisis of modernity. She commits what I see as a fundamental error, that of confusing an existential self for a political self. Her primary goal, I believe, is to establish a means by which we may exercise the existential self safely, from within a virtuous community. The concern I have with Arendt’s political work is that it does not provide a political solution to political problems, but rather relies on an existential self-exposure that lacks the values of political commitment. Despite all of her good intentions, the result is a politics without direction. Arendt is unwilling to allow human civilization to be thrown onto the rubbish heap, and she attempts to indicate the ways in which humanity can actively create and maintain the world: we need not succumb to fate. Arendt wants to strip the individual of both narcissism and hubris, of the compulsion toward authenticity, and wants Self and community to recognize that both are man-made. Because of the artifice of both, each requires a constant vigilance and care. Her political thought relies upon an insistence on the human ability to create and respond, to actively generate the world in which we live. Public space is to be valued as that which allows individuals to overcome their sense of superfluousness, and thus, public space is valued not as a political starting point, but for its own being-ness. She attempts to substitute the yearning of existentialism into an expressly political domain. Ultimately, it is Arendt’s narrow reading of ‘ideology’ on which her theory flounders. She fails to recognize that ideologies can be viewed as either ‘progressive’ or ‘reactionary,‘ viewing all instead as part of a single Tradition. However, as I argue, without ideology, we cannot translate political goods into political goals. Arendt refuses to view ideology as a freely-chosen position that represents my choices about the ‘best society,’ of what I wish to attach myself to in order to see my principles and interests met.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Marilyn LaFa