Hannah Arendt uses phenomenological approach to explain.

She herself explained her thinking

as thinking without borders
Hannah Arendt
Intro: Hannah Arendt is one of the seminal political thinkers known for the power and originality
of her ideas.
Age 1906-1975 - Contemporary of Eichmann, Hitler
Place USA, German Jew
Concern
School of Thought Civic Republicanism
Influences
 On Totalitarianism
 On Human Conditions
Books  On Revolution
 Eichmann in Jerusalem

 Phenomenology - concepts are based on experience

o As they appear in lived experience
o Not meta-physical abstractions.
Methodology
 Thinking without barriers
 Methodology is complicated

On Totalitarianism

“To aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions, but to destroy the capacity to form any convictions.”

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is neither convinced Nazi, not convinced communists, but people for whom distinction between true
and false no longer exists.”

 Origins of Totalitarianism remains one of the most controversial works

 More than history she has focussed on nature of totalitarianism
 Totalitarianism = Rule of violence and terror
 Cruelties it perpetuates are on such an unprecedented scale that there is no other term to explain totalitarianism
 Violence
o Authoritarian govts - Violence was a means to an end
o Totalitarian Govts - Violence became an end in itself — Little Strategic Rationality in the scale of violence used
 Terror
o Other regimes - restricted speech and expression;
o Totalitarian - tried to control Thought as Well; Not only the body - but also the soul of the person
o Just possessing dissenting thoughts itself is a crime.
 Masses
o Phenomenon of mass politics where individuals are converted into superfluous entities.
o Unprecedented mass support to unprecedented criminality.
 Totalitarian state maintains itself by
 o Use of extreme violence
o Ideology - Propaganda + Myths -> justification for terror
 Diagram of ideology as base -> terror -> totalitarianism.
 Sacrifice individuals under the gigantic whole.
 Hitler’s so called scientific laws as rhetoric.
 Destroy ‘human condition’
 Roots of totalitarianism - European history - Basis for construction of myths and Use of Violence
 Blamed scholars
o First Part of book -> Romanticism -> Rousseau - General Will - Forced to be free
o Domination of nation over state
 Identities based on race
 Gobineau -> Pseudo scientific theories. Myth of racial superiority of Aryans
o Imperialism - could defeat other ppl - Strengthened the myth of Racial Superiority
o Modernity
 Modernity started with explosion of nuclear bomb
 Modernity killed humanity
 Made economic sphere the most important
 Bureaucratic states
 Neglected political participation
 Ended deliberative spaces
 Stable context of life is eroded -> People look at demagogic leaders.
 Rise to atomized man and mass society.
 She blames – Modernity, Romanticism, Tribalism and imperialism as the reasons behind Totalitarianism

 Conditions when ppl get attracted towards totalitarianism

o Stability gets effected — years of war & FWW - Europe ground for growth of such ideas
o Modernity for the victory of animal labor on over zoon politicon. She says it had affected the balance
between okios and polis with the political sphere getting neglected.
o Decline in deliberative democracy —> Bourgeoise class controlling the state —> Classes into masses
 Europe was the perfect ground and various factors mentioned above gave rise to totalitarianism

Hannah’s Theory of Action

 On Human Conditions
 Phenomenological approach
 Humans perform 2 types of actions
o Thinking - Vita-contemplativa
o Action - Vita-activa
 Action is more imp than thinking
 Action
o Thinking
o Action
 Labour - Actions which even animals perform- natural necessities — man has no freedom
 Animal Laborans
 Work - Economic Actions — Only humans perform - partially free -> Actions of doctors, engg
 Homo Faber
  Creating boundaries between nature and society
 Action - Political action - highest of all actions - When man performs this - free in real sense
 Political participation is the most important action — Real human condition

Hannah’s Concept of Power - IMP

 Phenomenological analysis of power

 Power is the capacity to act in concert for a public purpose
 In order to understand power — we need to understand the difference b/w power and some other concepts
o Power vs. Strength : Strength is a prop of individual whereas Power = property of collectivity or people
o Power vs. Force : Force belongs to World of Nature, natural things have force; Power = Social world
o Power vs. Violence : Power belongs to the people; Violence to the state; use of violence is never justified
 On the basis of above distinction we can give following features
o Power does not belong to an individual - but to the ppl
o Sui-generis :
 Appears on its own;
 Economic resources or Pol office - not a source of power
 Only when ppl come together, and dissipates when they go back to their private sphere
o Acting in concert with each other -
 Understanding each other - harmonising our interests with others
 Not coercive - Purpose of power is not domination but empowerment
o Since people are acting together, legitimacy is inherent. Thus outcomes require no justification
 Thus — Power = Political power
 Emphasises on the necessity to participate in polis or a she calls it state of appearance
 Tradition of "Civic Republicanism” - inspiration to leaders of deliberative democracy

See views on revolution from copy

Hannah’s Banality of Evil

 CoB published in Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1963

 Change in her ideas
o Earlier she did not lay much importance on thinking
o Now she gives importance to critical reasoning
 In BoE - she tries to explain how Evil becomes - normal and faceless
 Eichmann - Chief architect of Hitlers Holocaust against jews - Captured in Argentina - brought to Israel for trials
 While reporting for the trials — not the fault of Eichmann —
o but the “Type of society in which he was living” - reason behind such crimes
 Happens when -
o Critical reasoning & moral consequences of actions are not evaluated
o When the society promotes a culture of obedience — and starts taking evil as routine acts
 In words of Hannah - "Eichmann did not kill jews because of the presence of hatred towards jews but because of
absence of imaginative capacities
o Eichmann was incapable of exercising that kind of judgement that would have made him realise his victims
sufferings as real.
o Eichmann failed to exercise his capacity of thinking- having a dialogue with himself - be aware of evil nature of
 his actions
o These people who commit such acts are not - psychopaths or sociopaths ==> Perfectly normal ordinary people
who simply accept the order of their state with energy of a good bureaucrat
 In her words -
o Evil becomes banal when it acquires unthinking and systematic character. It becomes banal when ordinary ppl
participate in it, build distance from it and justify it in countless ways. There are no moral conundrums or
revulsions. Evil does not look like evil - it becomes faceless
 Acc to Hannah — if such crimes against humanity are being committed on daily basis without being adequately
opposed ==> Society - criminals are accepted ==> Crime becomes routinised ==> Evil become banal
 She used banality of evil to explain anti-rationalism in fascism
o According to Arendt, fascism can reappear if we give up values of self-reflection and over-emphasize the value
of obedience.
 Thus, Arendt helps us to understand the weight of collective responsibility:
o if evil is banal, then we all have a responsibility to eradicate it in our everyday lives.
o We can’t simply point the finger at others.
 Rationality was also pointed out by M.N. Roy