Woman of our Time

Listened to Melvin Bragg and his guests talking about the work of Hannah Arendt.

Like so many Jewish thinkers, she puzzled why the Nazi State so successfully engaged in the impossible task of eliminating a whole people group and religion.  Henri Tajfel, Chair of Experimental Social Psychology at Bristol University was also fascinated how human groups divide and polarise, choosing to punish others as a form of defense (the in-group and the out-group)..

Arendt's famous phrase is the 'Banality of Evil', used in connection with her investigation into the trail of Adolf Eichmann, after the second world.  She made a distinction between cognisant evil, as famously illustrated by Shakespeare Richard III, (in his soliloquise on debating the efficacy of evil acts), and evil that is undertaken without thought.  This is the difference between the bully, and the bystanders, who are pulled into the actions of the bully and in consequence, empower the bully.  Thus the bully pulls the pigtails.  In itself this is an ugly act, but a small act.  However the bystanders are encouraged to follow suit.  They also pull the pigtails as they pass.  All are tainted by the sin, thought the bystanders act without thought.  This is the power of racism, sexism, and all oppression.  One oppressive person can do very little.  When the collective takes up the oppression, as if it were invisible, the oppression becomes locked into culture.  It become normal, and therefore does not require thought;  it cannot be seen (like fish examining the water they swim round in.)

Arendt then went on to think about which political model could guard against totalitarianism.  Being a refugee in American, she saw the American system as a healthy reproduction of classical republicanism, where the people moderate against the diminution of humanity.  Arendt recognised that it is when humans become nameless; when they become feelingless, that consent to oppress is given.

Arendt believed that people should have value from the moment they are born, and this should not be based on legitimisation by the state.  However she reluctantly noted that societies struggle to be this open  They operate behind boundaries and borders, invisible lines across the world ("this is my country, you are a citizen, entitled to this, you are a foreigner, not my responsibility.")  I once hear a quote from Yehudi Menuhin that I liked.  "Borders are the prisons we choose to live in."

Arendt studied in Freiburg with Heidegger (with whom she had an affair).  Whereas Heidegger saw The human relationship with death as the key to the way we understand life, for Arendt it was how we see birth.  Hers was a outward looking approach; one of joy and optimism.

As a refugee, she felt keenly the indignity of the arbitrator nature of statelessness.  This is the place of orphans, gypsies,  exiles and anyone who falls in love with someone who is not of their category, and wants to get married.