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Rebecca Dew
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INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY
SERIES EDITOR: GARY BROWNING
Hannah Arendt
Between Ideologies
Rebecca Dew
International Political Theory
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Gary Browning
Oxford Brookes University
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Rebecca Dew, Ph.D.
Hannah Arendt
Between Ideologies
Rebecca Dew, Ph.D.
Florida Legislature, USA
ISSN 2662-6039 ISSN 2662-6047 (electronic)

International Political Theory
ISBN 978-3-030-45880-5 ISBN 978-3-030-45881-2 (eBook)
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Preface
Hannah Arendt is a figure frequently studied and, quite frankly,

misunderstood. To many if not most, Arendt’s thought is associated with
the work and life of her first mentor, Martin Heidegger. Closely following
this recognition is an appreciation of the philosophical extensiveness of her
The Human Condition and the timeless appeal of Arendt’s The Origins of
Totalitarianism. I do not deny the significance of either of these works; I
do protest the attitude a few of those who have read them assume.
My initial introduction to Arendt began with a deep dive into Origins
and, after persevering through wave upon wave of that spirited volume,
an eager effort to read everything even remotely related to her I could
get my hands on. It was only then that I realised what readers of the
present volume will soon discover: A curious gap in the literature suggests
a powerful and prolonged influence in connection, not with Heidegger,
but with Arendt’s second mentor, the existentialist Karl Jaspers.
In this book, I explore this gap in the literature as it now exists as to the
extent of Jaspers’s influence upon the development of Arendt’s thought.
My approach is informed by the emphasis upon linguistic specificity and
contextual awareness advanced by the Cambridge School and an aware-
ness of exploratory depths which a project of this extent entails.
Hannah Arendt - Between Ideologies charts the development of German-
American political theorist Hannah Arendt’s thought as informed by those
philosophers whom she read and with whom she related. Prominent among
these are existentialists who have informed philosophical and political
v
vi PREFACE
awareness from then on. The focus of this book then becomes Arendt’s
convergence with and departures from these, leading to what I classify as
her atypicality as an existentialist.
There are three observations that can be made as to the defining
attributes of Arendt’s approach, informed by Jaspers, towards a practical
existentialism. These are: realistic and specific experiential validity; honest
and open communicability; and direct and frequent transparency in refer-
entiality and relation to others, both in terms of language and intention.
Among my most original claims about Arendt’s quasi-existentialism: An
action is significant to the extent that it is recognized; it is best recog-
nized when it is longest discussed and remembered; and it is best remem-
bered when it is reliably recorded. Part and parcel with any notion of
enduring existential significance is the willingness to relinquish its freedom
of undetermined content to the security of an abiding structure. Arendt’s
atypicality, as such, is in departure from Heidegger and is also a point of
connectivity she shares with Jaspers.
My claim is that it is not in the primacy of the present (the focus of
the unthinking hedonist or the privatized capitalist) or the primacy of the
future (in which Marxism, Hegelianism and indeed totalitarianism locate
their idealization), but rather in the primacy of the past, a past unfettered
by those elements of the tradition that have been misapplied and misinter-
preted by many in the gamut of “professional thinkers” Arendt disassoci-
ates herself from,1 from which an approach to the answer of the question
of Being can begin. That is, it is not modernity which Arendt critiques
as a time period or even as a political reality that is the issue, so much
as modernity in relation to tradition. In conclusion, it is claimed that if
Arendt defines modern existentialism as “the rebellion of the philosopher
against philosophy,”2 Arendt is an inverted existentialist—for she prefers
to rebel against the philosopher.
1 Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind: Thinking (London: Secker & Warburg, 1978),
3, 5, 53; Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind: Willing (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1978), 33, 195, 198.
2 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New
York: Viking Press, 1968), 8.
PREFACE vii
Thus, this book strives to unearth Arendt’s approach to the ideological

developments of modernity while disturbing assumptions that have been
applied, mistakenly and arguably, ideologically, to her.
Florida Legislature, USA Rebecca Dew, Ph.D.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the faculty and staff at the University of Queensland
in Brisbane, Australia, particularly those placed at the School of Polit-
ical Science and International Studies and the School of Historical and
Philosophical Inquiry during my time researching there. With gratitude I
acknowledge that much of the time devoted to this work was supported
by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
A special thanks to my valued advisors, professors, and colleagues Dr.
David Martin Jones, Dr. Marguerite La Caze, and, for a time, Dr. Cathy
Curtis and Dr. Geoff Dow.
To my parents, brother, sisters, and fellow believers: I owe you many
happy days, profound encouragement, and much respite, without which
a work such as this cannot be brought to be.
ix
Contents
1 The Absent Arendt 1
2 Arendt Reading Aristotle 35
3 Arendt Reading Kant 53
4 Arendt Relating to Karl Jaspers 81
5 Arendt Thinking Through Heidegger 109
6 Arendt Along with the Existentialists 141
7 Arendt as Atypical 167
8 Arendt in Anticipation 185
Index 211
xi
CHAPTER 1
The Absent Arendt
Tracing the development of modern philosophical history from the pen

of a personage whose writings have often been misunderstood is not an
easy task. It is, however, the task of this book. In this book, existentialism
as a modern attempt at meaning will be examined—a supranational dia-
logue involving multiple threads and arriving, in its French, German and
now American materializations at remarkable conclusions. The exchange
of ideas in this conversation is transatlantic and in this sense comparative,
affecting the development of ideas in countries touched by the intellects
of Germany, France and the United States. The approach this volume
takes is to enter into a discussion of modern existentialism and its post-
modern aftereffects along a path that first requires understanding the
ideas its thinkers put into words. To do so, however, the contributions
of a thinker who has become a premier figure in intellectual assessments
of the political and the international will need to be explored.
Hannah Arendt is the modern and American segue for this incisive sur-
vey of existentialist thought. Such a survey is best undertaken, however,
with awareness of what this thinker did and did not profess—and of how
she has and has not been accurately represented. In order to investigate
Arendt’s criticisms of modern ideology and her contributions to existen-
tialist thought, in order to better understand her approach to philosophi-
cal awareness and political practice, it is necessary to distinguish between
what was written by her and what has been said about her. Arendt’s work
presents a contextualized and internationally aware account of modernity;
Arendt located her work specifically in political terms and went so far as
© The Author(s) 2020 1

R. Dew, Hannah Arendt, International Political Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45881-2_1
2 R. DEW
to associate modernity with a “revival of political thought”.1 As such, she

has been noted among the most influential philosophers of the twentieth
century2 and remains of peculiar relevance to understanding the progres-
sion of existentialist thought and its bearing to pervasive ideologies in
senses political, contextual and topical. Nevertheless, Arendt did express
less-than-favourable assessments of what modern intellectual, technologi-
cal, and political revolutions have to offer.
Modernity, for Arendt, is ideological. The social atomization of moder-
nity has been reflected philosophically in the existentialist attempt to
reassert the individual in defiance of mass society. Arendt’s mentors
Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, philosophers of the existential vari-
ety, arrived at different interpretations in their respective philosophies of
Being. Jaspers’s epochal consciousness hinged upon the axial period of
history, which he defines as central to the creation of human myth, mean-
ing and cultural awareness As Heidegger would have it, “inquiry must
begin from the ‘existentiell’ (concrete, specific, local) sense we have of
ourselves as caught up in the midst of a practical world”3 ; it is this experi-
ential reality which Heidegger refers to as life-world. In conversation with
these voices, Arendt’s work can be seen as a further extension of exis-
tentialism, albeit atypical in its approach to tradition and its embrace of
human possibility in the context of political community.
In political terms, modernity is often associated with the rise of the
nation-state, although the conceptualization of modernity lends itself
rather too easily to broad sociological connotations. For Arendt, the
political significance of modernity commences with the eighteenth-
century French and American Revolutions concomitant with the rise of
modern democracy. Philosophically, Arendt associates modernity with
thinkers such as Kant, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche. Modernity,
in the creation of a secular mass society, has produced the existentialist
quest and ushered in postmodernity. Given the span of Arendt’s life
(1906–1975), modernity will be interpreted here as referring to the early
twentieth century onwards.
The formulation of ideology—first coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy
and coming into formal existence with the French Revolution—is a dis-
tinctly modern phenomenon. “Since the mid-nineteenth century, the
term ideology has been made so capacious … it has become variously
a system of ideas, a zeitgeist of an epoch, a cultural digest”.4 However,
Arendt’s critique of modernity locates ideology in terms that are primar-
ily philosophical and cultural, and that is where my use of the term will
1 THE ABSENT ARENDT 3
reside. Although Arendt displays some support for liberal ideology in her
advocacy of democratic pluralism in line with Aristotle’s harmony of polit-
ical voices,5 yet the ideological developments of modernity remain highly
problematic. Modernity is a problem in terms of its anti-tradition, its sec-
ularism, its tendency towards the violent in its exaltation of activity and
its untethered need for progress and change. These features are as much
a product of modern ideological developments as they render modern
society susceptible to new waves of ideological persuasion.
What makes Arendt’s existentialism significant is the extent to which
she follows Karl Jaspers in approaching philosophy not only as an intel-
lectual engagement but as an experiential reality to be embarked on with
courage. This is not the approach that Heidegger would take, although it
may suggest resonances with existentialism of a French variety, as will be
explored in Chapter 6. This is only one regard suggesting Arendt’s atyp-
ical existentialism stands head-and-shoulders above the rest, approach-
ing experience as a lived and engaged-in reality, an enterprise far more
invested than the thinking detachment of Heidegger, far more connected
than the passionate rebellion of Camus, and far more committed than the
disenchanted pessimism of Sartre.
This is to say that modernity, as Arendt sees it through the glass of
her atypical existentialism, is problematic. The bureaucratized secularity
of modern society and the emotional effects of modernity correlate to the
philosophical developments of existentialist thought Arendt encountered.
Following these developments, theorists such as Lyotard6 have identi-
fied the ideological developments of our current time as postmodern,
a term he defines in line with increasing awareness of the understand-
ings of Enlightenment rationalism as simplistic and recognition of the
need for philosophical, cultural and socio-political contributions external
to modernity. Corresponding to the acknowledged limitations of indi-
vidual subjectivity, the awareness of the emotional deficits engendered
by “mass society”7 indicate pronounced similarities between Arendt’s
critique of modernity and the postmodern realization of the problems
thereof. This book is at once an engagement with these problems and
a reflective response through the words of Arendt. Gaining an under-
standing of Arendt’s contribution to existentialist thought in historical
and philosophical terms and her criticisms of the ideological effects of
modernity follow hand in hand.
Arendt criticized the ideology of modernity as decadent; modernity,
especially in its secular ideological forms, is rife with uncertainty and
4 R. DEW
presents a future that can only be categorized as doubtful. In light of this,

the existential quest for human meaning and human value is frustrated, a
frustration with which Arendt engages in her postulate of political action8
and vindication of human value.9 In contrast to the onset of an increas-
ingly socialized and bureaucratized modernity, Arendt advocated polit-
ical activity as the foremost public expression of the free adult. In this
combination of philosophical thought with political activity, Arendt was
willing to suffer professional ostracism and even political exile during the
course of the Nazi rise to power. It comes as no surprise that Arendt con-
sidered modernity’s ideological developments highly problematic in their
tendency towards individual dehumanization and social alienation.
Arendt’s life and time were coloured by her distinctive identity as Jew-
ess and ensuing experience of institutionalized persecution, which exerted
an obvious impact upon the development of her political philosophy.10
Not only was Arendt denied access to teaching positions at German uni-
versities on account of rising anti-Semitism, but she based the central
thesis of among her most famous scholarly contributions, The Origins
of Totalitarianism—not to mention over a third of the massive volume’s
intellectual content—upon its institutionalized practice. For Arendt, the
most significant feature of the German and Russian pan-movements was
their peculiarly ideological hatred of the Jews, a hatred “severed from
all actual experience concerning the Jewish people, political, social, or
economic”.11 Kurt Blumenfeld, a Zionist and avowed critic of German-
Jewish assimilation, initiated Arendt into Jewish politics as early as 1926.
Arendt offered her home as a harbour for political refugees from Hitler’s
burgeoning regime, although this and similar political activity came at
substantial personal cost to her: Arendt’s collection of anti-Semitic pro-
paganda from the Prussian State Library resulted in her apprehension and
interrogation at the hands of the German police. After more than a week
held under arrest, Arendt managed to escape to Czechoslovakia, thence
to Geneva and thence to Paris. She was to remain a displaced person, a
stateless exile, for eighteen years.
Of similar relevance to an understanding of the existential significance
of her work is an acknowledgement of the suffering and uncertainties
Arendt experienced at the hands of first her country of birth, Germany,
and then her country of residence, France. Arendt experienced the
irrationality of politically institutionalized racism and the insecurities of
prolonged refugee status; she underwent all the physical instabilities of
shifting residence and careers, working first with an organization that
helped train young émigrés to Palestine (Agriculture et Artisanat), then

as director of Youth Aliyah while also under the employ of Baroness Ger-
maine de Rothschild and finally with the Jewish Agency in Paris. Arendt
experienced all the emotional instabilities of marital dissolution and serial
monogamy, divorcing the Jewish philosopher Gunther Stern to marry the
leftist German political refugee Heinrich Blücher; she experienced all the
helpless bitterness of rising French anti-Semitism and the indignities of
political detainment as an “enemy alien” at Gurs in the south of France.
It was only through flight to the United States in May 1941 that Arendt,
occupied with research work for the Commission on European Jewish
Cultural Reconstruction in New York, found the political security and
physical opportunity to begin writing The Origins of Totalitarianism, a
project that would take almost ten years for her to complete. It is only
with this contextualization of this woman’s resilience, political activism
and scholarly intensity springing from her psycho-emotive trauma that
we can understand the impetus behind her scholarly contributions.
This volume charts the development of Arendt’s thought as informed
by this historical context and, more particularly, those philosophers whom
she read and with whom she related. Arendt pursued the act of thinking
via the approach developed by her mentor Martin Heidegger together
with an understanding of political action advanced by, most notably, her
other mentor Karl Jaspers. A path is traced through Arendt’s exploration
of Aristotle’s understanding of publicity, activity, communication, per-
suasion and responsibility—the link between morality (virtue) and poli-
tics in the pursuit of the common good modified by the Christian view
of the will derived from Augustine together with her understanding of
Immanuel Kant in relation to judgment and imagination. The view is
then advanced, first intimated to the author by Reinhard Schulz, that of
these Arendt was most influenced and informed by the life, work and
encouragement of her mentor Jaspers.
The influence of Jaspers is discernible in terms of his critique of the
modern phenomenon of mass man and the social effects of increasing
isolation and despiritualization, leading him to his recommendations of
practical and courageous action in public terms. In philosophical terms,
Arendt sought, with Jaspers, a reconciled recognition of the purpose of
politics through an exploration of the interaction of education with his-
tory. This view is held in contrast to the impact of Heidegger, whose
influence upon the emerging intellect of the young Arendt was a mix-
ture of inspiration and evaporation. Heidegger’s approach to thinking as
6 R. DEW
estranged from present action drove her away from him and his intellec-
tual posture, almost as much as his anti-Semitic stance and collaboration
with the Nazis during Hitler’s rise to power—a rise that forced her to flee
Germany, as well.
The first chapter of this book addresses its research aims and rationale,
including the literature already written on the topic. In the first part of
the book, my emphasis is on the influence on Arendt’s life and work on
the part of those she read and with whom she related. Chapter 2 begins
with the influence of Aristotle; Chapter 3 outlines the influence of Kant,
with particular reference to the formation of Arendt’s view of judgment;
Chapter 4 approaches Arendt’s interactions, intellectual and otherwise,
with her mentor Karl Jaspers; and Chapter 5 engages with the now-
famous debate as to the influence of Martin Heidegger. In the second
part of this book, a comparative discussion of Arendt’s atypical existen-
tialism is made, both in conversation with other existentialists (Chapter 6)
and as distinct from them (Chapter 7). This is then followed by conclu-
sions and suggestions for further areas of exploration in the final chapter
of this book, Chapter 8. This is to state that Arendt’s views have been
absent from the conversation long enough.
The claim is made that Arendt merits an atypical place among the
existentialist philosophers of the continental scheme and an introductory
place among the existentialists of the United States.12 A distinction is
made between the influence of Heidegger and of Jaspers upon the young
Arendt. Critical in this discussion are their respective approaches to
modernity and to the tradition which informed it. Arendt’s conception of
modernity can be located within a series of losses. Tradition, thought, cul-
ture and truth, for Arendt, are the threads that hold the narrative fabric of
humanity together. The primary loss (1) the loss of tradition, is followed
closely by, (2) the loss of faith, (3) the loss of authority, (4) the loss of
meaning, (5) the loss of reason, (6) the loss of thought, (7) the loss of pri-
vacy, (8) the loss of education, (9) the loss of culture and finally (10) the
loss of humanity. Instead, modernity has opted for the whimsical embrace
of (1) action, (2) process and (3) change by way of revolution, under
the mistaken assumption that newer is better just because it has energy
and the belief that authority ceases to exist just because it is ignored.
In this section, analysis is made of Arendt’s discourse on the modern
predicament.13 In the sections which follow, Arendt’s approach to the
modern predicament is examined as it was informed by the philosophers
she studied and by whom she was mentored, Heidegger and Jaspers.
I consider the picture Arendt portrays to be complicated insofar as the

severing of each of these critical threads—with the associated losses of
tradition, faith, authority, meaning, reason, thought, privacy, education,
culture and humanity—leads to the unravelling of those beside it, gener-
ating the loss of narrative fabric we now experience. According to Arendt,
it was the Roman exaltation of tradition which was “the guiding thread
through the past and the chain to which each new generation knowingly
or unknowingly was bound”.14 The attachment of this “thread” of tradi-
tion related to the understanding of the world in both the individual and
political sense.15 The loss of tradition signifies inevitably a loss of religious
and historical grounding, which necessarily leads to a loss of faith in all
that is true, enduring and good, in favour of the young, changing, rebel-
lious and ignorant. Thus, the loss of narrative (philosophical, religious,
historical or otherwise) amounts to a loss of human culture, an expres-
sion of the talents of the individual as a reflection of the historical time
which she inhabits. The political emphasis of modernity upon constructed
norms and the mass equalization of society through both education and
entertainment combine with an irreligious modern philosophy to produce
social alienation and moral abstruseness, with the long-term tendency of
irrationality. The result is not the enlightened equality of the individual
or the glorification of human ability through artistic achievement and cul-
tural expression but rather the disrespect of the individual and the blind
subservience to what could well be called the secular superstition.
This attitude towards the modern predicament distinguishes Arendt
from that of her mentor Heidegger—even though the latter’s views have
too often been considered compatible with hers.16 The primary fault
with too closely aligning the views of Arendt alongside those of her
existentialist mentor Heidegger is further compounded by the systematic
silence on the philosophical impacts of Arendt’s other mentor, Jaspers,
upon the development of her political philosophy. The purpose of this
research is to explore Arendt’s assessment of modernity and approach to
politics as atypical, and with particular relation to the philosophical views
of her mentors Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. Arendt was informed
by them—as indeed she was by Aristotle, Kant and Augustine—but this
does not negate the atypicality of Arendt’s approach or her enlightened
respect for tradition.
For Arendt, the most fundamental loss experienced by modernity, the
loss which defines all others, is the loss of tradition. The starting point of
this loss is not a natural by-product of history so much as a philosophical
8 R. DEW
rebellion against it; the beginning can be traced to the chosen ideological
stance of the epoch-definers of the revolutionary development of mod-
ern intellectual thought (Kant, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche), but
has since morphed into the proclivity towards philosophical and historical
forgetfulness we see on all fronts of modern social awareness—religious,
educational and political—developments more in line with the distrust
and fear inherent to Descartes’ de omnibus dubitandum est than with the
inspired fervency of revolutionary idealism.17 The emotional prevalence
of doubt, as Arendt puts it, is manifest as a “general crisis and instability
in modern society”.18 This doubtful sentiment so characteristic of moder-
nity has led not only to a distrust of tradition and to a distrust of the
mind, but of the senses. It was Nietzsche who discovered that “the sen-
suous loses its very raison d’être when it is deprived of its background
of the suprasensuous and transcendent”.19 In other words, human emo-
tion both implies and demands transcendence. If traditional encounters
with the transcendent are denied, then so too, it would seem, is what we
traditionally know, experience and feel—human emotion.
Further, this proclivity towards forgetfulness20 reveals itself as con-
tributing to ideological confusion—the proliferation of unlikely ideo-
logical stances and the eradication of the most likely—and widespread
ignorance. The human need for history lies in the creation of immortality
through memory.21 The role of tradition, and educational transfer, is of
vital importance to the maintenance of meaning through memory. With-
out narrative consistency, modernity threatens breakage of “the thread
of continuity in history itself”.22 Indeed, one of the most important
concepts in the development of Arendt’s thought, distinguishing her
existentialism as atypical, is the principle of natality. Natality, or the
human capacity to begin through birth, is the defining moment of the
human as individual and plays an integral part in the creation of human
culture,23 a statement Arendt supports with the “Roman pathos for
foundation”.24 In this classical emphasis, the Roman Republic’s founding
act sets the precedent for national identity, political recognition, cultural
unification and historic continuity.25 Arendt also illustrates the impor-
tance of the written word in the formation and continuity of ideological
cohesion and cultural meaning through verbal narrative,26 indicating the
political primacy of the constitution as the formative embodiment which
most defines and guarantees identity. National identity, however, must be
followed by national belief in line with a cohesive narrative if the political
entity is to retain its strength and character.
While Arendt’s treatment of modernity is well-represented in her essays

Between Past and Future (1961, 1968), her other works also make rel-
evant and insightful contributions to our understanding of the type and
features of her existentialism and her place in the transatlantic intellectual
exchange. Arendt’s argument in On Revolution confirms the uniqueness
of the American democratic form; she highlights the liberal emphasis of
the democratic republic in that it does not seek to limit power so much
as extend power to the individual, a decentralized admission of power.
This capacity for self-government is, for Arendt, the “lost treasure of the
revolution”.27 In contrast, On Violence reinforces Arendt’s dislocation of
action from thought, a dislocation expressed as violence, and the failed
attempt to arrive at hope through action. Essentially, in the secularized
conception of freedom as action, action is idealized as leading to change
and thus defining modernity. But this idealization of the modern ideol-
ogy is misplaced in that it assigned a certain nobility to violence, excusing
its horrors in admiration of its ruthless efficiency.
The justification of violence occurs for the most part not within the
environs of political justice (as established under legitimate authority) or
political power (as an aggregate of popular consensus), but in a hazy con-
ception of rights allocated in the dim twilight of socialized bureaucracies,
which present spaces of interpretive ambiguity and general uncertainty
through the detachment inherent to their administrative procedure. Sim-
ilarly, as an analysis of Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) shows,
the loss of traditional narratives through the rise of an ideology of decep-
tion and fear can culminate in the all-pervasive tyranny that is totalitarian.
Characteristic of this society is its rejection of the human qua human, as
demonstrated through the suppression of religious beliefs, cultural activi-
ties and individual interests it entailed.
In Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the collective will of the state out-
ranked what were meant to be the primary signifiers of modernity, the
rights and freedoms of the individuals who constituted it, thereby vali-
dating Arendt’s essays in their ascription of the demise of the human qua
human to the advent of modernity. Similarly, Arendt’s identification of
the formation of modern mass society28 is reminiscent of the totalitarian
tendencies towards social atomization29 and “pseudomysticism”, in that
“the people it dominates never really know why something is happening,
and a rational interpretation of laws does not exist”.30 Thus, the cold,
10 R. DEW
calculated, and secretive consistency of the totalitarian regime is compa-

rable to the methodical bureaucratization of society in political modernity
at large.
Thus, Arendt’s scathing assessment of modernity is troubling in its
accuracy31 and unsettling in its atypicality. The most significant devel-
opment of modernity is not the hatred of the old so much as a rebellion
against the established. The primary feature of modernity is the rebel-
lion against authority. And it is this loss of authority which is felt most
keenly by the individual and the polis . It was Kierkegaard, Marx and Niet-
zsche who first thought outside of the traditional contexts of established
authority, and, as such, they became the torch-bearers of modernity—
torch-bearers who, in their fiery optimism and burning zeal, soon found
that a fire without fuel (and without confident torch-bearers) can only
be turned into ashes. The glorification of action over philosophical reflec-
tion, a socialized and materialistic glorification evinced by Marx’s theoret-
ical contributions, can only generate the passing achievements that action
without memory or life without meaning brings. If Arendt is correct,
meaning, by definition, is unattainable through action; only the accurate
contextualization of history paired with the honest compilation of trust-
worthy scribes and the faithful dissemination of reliable teachers can be
trusted. Without trust, there is no hope just as there remains no past. As
Arendt details, the inevitable consequence of Nietzsche’s inverted Platon-
ism is nihilism, a loss of groundings ontological, epistemological, moral
and emotional.32 The modern loss of tradition has decidedly political, cul-
tural and educational implications, and still more impactful are the impli-
cations of these changes to the distinctly human endeavours of ethics,
psychology and artistic creativity. If the secular utopia is the promised
hope of modernity, it is a promise that must be classified as deceptive.
This book bridges the gap regarding Arendt’s approach to the philo-
sophical developments resulting from the modern period, restoring to the
public view what has been too long an absent Arendt. In fact, Arendt’s cri-
tique of modernity has been misunderstood to a large extent because her
intellectual-emotional relationship to her two existentialist mentors has
not been sufficiently taken into account, even as her distrust of ideologies
as they have developed in modernity has often been remarkably neglected
in favour of a dramatization of the personal details of her private life. The
human diaspora resulting from the terrors of Nazism illustrates not only
the dangers of modern ideology in its practical application but also the
experiential catalyst to Arendt’s stance: Modernity is a problem in terms
of its anti-tradition, its tendency towards the violent in its exaltation of

activity and its untethered need for progress and change. Although there
have been several scholarly attempts to engage with Arendt in relation
to modernity,33 these attempts have not been thoroughly developed or
coherently applied. There is a gap in the literature regarding the problem
of modernity, especially in terms of Arendt’s assessment of the modern
doubt arising from secularism and the educational, cultural and emotional
repercussions of this ideological trend. This trend is reflected in the phi-
losophy of Heidegger and counterbalanced by the philosophy of Jaspers.
It was by both of these philosophers that Arendt was mentored, and it
was by each of these philosophers that Arendt was influenced. It is the
purpose of this volume to also bridge the gap in the literature as to the
extent and impact of this influence.
The real Arendt is found best not where she has been absent (por-
tions of the secondary literature) but where she is most present (her
own writings). Mediation may distract from genuine understanding. With
awareness of this axiom in mind, engagement with interpretative discus-
sions of Arendt via the secondary literature are made insofar as they pro-
mote insight into her critical engagement with the relationship between
modernity, existentialism and postmodernity. A distinction is to be made
between postmodern as a descriptor of the current historical situation (the
end of that which is modern) and postmodernism as the distinctive ideol-
ogy that merits selective application to that chronological unit.34 Placing
Arendt’s outlook as simultaneously existentialist and atypical, further, is
done to highlight Arendt’s work as intellectual history in consideration of
her intellectual formation and complex relationships with existentialists,
most notably her second mentor Karl Jaspers. In the approaching section,
an explanation of methods is given. Some explanation of methodological
tenets is requisite in that the methodological efforts of this volume imitate
Arendt’s engagement with thought through history.
The research supporting this volume was conducted at four primary
library locations. Although much of the Arendtian literature has been
available via the University of Queensland’s Social Science and Human-
ities library, making it my first point of research contact, the entirety of
the extensive Hannah Arendt collection is available in full at three loca-
tions around the world. These are: the Hannah Arendt Center at the New
School for Social Research in New York, the Library of Congress in Wash-
ington, DC and the Hannah Arendt Zentrum at the Carl von Ossietzsky
Universität of Oldenburg. Over the last five years, I have visited each of
12 R. DEW
these archives along with the Hannah Arendt Instituts für Totalitarismus-
forschung at the Technischen Universität of Dresden during my sojourn
in Germany.
The approach I have taken to the literature is informed by the approach
to the history of philosophy which Arendt herself recommends. It was
this awareness of philosophical history which set the stage for Arendt’s
critique of modernity, a critique that does not follow the methodological
precedent of the history by which it is informed but is rather “torn out” of
its “functional context” like modern literature and modern painting.35 In
broader terms, Arendt opposes methods as overwrought fabrications—
at least in terms of the reality of political occurrence.36 Moreover, she
remains reluctant to place idealistic trust in human thought without the
insights of experience: “I do not believe that there is any thought process
possible without personal experience. Every thought is an afterthought
… a reflection on some matter or event. … I live in the modern world,
and obviously my experience is in and of the modern world”.37
But regardless of the development of her methodological inclinations,
some distinctions need to be made as to Arendt’s political outlook in
order to inform my own methodological approach to it. Namely, dis-
tinctions need to be made between Arendt as a philosopher, Arendt as
a thinker, and Arendt as a political theorist. Such distinctions are espe-
cially important in light of the more recent evolution of the term political
scientist. Arendt is not a political scientist (in the sense that scientia is
associated with natural processes or descriptive and systemic comprehen-
sivity). She is a political theorist. Arendt helped herself to what she can—
in her own words, “moi je me sers où je peux’. I take whatever I can and
whatever suits me. … n’est précedé par aucun testament. This means we
are entirely free to help ourselves wherever we can from the experiences
and the thoughts of our past”.38 It is perhaps most fitting to call her a
well-educated and historically informed eclecticist.
What other scholars have written does not always represent Arendt in
the same light. Some represent Arendt as a modernist in her embrace of
political action,39 others as an anti-modernist in her lofty view of tradi-
tion,40 with variation and disagreement as scholars pick and choose issues
from her work according to their research purposes. Kateb (1984) and
d’Entrèves (1991)41 represent perhaps the strongest advocacy of the view
of Arendt as anti-modernist due to her disparaging account of totalitar-
ianism, in contrast to which Calhoun (1997) argues that Arendt cannot
easily be assigned into the one-sided classification against modernity or
postmodernity: “Arendt calls on us to recognize that human plurality is

basic to the possibility and importance of politics. … it is crucial that
mutual understanding be achieved through processes of communication
that are never complete”.42 In another nuanced assessment, d’Entrèves
defines Arendt’s conception of modernity in terms of the four features
of world alienation (as did Villa before him), earth alienation (a resent-
ment of the human condition, in conversation with Kateb),43 the rise of
the social, and the victory of animal laborans . In short, there are several
streams of thought on Arendtian modernity; a review of the secondary
literature such as that which follows attempts to engage with the most
pronounced of these.
The critique of modernity by d’Entrèves, Kateb and the rest addresses
five essential elements: mass society, social atomization, the fragmenta-
tion of the past, secularity and bureaucratization. D’Entrèves critiques the
modern rise of “the social” and identifies its deleterious effects. He further
notes the dangers of the fragmentation of the past, referring to the activ-
ity of historical remembrance as “anamnestic thinking”,44 a hermeneutic
strategy employed by Arendt and indebted to Heidegger’s metaphysical
deconstruction. For d’Entrèves, Arendt’s work has a similarly unsettling
effect on our modern understandings as did Heidegger’s to the tradi-
tional. Arendt’s task, as d’Entrèves views it, is to allow us to engage with
and learn from the past in all of its glory, despite the acknowledgement
that we live in a distinctly modern time and cannot hope to apply every
aspect of that which is thus learned.
D’Entrèves also indicates the negative effects of bureaucratization and
other means of “willfully departing from our earthly and worldly con-
dition” as lending themselves to the forgetfulness of “ourselves in our
creations”.45 In terms of modernity’s impact on religious understand-
ings, d’Entrèves refers to Kateb (1984) with the statement that “writers
have claimed that Arendt displays here a religious commitment to the
notion that we exist to be at home in the world and that our identity
depends on it”.46 Further, d’Entrèves notes “the victory of animal labo-
rans … [as carrying] forward the obliteration of the distinction between
the public and the private that started in the 18th century with the rise
of the social”.47 Arendt offers us “broad cultural periodizations … as a
background for the examination of some crucial categories of our experi-
ence”.48 Although he does not explore the existential significance of her
work to the degree that I propose to in the following chapters, d’En-
trèves’ explanation of selfhood is pertinent here; “self-identity can be
14 R. DEW
sustained by intersubjective acknowledgement. The reality of the world

and of the self can thus be secured only by sharing our existence with
others”.49 D’Entrèves also offers considered support for the merits of
Arendt’s arguments, defending her against the antireligious assault of
Kateb and the inconclusive treatment of Blumenberg, but finds them
ultimately incomplete based on a faulty designation of the social sphere
as non-political: “by rigidly distinguishing the private from the public,
Arendt was unable to account for … the [modern] redrawing of the
boundaries between the public and the private” through a so-called “ex-
tension of citizenship”.50 Despite this critique, d’Entrèves is to be com-
mended for his loyalty to Arendt in her transtemporal engagement with
political history, defending her interpretation of modernity as derivative
of Greco-Roman institutions and revolutions, an interpretation neverthe-
less remaining “a source of instruction for the present if … approached
in a critical spirit”.51
In later work, d’Entrèves (1994) remains a scholar who clearly and ably
outlines Arendt’s political stance in his attempt to interpret Arendt’s res-
onance with a “theory of participatory democracy based on the principles
of freedom, plurality, equality, and solidarity”.52 In his analysis of Arend-
tian thought, d’Entrèves focuses on three categories: nature, process and
the social. He argues that “Arendt oscillated between two contrasting
accounts. According to the first account, the modern age, by elevating
labor … to the highest position within the vita activa, has brought us
too close to nature. … According to the second account, however, the
modern age is characterized by a growing artificiality, by the rejection
of anything that is not man-made”.53 However, I disagree with d’En-
trèves’ critique of Arendt’s concept of the social, in which he holds that
“Arendt identifies the social with all those activities formerly restricted to
the private sphere of the household and having to do with the necessi-
ties of life”.54 Arendt identifies the social with the material interests of
the public (which are those most often viewed as common to it) rather
than the imperishable representations of culture and history. The identifi-
cation of Arendt’s resonance with a “theory of participatory democracy”
is well-made, but the connection to existentialist thought remains largely
unaddressed. Furthermore, d’Entrèves’ conception of Arendt’s critique of
modernity places excessive emphasis on The Human Condition and Life
of the Mind, with little mention of On Revolution, On Violence or The
Promise of Politics . However, he engages to some extent with Arendt’s
existentialism under the appellation of active citizenship: “Arendt did not
conceive of politics as a means for the satisfaction of individual prefer-

ences … Her conception of politics is based instead on the idea of active
citizenship, that is, on the value and importance of civic engagement …
because it enables each citizen to exercise his or her powers of agency,
to develop the capacities for judgment, and to attain by concerted action
some measure of political efficacy”.55 Thus, the line of existential agency
is observed but not followed.
Similarly, Villa in his signature essay “Hannah Arendt: Modernity,
Alienation, and Critique” (1997) presents us with the label “world alien-
ation” used in Arendt’s The Human Condition with reference to Arendt’s
critique of modernity. Three years later, Villa’s Cambridge Companion to
Hannah Arendt (2000) would become regarded as a preliminary touch-
stone for all things Arendt—although with a conspicuous absence of
Arendt’s modern critique. Other segues from an assessment of Arendt’s
critique of modernity into her embrace of existentialism include Dolan’s
chapter, which presents a juxtaposition of wonder at being—a theme
explored in greater depth elsewhere by philosophers such as La Caze
(2013) and applicable to existential philosophy—with common sense in
the form of Kantian politics. But Dolan considers Arendt’s take on moder-
nity, like that of Foucault, as more perceptive of the modern enigma in
the relationship between thinking and acting than representing a satisfac-
tory solution to this irresolution.
In terms of Benhabib’s (2003) revisionist and controversial assessment
of Arendt’s modernism, her reconstruction of Arendt’s thought in line
with a largely feminist interpretation missed Arendt’s context and mean-
ing—at least according to Villa (1998). Although Benhabib acknowl-
edges that “Heidegger and Jaspers left a profound impact on the young
Arendt”, she chooses to canvas Arendt’s “experiences as a German Jewish
woman”56 as most definitive to her depiction of modernity. Thus, this
feminist assessment reflected in Benhabib’s atypical focus on Rahel Varn-
hagen’s salons as opposed to the other scenes of appearance in Arendt’s
body of work is to be commended more for its creativity than for its
accuracy. In another analysis of note regarding Arendt’s take on moder-
nity, Cascardi (1997) makes a connection from Arendt to postmodernity,
socialization, rationalization, bureaucracy and other advents of modernity
by way of Kant. “Kant’s description in this passage of the ‘mechanical una-
nimity’ of a civil state may be taken as indicative of the process that Max
Weber called the ‘rationalization’ of culture. … In Arendt’s perspicuous
analysis, this brings about the ‘substitution of behaviour for action and
16 R. DEW
its eventual substitution of bureaucracy, the rule of nobody, for personal

rulership’”.57
There is also a recurring acknowledgement of the interrelation of
modernity with religion and secularity in Arendt’s thought. In accord
with this theme, Villa identifies a “significant conservative dimension to
Arendt’s thought, one which emphasizes both the fragility and ‘artifi-
ciality’ of civilized life, and the corresponding imperative of preserva-
tion or ‘care for the world’”.58 Kateb (1984) views Arendt as one who
blames some political violations of individual liberties as undertaken in
the name of moral values (inclusive of, in his view, the French Revolu-
tion). In Baehr’s (2010) discussion of Arendt’s arguments with social sci-
entists about labelling the advent of totalitarianism,59 he notes Arendt’s
anti-ideological stance and engages with her debate with Jules Monnerot
on whether the definition of totalitarianism should be tied to secularism.
Whether or not the descriptor of secular is applied to modern ideolo-
gies, for Arendt they remain troublesome on moral, cultural, social and
experiential grounds. In his earlier work (2009), Baehr employs Arendt’s
critique of the socialization of society in his review of Fuller’s The Sociolog-
ical Imagination.60 A similarly conservative application is made as to the
dangers of the fragmentation of the past and modern bureaucratization.
In his other work, Baehr indicates the breadth of sociological research
confirming Arendt’s identification of the masses as a deleterious feature
of modernity.61
The above literature illustrates the existence of complementary views
on the part of some scholars concerning Arendt’s anti-modernism; the
purpose of this research is to explore Arendt’s assessment of modernity in
relation to the philosophical views of her mentors Martin Heidegger and
Karl Jaspers. Although students of Heideggerian philosophy Ferru and
Renaut admit the existence of a connection62 and suggest Heidegger’s
influence on Arendt’s view of technology, being and socialization,63
in comparison the examination of the relationship between Jaspers and
Arendt is limited, to put it mildly. Generic introductions64 and summa-
tive treatments65 have been made to Heidegger’s philosophy, but the
references to Arendt in this regard are largely biographical. And although
Dreyfus (1993) and Zimmerman (1990) do acknowledge Heidegger’s
influence upon politics,66 and biographers such as Ettinger (1997) and
Young-Bruehl (1982) leave us with insights as to the Arendt–Heidegger
romance, the most convincing explication of the intellectual assimilation
of the Arendt–Heidegger tandem remains Villa’s Arendt and Heideg-

ger: The Fate of the Political (1996).67 But here again the treatment
of Jaspers is limited to a few pages.68 Kateb (1984) only refers to
Jaspers fleetingly,69 with similar avoidance of Heidegger,70 despite the
acknowledgement that Arendt’s development of her theory of “wonder
at and gratitude for Being”71 can be attributed to Heidegger’s prelim-
inary exploration of Dasein. As Benhabib confirms, “Arendt’s central
philosophical categories, such as action, plurality, and natality, through
which she defined ‘the human condition,’ are indebted to Heidegger
and yet subvert Heideggerian ontology. Whereas for Heidegger the most
authentic form of being is the being-unto-death of the self … for Arendt
human beings live most authentically in a world they share with others
like themselves and with whom they are in constant communication and
to whom they appear through speech and action”.72 However, Benhabib
glosses over Jaspers, ignoring his work altogether.
Many have discussed Arendt’s views of Kant,73 and some have touched
on the intersection between her views and those of Nietzsche.74 However,
I have identified the gap in the literature in relation to Arendt’s existential
bent as entertained in conversation with Jaspers and Heidegger. Scholars
such as Calhoun and McGowan (1997) correctly identify the relation of
Arendt’s work to questions of meaning and modernity, but this is done
through generic applications to philosophical themes without exploring
the ideas behind them. Cascardi’s argument that “Arendt’s account of
the public sphere draws heavily on the Kantian notion of ‘publicity’ as
the bridge between morality and politics”75 thereby successfully draw-
ing out some of the philosophical themes of the burgeoning Enlight-
enment, but the philosophical moment is challenged by a conspicuous
absence: that of the work of Jaspers. While it remains true that others
such as Bernstein (1997) explore “Heidegger-Arendt issues specifically in
terms of Arendt’s presentations of Socrates and Heidegger as exemplars
of thinking”,76 Jaspers is a figure seldom encountered. I would posit with
Kateb (2007) that it is the existential aspect of Arendt’s thought which is
most definitive. Some theorists do attempt existential connections; Kateb
(1987) addresses Arendt’s theory of political action, but he does so with-
out adequately exploring its connections to Heidegger or Jaspers. In his
later work (2000), Kateb expands more fully upon his arrangement of
the definitions, advantages and disadvantages of political action as a fea-
ture of modernity which Arendt typifies as definitive, and in still later work
Kateb’s analysis of Arendt’s work reclassifies it in line with the “existential
18 R. DEW
values” of human status and stature, which rest upon “human unique-
ness” and “not being animal-like”,77 are constitutive to human dignity,
and connect to Arendt’s idea of morality, evil and “the place of moral-
ity in politics”.78 Kateb considers the highest classification of Arendt’s
existential elevation of political actions as courage; courage, for Kateb, is
Arendt’s highest political virtue,79 and it is above all an existential virtue.
Kateb’s (2007) theory as to Arendt’s existentialism, however, is incom-
plete in terms of its breadth and theoretical application. Kateb postulates
that Arendt’s moral concerns were of less significance to her than her exis-
tential values, speculating that Arendt’s critique of totalitarian evil arose
out of its threat to existential values of human value and human rights
rather than moral considerations of justice and conscience. Kateb makes
the bold assertion that Arendt’s “deepest hatred of totalitarian evil” was
not moral but rather existential.80 However, Kateb’s assessment ignores
other interpretations of Arendt’s view of the interconnections between
morality and politics.81 When Kateb states that despite the causal connec-
tion of immorality to suffering, “suffering is not in itself an existentially
interesting fact”82 and that “moral values can claim no superiority to exis-
tential values”, his reading of Arendt poses a problem. In claiming that
suffering is not “interesting” on account of its universality, Kateb ignores
the reality that the same statement as to the universality of suffering could
be interpreted as indicative of the relevance and moral resonance of suffer-
ing to the human experience. As part of the human condition, the pres-
ence of suffering—when partnered with the almost instinctive negative
human response to it—could indicate a moral response as easily as Kateb
seems to think it excludes it. I disagree with Kateb’s assertion that “au-
thentic politics” do not “occasion the need for real morality”83 ; rather, I
consider that for Arendt it is not such a simple or binary proposition. It is
a blend of existential aspirations and moral outrage that informs her out-
look, not the exclusion of one from the other. This is what her writings
on totalitarian evil84 and the secondary literature on the subject85 would
suggest. Far from disassociating morality from existentialism or from pol-
itics, Arendt finds a close affinity between them, and in the worst possible
way. As she states in reference to totalitarian evil, “we have learned that
the power of man is so great that he really can be what he wishes to
be”.86 The existence of such evil highlights a human capacity to discern,
choose and change. Diprose (2010) reveals that personal responsibility,
moral and political, is linked to Arendt’s conception of republicanism,87
La Caze (2010) notes the need for conscience to prevent the rise of the
totalitarian (although Arendt does not consider all consciences equally

developed), and Formosa (2010) applies conscience to action in times
of crisis.88 This being said, the existential virtues from Arendt’s Human
Condition which Kateb advocates—forgiveness and promise-keeping89 —
remain exemplary not exclusively on account of the human conscience
but because they “matter existentially”90 and thus contribute to “authen-
tic politics” in the manifestation of human dignity.
With the above context in mind, the engagement in this book is orga-
nized on an Arendtian precedent. The natural starting point for an inves-
tigation of Arendt’s insights as to the ideological developments of moder-
nity is found in her iconic tomes The Human Condition (1958) and The
Origins of Totalitarianism (1967),91 supplemented by her collection of
essays Between Past and Future (both the 1961 edition and 1968 expan-
sion), her later works On Violence (1970), On Revolution (1973), and
the posthumously published Promise of Politics (2005). Although the
Arendtian literature is largely accessible in English, I engage with some
of the primary and secondary literature auf Deutsch as archival opportu-
nity presents; Arendt’s ideas can be seen in conversation with modern and
early modern German thought.92 It was with Marxism, pan-nationalism
and secularism that Arendt took issue as the dominant totalitarian ideolo-
gies of modernity. In contrast, Arendt supports democratic ideals such as
pluralism and republican ideals such as the constitutive power of founda-
tion and the political need for a transcribed legal code. Arendt’s support
for foundation and natality stands in stark contrast to postmodern sub-
jectivity, as defined by such treatments as Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and
the Mirror of Nature (1979) and Jean-Francois Lyotard’s The Postmod-
ern Condition (1984). For the purposes of this project modernity will be
analysed in discussion with the rise of existentialist thought, as exempli-
fied by the works of Arendt’s mentors Heidegger and Jaspers. In Arendt’s
estimation, following Jaspers, the modern state’s embrace of the forma-
tion of mass culture coincident with the artificial assemblage of a secular
society is an ideological consequence of modernity as deleterious as it is
pervasive.
Up to this point, the typical approach to engaging with Arendt’s work
has been premised more on biographical interest than methodological dis-
ciplinarity. Such an undertaking is problematic given the cross-disciplinary
value of Arendt’s work, as recognized not only by Arendtian experts
like Jerome Kohn, German philosophers and members of the Frankfurt
School, including most notably Habermas, and biographers such as Mary
20 R. DEW
McCarthy and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. Arendt’s work has also been way-
laid for unapologetically instrumental ends. Benhabib reads into Arendt
more than she reads from her93 ; Court advances a thesis more in line
with the trends of contemporary academe than that which Arendt’s own
thought implies94 ; and the tendency even for Kohn is to rehash more
than refine. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the classifications of
Arendt in relation to (a) her stance on modernity and (b) the acknowl-
edgement of her theoretical influences. As a result, I will here outline
several positions in relation to Arendt’s thought, followed by an intro-
ductory assessment as to her existential allegiances and significance.95
Arendt critiques the alienation from the world as it occurred between
the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries in terms of alterations in tradition.
However, according to d’Entrèves Arendt’s “political philosophy cannot
be characterized in terms of the traditional categories of conservatism, lib-
eralism, and socialism”.96 D’Entrèves further claims that “Arendt’s nega-
tive appraisal of modernity was shaped by her experience of totalitarianism
in the twentieth century”.97 Along these lines, Dietz98 emphasizes the
role of the Holocaust as central to Arendt’s understanding of the political
in relation to modernity. Kohn supports Ludz in the belief that Arendt
perceived the modern rejection of “traditional moral philosophy” as effi-
cacious; but Arendt’s approach is not on that account to be interpreted
as “a refutation of moral thought as such”.99 If she cannot be considered
a political philosopher in the traditional sense, how can she be confined
within what tradition has come to call existentialism?
Arendt would seem to have a limited understanding of the term “exis-
tentialism”, which she associates with the “influential rebellion of thinkers
against academic philosophy”.100 In considering her work as an existen-
tial referent,101 then, I am not implying that she is an existentialist in the
sense she ascribes to Nietzsche or Kierkegaard. Instead, what I am posit-
ing is a connection between her work and that of Heidegger and Jaspers
that has hitherto remained unmeasured at sufficient depth. Although
Arendt did not subscribe to a specific school of thought or systematic
methodology per se, she did describe herself as a “sort of phenomenolo-
gist”102 and in fact Hayden refers to her thought as a “phenomenological-
existential synthesis” under the combined influence of Husserl, Heideg-
ger and Jaspers and “complemented by the inspiration she draws from
classical Greek and Roman philosophy, tragedy and poetry”.103 Kattago
supports the integrality of Arendt’s identity to a consideration of her expe-
rience as well as her thought: “But it was above all, her own experience as
a German Jew in Germany, France and the United States, as well as her
many years of statelessness, that influenced her concept of the world”.104
Those who consider her a Heideggerian include Bernstein, Dallmayr,
D’Entrèves, Heller, Kateb, Swift, Villa and Wellmer.105 And to the degree
that Heidegger is an existentialist, so too can be thought Arendt. How-
ever, Heller attributes the similarity between Arendt’s Human Condition
and Heidegger’s thought more to structure than content. Young-Bruehl
problematizes any claim that Arendt is an existentialist or a philosopher
of any kind: “Arendt had been looking for a universal, a universal bond
among men, an ontological foundation, a transcendent principle guiding
men who are in the world but not of it. … until her experience taught her
that philosophy, pure philosophy, can be dangerously blind to history, to
the political realm”.106 Others such as Benhabib emphasize what Arendt
owes to Kant and Aristotle rather than to Nietzsche or Heidegger.107
What I will contend is that Arendt not only recognized but disdained,
embraced and yet sought to discredit modernity both for what it signified
and what its tangible, this-worldly effects have come to comprise. This
represents an expansion upon Arendt’s alleged modernism (as assessed by
Benhabib, Cane, Kateb and Wellmer) and anti-modernism (as diagnosed
by Baehr, d’Entrèves, Halberstam, Laquer, Swift, Villa and Weissberg).
I find Arendt’s thought to be relevant to postmodern considerations;
although Arendt died in 1975, her impact has extended beyond politi-
cal theory into feminist theory,108 and even to the field of international
relations.109 Her contemporary relevance is complicated, however, in that
there exist several “Arendts” in the literature, to the point that former
Director of the Hannah Arendt Center and research assistant to Hannah
Arendt, Jerome Kohn, has classified her approach as beyond the compre-
hension of a precise definition.110 Not only is she critical of ideology, but
she can be seen as a precursor to a kind of pluralism that informs the post-
modern reconstruction of modernity. The first Arendt presents us with a
rather liberal perspective in her critique of totalitarianism (a critique com-
pounded in that she elsewhere criticizes both liberals and conservatives
outright).111 The second Arendt suggests to us a more polymorphous
postmodern view, with an emphasis upon intersubjectivity, especially per-
tinent with reference to the feminist perspective from Benhabib112 and
the communicative adaptation expressed by Habermas.113
Thus, there exist a variety of Arendts to be abstracted from the liter-
ature: (1) the traditional Arendt that places her in an existential context,
(2) the postmodern Arendt that on the one hand problematizes Arendt in
22 R. DEW
relation to modernity, and, on the other, emphasizes that she is a woman

and a representative of a persecuted minority, and (3) the neo-Kantian
position advanced by others.114 The objective of this book is to summon
the Arendt who has been absent and to integrate a figure of Arendt that is
more complete: a woman, a Jew, and one with a philosophical background
informed by her existentialist mentors, most notably Jaspers, and relevant
to ongoing understandings of philosophical history and existential litera-
ture. The analysis is one in a situated context, grounded (to the degree
that it is typographically possible to make it so) in both historical setting
and philosophical discourse. It is only within this context that the dif-
ferent versions of Arendt—existential (modern), feminist (anti-modern)
or postmodern—can adopt conclusions informed to the degree that they
are aware. With that said, my emphasis in this book is on her existential
context and philosophical influences, rendering both the discursive object
and the resultant conclusion of this volume unique.
Overall the view of Arendt is perforated with variation, and the diffi-
culties surrounding the literature on Arendt are numerous. Those who
discuss Arendt in connection to existential thought include Halberstam
and Hinchman.115 Those who consider her a modernist include Ben-
habib (reluctantly), Calhoun, Cane, Kateb and Wellmer.116 Those who
consider her an anti-modernist range from d’Entrèves to Cane, Court,
Kateb, Villa and even Arendt’s biographer Weissberg.117 And to com-
plicate matters still further, there are several who consider her as defy-
ing ready classification. For Bernstein,118 Arendt shifts between various
theoretical approaches. She is situated outside of Left and conservative
thought alike; she stands by the specificity of political tradition tied to
local custom and contemporary culture of time and place; she emphasizes
the primacy of action, but only when based upon a knowledge enlarged, a
mentality shared and a sensibility refined. And Voegelin considers Arendt
a “liberal, progressive, pragmatist … toward philosophical problems”,119
but one who suggests the transcendentalist versus nihilism dichotomy of
modernity and acknowledges the limitations of the human perspective in
the creation of meaning through action, political or otherwise.
Thus, the pieces of this puzzle incorporating Arendt’s philosophical
inheritance include such philosophical giants as Socrates, Aristotle, Augus-
tine, Scotus, Montesquieu, Kant, Madison, Jaspers and Heidegger. How-
ever, I have found that in the current literature a disproportionate empha-
sis has been placed upon the influence of Kant120 and Heidegger,121
with some recognition of the influence of Aristotle122 and Augustine.123
The comparative shortage with reference to other philosophical influences

upon the development of Arendt’s thought is understandable given the
breadth of Arendt’s work. The trends in the last two decades point to
an increased emphasis on Arendt’s stance in relation to modernity; this
makes the absence of Jaspers from much of the debate both surprising
and odd. With this in mind, in this volume I endeavour to address what
can be seen as the gap in the literature on Arendt: the extent to which
she draws upon Jaspers’s thought in addition to the ways in which she
recapitulates, modifies or subverts Heidegger’s. Both of these have direct
bearing on the modern point at issue and, further, remain of philosophi-
cal interest in relation to the history of existentialist thought. Both Jaspers
and Arendt critique the modern dehumanization and philosophical disori-
entation characteristic of the masses,124 the fate of which becomes deter-
mined by technique and apparatus125 to the degree that personal moral
responsibility is denied or ceases to be exercised. Both Heidegger and
Arendt assess modernity as problematic in technological and experiential
terms. “The individual who levels down is himself engulfed in the process
… one can only say of people en masse that they know not what they
do”.126 There is a loss of personality to accompany the modern rebel-
lion against authority. However, I echo Kaufmann in finding Heidegger’s
originality to be “widely overestimated”.127 Rather, it is towards Arendt
by way of Jaspers that this book tends.128
In order to approach this understanding, the sections that follow will
serve to outline the aforementioned influences on Arendt in chronological
progression. Chapter 2 begins with the influence and relevance of Aristo-
tle. The book will then proceed to discuss Kant and Augustine, followed
by Jaspers and finally by Heidegger. The rationale for this progression
is both thematic and chronological. Firstly, it is thematic for the simple
reason that Aristotle’s understanding of phronēsis and Kant’s understand-
ing of judgment can be seen as informing the understanding that Arendt
arrived at in considering them both. And secondly, Augustine’s writings
can be seen as related to those of Kant in terms of thematic continuity,
and to Arendt’s in terms of the focus of her doctoral thesis and the ongo-
ing interest she exhibited in his work throughout her life. Although the
real Arendt may have been absent from much of the literature up to this
point, she will be found in the company of the thinkers she valued most.
24 R. DEW
Notes
1. Arendt (1968), 160.
2. Benhabib (2003), 1; Canovan (1992), 1; d’Entrèves (1994), 1; Villa
(2000), 1.
3. Ibid., 6.
4. Condren (2011), 7.
5. See Arendt (1968), 22–3, 116–8, 197–202; Arendt (1973), 34–5, 220–
55.
6. Lyotard (1984).
7. See Arendt (1967), vii, 6, 51, 249, 257, 311–2, 315–38, 325, 333, 338,
341, 345, 350–3, 446–7, 475, 478; also Arnett (2012); Baehr (2008),
12–18; Canovan (2000); Cotkin (2007).
8. Cane (2015); Kateb (2000).
9. Kateb (2007).
10. See also: Kohn (2001a, 2001b, 2001c); Villa (2000).
11. Arendt (1967), 229.
12. This is on account not only of her approach to beginning and her appli-
cation of judgment but also her understanding of responsibility.
13. As found in Arendt (1968, the expanded edition preceded by the publi-
cation of a shorter collection in 1961), the most concise presentation of
her original work on the subject; I will also supplement my discussion
with insights from her other works, including Arendt (1967, 1973).
14. Arendt (1968), 25.
15. See also: ibid., 94, 204.
16. See, for example: Villa (1996). Villa (2000) is another example; it con-
tains many more references to Heidegger in its index than to Jaspers.
17. Arendt (1968), 29.
18. Ibid., 185; see also 18, 31, 39, 54–5, 101, 200.
19. Ibid., 30.
20. Ibid., 6, 79, 94.
21. Ibid., 46–7, 95.
22. Ibid., 28.
23. Ibid., 174.
24. Ibid., 140.
25. Ibid., 25, 98, 120–3.
26. Ibid., 8, 10–3, 45–6, 85.
27. Arendt (1973), 215–81.
28. Arendt (1968), 197–200.
29. Arendt (1967), 231, 318–23, 352.
30. Ibid., 245. I take a point of departure here from theorists like Corey
Robin, who maintain that it is not Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism that
is of enduring significance but rather “her writings on imperialism, Zion-
ism and careerism” (Robins 2007, 19). Instead, I consider her embrace
of freedom and the spontaneity of new beginnings of relevance not only

to her understanding of totalitarianism but her approach to authentic
living.
31. Although she does later attempt an addition of hope in a combination of
philosophic engagement with political activity—her struggle for meaning
and immortality through political action as recorded in future history.
32. Arendt (1968), 30.
33. See, for example: Benhabib (2003); Buckler (2011); Calhoun and
McGowan (1997); Canovan (1974, 1992); Cotkin (2007); d’Entrèves
(1991); Schaap, Celermajer, and Karales (2010); Villa (2000).
34. The term postmodernism is to be understood in the philosophical sense
as a set of critiques against established teleological or rational concepts.
See Chapter 8 for further detail and discussion.
35. Arendt (2005), 165.
36. Arendt (2013), 23.
37. Ibid., 34.
38. Ibid., 122.
39. Cane (2015), 55–75; Kateb (2000).
40. D’Entrèves (1991).
41. Kateb (1984); D’Entrèves (1991).
42. Calhoun and McGowan (1997), 8.
43. Kateb (1984), 162.
44. D’Entrèves (1991), 77.
45. Ibid., 86.
46. Ibid., 83.
47. Ibid., 90.
48. Ibid., 83.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., 108.
51. Ibid., 98.
52. D’Entrèves (1994), 2.
53. Ibid., 6.
54. Ibid., 7–8.
55. Ibid., 2.
56. McKinlay (1997), 931.
57. Cascardi (1997), 103, quoting Arendt (1958), 45.
58. Villa (2000), 5.
59. Baehr (2010), 93–123.
60. Baehr (2009), 121–7.
61. Baehr (2008).
62. Ferry and Renaut (1990), 14.
63. Ibid., 71, 88, 95, 96, 98, 104–7.
64. Cerbone (2008).
26 R. DEW
65. Guignon (1993); Mulhall (2005).

66. Dreyfus (1993); Zimmerman (1990).
67. Another helpful and influential treatment would be: Taminaux (1992).
68. Villa (1996), 120, 163, 232.
69. Kateb (1984), 153–5, 181.
70. Ibid., 167, 171–2.
71. Ibid., 168.
72. Benhabib (2003), xiv.
73. See ibid.; Cascardi (1997); Kohn (2001a); La Caze (2010).
74. Benhabib (2003); d’Entrèves (1994), 23–6.
75. Cascardi (1997), 103.
76. Calhoun and McGowan (1997), 17.
77. Kateb (2007), 811.
78. Ibid., 813.
79. Ibid., 843.
80. Ibid., 852.
81. See, for example: Benhabib (1988); Cascardi (1997); Williams (2015).
82. Kateb (2007), 815.
83. Ibid., 850.
84. Arendt (1967), 307, 442.
85. Baehr (2008); Benhabib (1988, 2000, 2010); Buckler (2011), 127;
Canovan (1992), 160–1; Cotkin (2007); d’Entrèves (1994); Dietz
(2000); Mack (2010); Schaap (2005); Schaap, Celermajer, and Karales
(2010).
86. Arendt (1967), 456.
87. Diprose (2010).
88. Formosa (2010).
89. For a more developed treatment of Arendt’s consideration of forgiveness
alongside that of others, see: Dew (2016).
90. Kateb (2007), 852.
91. This is not to ignore the powerful critique of Arendt’s application of
totalitarianism made by Raymond Aron in his influential review of the
first 1951 edition of Arendt’s book, considering Arendt’s analysis of
modernity to be a “mixture of German metaphysics, subtle sociology,
and moral vituperations [which] ends up exaggerating the qualities and
the faults of men and regimes … substituting for real history a history
that is at every moment ironic or tragic” (Aron 1994, 98). Others like
Mahoney have viewed her as “a kind of … historicist” (Mahoney 1994,
96).
92. See for more on this: Hunter (2001, 2014).
93. Benhabib offers an overly-developed account of Arendt’s treatment of
the social (as Dana Villa has argued elsewhere) and attributes more
to Heidegger and Marx in reading Arendt than I consider warranted
(Benhabib 2003, 22–3, 28–9, 94). Her misattribution is further compli-

cated in terms of the feminist application of her thought. I also disagree
with Benhabib where she writes that “[w]hat we need is not only a
reinterpretation of Hannah Arendt’s thought but a revision of it” (ibid.,
198). Can this be claimed as Arendtian scholarship?
94. More specifically, I disagree with Court’s view of Arendt as antagonistic
to the conception of a nation-state as such. She does advocate voluntary
and interactive formations of councils; but these occurred in her ideal
model of a nation-state, typecast in the founding of the United States, if
not the Roman Republic. I also disagree with Court’s minimization of
the role played by formal institutions in the maintenance of the public
realm: Court (2009), 232. Arendt’s analysis of revolutions takes place
in the context of modern nation-states. “Modern man has created a
totally organised world, whose basic political unit is the nation-state.
Hence, expulsion from the nation-state means expulsion from a com-
mon humanity” (ibid., 238). Nor does Arendt attribute the blame for
this development upon the state. Rather, she attributes it to develop-
ments of modern philosophy—namely, the distrust of reason and the
forgetfulness of authority and history.
95. Although theorists such as Kohn consider Arendt to be more of an
eclecticist than an existentialist, my interpretation of her work is not
unfounded. Not only was Arendt acquainted with Sartre, but she was
trained by two existentialist philosophers. Most recently, Patrick Hayden
has classified Arendt as an existentialist.
96. D’Entrèves (1994), 3.
97. Ibid.
98. Dietz (2000).
99. Kohn (2007), xxv.
100. Arendt (1978), 21.
101. A fuller account of Arendt’s assessment of existentialism can be seen in
her essays which address it: Arendt and Kohn (1954), 163–88.
102. Young-Bruehl (1982), 405.
103. Hayden (2014), 9–10.
104. Kattago (2014), 52.
105. Bernstein (1997), 158–9, 165, 169; Dallmayr (1984), 211–2, 228–30;
d’Entrèves (1994), 4, 23–4; Heller (2001), 26–7; Kateb (2001), 121;
Swift (2013); Villa (1996, 2007); Wellmer (2001), 36, 166.
106. Young-Bruehl (1982), 499.
107. Benhabib (2001), 195.
108. Allen (1999); Kaplan (1995).
109. Lang and Williams (2005).
110. Arendt and Kohn (2005), xxi.
111. Arendt (1956), 415–6; Arendt (1967), xxix; Arendt (2007), 724.
28 R. DEW
112. Benhabib argues that there is a deep tension between Arendt’s political
modernism—which is grounded in her experiences as a Jew and a state-
less person and is expressed in her commitment to a fundamental right
to have rights—and her political anti-modernism, which is grounded in
her philosophical commitment to Heideggerian existentialism and finds
expression both in her critique of the social and in her nostalgia for the
Greek polis (Benhabib 1990). Benhabib further defines Arendt in terms
of three tensions: Arendt the modernist/storyteller/witness/thinker;
Arendt the student/philosopher of the polis; Arendt the German Jew.
I would problematize this by adding two more: Arendt the existentialist
and Arendt the postmodernist (ibid., 196).
113. Habermas (1984, 1990). Villa’s introductory chapter assessing Arendt’s
understanding of action cites Habermas’s “appropriation of Arendt” as
“influential” but misguided (Villa 1996, 5). Habermas references Arendt
outright: Habermas (2003), 58–60. However, he does not apply her
ideas fully.
114. This is despite the fact that Heidegger was an anti-Kantian, although in
his Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Heidegger does describe Kant’s
thought as a precursor to his own view. I am beholden to Marguerite La
Caze for this last observation.
115. Halberstam (2001), 107; Hinchman and Hinchman (1991).
116. Benhabib (2003); Calhoun (1997); Cane (2015); Kateb (2000); Wellmer
(2001).
117. Court (2009), 6; d’Entrèves (1991); Kateb (1984); Villa (1997); Arendt
and Weissberg (1997), 5.
118. Bernstein (1997).
119. Voegelin (1953), 75.
120. Those in the secondary literature who emphasize Arendt’s influence
from Kant include: Beiner and Nedelsky (2001); Beiner (2001); Cascardi
(1997); Dostal (1984); Ingram (1988); La Caze (2007); Riley (1992).
121. Ettinger and Villa have undertaken helpful assessments in this regard, as
noted previously (see for example note 16). Others would include: Villa
(2011), 325–37; Vowinckel (2001), 338–46.
122. Those who reference Aristotle in the secondary literature include: Ben-
habib (2003), 114–22; Canovan (1992); d’Entrèves (1994); Kristeva and
Collins (2001), 11–30.
123. Arendt (1996); Grumett (2000); Hammer (2000).
124. Jaspers (1953), 127–31, 178.
125. Jaspers (1978), 33–91.
126. Kierkegaard and Dru (2010), 26.
127. Ibid., in the Introduction by Walter Kaufmann, xiv. Of course, Kaufmann
did not fully endorse Jaspers, either.
128. Jaspers is considered an important influence on Arendt, even alongside

other philosophers. He is perhaps the most impactful in terms of the
development of her thought in moral terms. It is unfortunate that his
influence on her work has been neglected in much of the scholarship up
to the present.
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CHAPTER 2
Arendt Reading Aristotle
One of the philosophers Arendt first read was perhaps the most famous
philosopher to first write. Few students of Martin Heidegger, such as the
young Arendt, could avoid learning of the ancient philosopher Aristotle.
In addition to her mentors Heidegger and most notably Jaspers, Arendt
was influenced by Aristotle and Kant. This influence is particularly dis-
cernible in the development of her thought on judgment and in Arendt’s
interpretation of Aristotelian philosophy in The Human Condition. The
attainment of good judgment depends upon engagement in reasoning
and reasonable dialogue, a dialogue which can be thought, written or
voiced. In Arendt’s attainment of understanding, Aristotle was one voice.
Arendt engaged with Aristotle through her very own library—namely,
her well-marked copy of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, available for
viewing in the extant collection of her personal library at Bard College.1
This copy contains her handwritten notations, including her marks for
emphasis where Aristotle wrote: “thought alone moves nothing; only
thought which is directed to some end and concerned with action can
do so …. Only the goal of action is an end in the unqualified sense: for
the good life is an end”.2 And later in the text, Arendt underscores Aris-
totle’s account of the “good man” as he whose “acts are due to choice
and are performed for the sake of the acts themselves”.3 Arendt’s thought
on the human significance of action would thus derive to some extent
from Aristotle. As Nixon would concur, Aristotle was “one of Arendt’s
great mentors” and it is his concepts of happiness (Eudaimonia) which
best describes Arendt’s approach to the time of friendship as the time of
© The Author(s) 2020 35

R. Dew, Hannah Arendt, International Political Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45881-2_2
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La perte d’un être cher commence toujours par être une source
de remords.
Je vis très peu Djath. Dans son ardeur de recherche, il ne rentrait
plus le soir pour dormir. Je supposais qu’il allait me regarder d’une
façon haineuse. Il ne me regarda pas. Il passa plusieurs fois à côté
de moi sans me voir. Je crois qu’il m’avait effacé du monde. J’eus la
sensation de n’être que du néant près de lui et j’en fus irrité. Mais je
ne jugeai pas le moment propice pour le châtier. Je fus obligé, à
cause de la même raison de convenances, d’ajourner aussi un autre
châtiment.
Brisé par les fatigues d’une journée de recherches à travers la
forêt et par la souffrance que me faisait encore endurer mon pied
foulé, j’étais monté dans ma chambre après le dîner et je m’y étais
assis très mélancoliquement près de la fenêtre.
La maison était pleine d’amis de M. Varoga, venus du voisinage,
et d’officiers hollandais de Djokjokarta et même de Samarang, qui
étaient accourus en apprenant la disparition d’Eva et nous prêtaient
l’appui de leur inutile activité. Cela faisait une grande agitation dans
la vieille demeure et il y avait même des tentes dressées sous les
branches des banians centenaires.
Presque tous les bruits s’étaient éteints. Très loin on entendait, à
espaces réguliers, des salves de coups de fusil que tiraient toute la
nuit des postes organisés sur les hauteurs. Le canon de l’indigoterie
s’était tu pour la première fois, faute de munitions. Il n’y avait pas de
lune. Les ténèbres étaient compactes.
Un peu plus loin, une grande lanterne en fer forgé, suspendue à
une branche de palmier, faisait un cercle rougeâtre. Je distinguai
sous la vérandah la flamme d’un unique cigare. Il y avait avec le
fumeur, dont je reconnus la voix et qui était un propriétaire de
plantations de café, un autre homme qui ne fumait pas.
Malgré moi, j’entendis quelques-unes de leurs phrases et je
pensai que c’était de moi qu’ils s’entretenaient, à propos de la
disparition d’Eva. Mais l’ensemble de leur conversation qui ne me
parvenait que par les fragments suivants me demeura tout à fait
inintelligible.
— Je crois que c’est un homme complètement dépourvu
d’intelligence… Une telle profession… La plus délicieuse des jeunes
filles… Quelle imprudence de la part de M. Varoga… La
responsabilité incombe à celui qui…
Le planteur de café lançait au ciel des bouffées de cigare et il
semblait questionner son interlocuteur comme si celui-ci pouvait
avoir des lumières spéciales sur le cas tragique d’Eva.
Je me penchai en avant et je vis que celui des deux hommes qui
ne fumait pas avait sur la tête un chapeau de paille assez semblable
à celui que j’avais perdu quelques jours auparavant, lorsque je
m’étais mis à l’affût du tigre. Il parlait maintenant du temple de
Ganésa. J’entendis ceci :
— Ganésa ou Paleyar ou Inahika, dieu de l’intelligence, des
nombres, de la vérité, de la chasteté, car toutes ces choses se
tiennent. Oui, un homme assis, à qui l’immobilité et la méditation ont
fait un gros ventre, un homme qui a une tête d’éléphant, telle est
l’image de la sagesse. Dans le règne animal dont nous sommes
issus, nous puisons les vérités essentielles qui nous permettront de
dépasser le règne humain.
C’est là le sens du symbole. La sagesse a une base animale.
Fidélité, labeur obstiné, enthousiasme dans l’amour de ce qui est
supérieur, que de nobles sentiments nous enseignent les bêtes !
Je retins ces phrases à cause de leur complète absurdité qui
m’aurait fait éclater de rire en d’autres circonstances. L’homme au
cigare posait des questions et l’autre répondait lentement avec une
indifférence lointaine.
— Peut-être ! Peut-être ! disait-il. Le secret de tout est l’amour.
Par l’amour on élève à soi les animaux, par la haine on se
transforme à leur image. Dans les antiques reproductions de pierre
du temple de Ganésa il peut y avoir une force enfermée par les
sculpteurs sorciers d’il y a deux mille ans. Cette force a pu agir selon
des lois qui nous sont inconnues.
J’étais tremblant d’émotion. Malheureusement, ce qui suivit fut dit
presque à voix basse et il ne me parvint que des bribes de phrases.
— Non, pas Eva, assurément. Mais un dompteur, un homme qui
ravit leur liberté aux bêtes, qui les tourmente, qui les fait souffrir. Il y
a certaines natures basses qui agissent sur les êtres plus délicats de
leur entourage. Ces natures puissantes sont protégées par leur
propre bassesse. Elles ne souffrent pas du mal qu’elles dégagent et
qui leur fait une cuirasse. Elles abaissent les autres sans même le
savoir.
Je tombai presque de la fenêtre pour voir le visage de celui qui
parlait, qui m’accusait sans preuves d’avoir causé la mort d’Eva par
la bassesse de ma nature. Je sentais que, malgré son caractère peu
raisonnable, cette accusation avait une part de vérité et cela
augmentait ma fureur.
Les deux hommes s’étaient levés et je reconnus l’homme au
chapeau de paille. Il faisait le geste de refuser un cigare que l’autre
lui offrait en partant.
— Non, jamais de cigare, dit-il.
Je faillis intervenir et crier que c’était là une misérable hypocrisie,
une fausse affectation de sobriété.
L’homme qui semblait avoir des connaissances si étendues sur le
temple de Ganésa ne fumait pas le cigare, mais il fumait l’opium,
c’était un misérable dévoyé, un coureur de fumeries, un habitué de
bouges, c’était celui qui avait caressé si tendrement un lézard à
Singapour, dans la rue du Chameau, après la porte du Tigre. Voilà
ce que je faillis crier dans le silence de la nuit.
Et je faillis crier autre chose encore.
Ce soi-disant lama voyageur portait sur la tête mon chapeau en
paille de Manille, qu’il avait trouvé, Dieu sait où ! mon chapeau que
je reconnus fort bien quand il passa sous la lanterne qui se balançait
un peu plus loin, à une branche de palmier.
Cet homme m’accusait d’avoir une nature basse et il portait mon
chapeau sur la tête !
Je me fis à moi-même le serment de le retrouver quelque jour.
LE TIGRE PRISONNIER
Les jours passèrent. Le découragement s’empara des âmes. Les

bonnes volontés s’usèrent. Le nombre des consolations diminua. On
roula les tentes devant la maison. Les travaux abandonnés reprirent
dans l’indigoterie.
Je voulus, avant de partir, revoir le temple de Ganésa et je m’y
rendis avec Ali et une demi-douzaine de Javanais car il était
convenu qu’on ne circulerait plus dans la forêt qu’en troupe
nombreuse.
Tous les recoins du temple avaient été explorés. Il y avait mille
traces du passage des hommes et il était vain d’y rechercher les
traces d’Eva. La chose avait été faite dès le premier jour sans
résultat.
Au milieu du jour le temple n’avait pas le même mystère que la
nuit. Pourtant je le trouvai terrible avec sa forme impitoyablement
circulaire, la régularité de ses escaliers, ses figures muettes.
L’antique sagesse avait une apparence si diversement étrange
qu’elle ressemblait à la folie.
Au moment où nous allions nous éloigner définitivement, je
revins sur mes pas et j’examinai de près un des personnages à tête
d’éléphant. Je vis qu’il avait quatre mains. L’une tenait une conque,
l’autre un disque, l’autre une massue, la dernière une fleur de lotus.
Alors, je ne sais pourquoi, par vengeance peut-être, avec le
manche de mon couteau je cassai un bout de trompe qui tomba
misérablement sur le sol et quelques pétales de la fleur de lotus.
Ainsi l’homme n’était pas absolument vaincu par la pierre,
puisqu’il avait le pouvoir de la mutiler.
Je n’informai M. Varoga de mon départ qu’à la dernière minute.
Je voulais éviter de longs adieux attendrissants. Il n’ignorait pas que
j’aimais sa fille et que j’étais aussi malheureux que lui. A ma grande
surprise, il me quitta très froidement. Je supposai que l’individu qui
portait mon chapeau avait dû me faire du tort dans son esprit et mon
chagrin en fut très vif.
Je ne sais plus pour quelle raison Ali le Macassar resta une
journée de plus que moi. Je devais l’attendre à Samarang où nous
devions prendre le bateau ensemble.
J’étais invité à déjeuner par un officier de la garnison et c’est
chez lui que j’appris la nouvelle sensationnelle qui mit aussitôt la ville
en émoi.
Aux confins de la forêt de Mérapi, dans un des pièges que j’avais
moi-même préparés avec l’art admirable que me permettait ma
connaissance des bêtes, on venait de trouver le tigre monstrueux qui
était la terreur du pays, celui qui avait enlevé deux femmes avant
mon arrivée, celui que chacun soupçonnait, mais sans exprimer ce
soupçon, à cause de son caractère affreux, d’avoir dévoré Eva.
Il ne pouvait y avoir de doute, paraît-il, c’était bien lui. On n’avait
jamais vu un tigre de proportions si énormes et ceux qui l’avaient
aperçu les premiers au fond du piège s’étaient enfuis à son aspect.
J’étais las. Je n’aspirais plus qu’à rentrer à Singapour. Il y avait
un bateau en partance pour cette ville. Comme Ali ne m’avait pas
rejoint le soir du jour fixé, je m’embarquai sans lui.
Ce fut Ali qui fit tout. Il n’y a aucun doute, si j’avais été présent,
j’aurais immédiatement mis à mort le tigre d’une balle.
Mais Ali, se trouvant seul, fut grisé par l’orgueil de me
représenter. Il crut qu’il avait le devoir de défendre les intérêts de
son maître. En principe, M. Varoga m’avait promis la propriété du
tigre si on le prenait vivant. Un tigre pareil représentait une valeur de
trois cents roupies. Ali ne laissa pas détruire cette valeur par
quelques coups de fusil. Il revendiqua la promesse faite et il donna à
ceux qui voulaient tuer le fauve, un argument fort habile.
Il fallait faire souffrir le monstre qui avait si longtemps terrifié la
région. Son maître s’en chargerait, n’avait-il pas de bonnes raisons
pour cela ?
Et il clignait de l’œil, me raconta-t-il ensuite, d’une façon
significative et que tout le monde comprenait.
Faire sortir un tigre d’un piège profond et l’enfermer dans une
cage, paraît un problème compliqué pour des hommes ordinaires.
C’est, en réalité, un jeu d’enfants. Il y avait des cages à Djokjokarta
qui servaient au rajah pour ses combats d’animaux féroces dont il
était un amateur célèbre. Ali en obtint une aisément. Il fit ensuite tout
lui-même, aidé de quelques Javanais qu’il fut obligé de payer très
cher, tellement était grande la terreur qu’inspirait le tigre.
Il nourrit l’animal, en attendant la venue de la cage, avec de la
viande contenant des boulettes d’opium dosées pour qu’il ne soit ni
excité, ni empoisonné par l’opium, mais jeté dans une sorte de
léthargie. Il lui prit ensuite au lasso les pattes et le cou et on le hissa
ainsi.
Le taciturne Ali se déridait pour raconter qu’il avait eu toutes les
peines du monde à empêcher qu’on n’amenât le canon et qu’on ne
le braquât sur la bête solidement attachée et à peu près endormie.
Il décrivait aussi avec fierté son départ triomphal de l’indigoterie
et avec modestie son arrivée à Samarang où sa fidélité à mon égard
avait été mise à l’épreuve. Le rajah de Djokjokarta lui avait dépêché
un messager qui lui avait offert trois cents roupies, comme cadeau
personnel, pour lui Ali, s’il avait consenti à vendre la bête. Le prix de
celle-ci m’aurait été payé en plus.
Le mérite d’Ali avait été d’autant plus grand qu’il n’avait plus sur
lui une pièce d’argent et qu’il ne savait comment faire pour passer à
Samarang la semaine entière qui devait s’écouler avant le départ
d’un bateau pour Singapour.
Il s’était souvenu, heureusement, du nom de mon banquier de
Batavia et il avait été assez avisé pour aller trouver son
correspondant à Samarang qui lui avait fait aussitôt les avances
nécessaires.
Il avait eu encore beaucoup de mal au moment du départ.
Un vieux commandant d’infanterie hollandaise, qui vivait à
Samarang et qui avait des crises d’alcoolisme, s’était mis en tête de
tuer le tigre à coups de revolver, prétendant qu’il était honteux de le
laisser vivre, après le drame qui venait de se dérouler.
Ali avait été obligé de passer les trois dernières journées et les
trois dernières nuits à côté de la cage du tigre et de ne pas le quitter
un instant.
Je me souviens de la singulière impression que j’éprouvai

lorsque Ali, qui venait de veiller dans le port au débarquement de la
cage, l’amena devant la porte de ma maison.
Le soir allait tomber. Il y avait une fête chinoise en l’honneur de je
ne sais quel sage de la Chine, et comme mes jardins sont en limite
du quartier chinois, l’air retentissait d’un bruit de pétards, de
détonations et de musique de raga.
Des enfants criaient et chantaient et l’ensemble ressemblait à ce
que j’avais entendu dans la forêt de Mérapi, quand je m’étais réveillé
solitaire, avec une bosse au front et une poignée de fourmis dans la
main.
La voiture qui portait le tigre s’arrêta devant la porte. Elle était
conduite par des chevaux habitués aux fauves et qui ne les
craignaient pas. Le tigre était silencieux. La cage était recouverte
d’une bâche de toile pour que la vue du fauve, dont on avait parlé
dans Singapour, n’ameutât pas toute la population.
Malgré cela, il accourut une foule de Chinois en liesse qui firent
un vaste demi-cercle. Ils riaient, comme ils ont l’habitude de faire
pour toute chose. Ali, qui avait conscience de l’importance de son
rôle voulut plaire à la foule, et juste au moment où attiré par le bruit
de la voiture j’apparaissais sur le seuil de la porte, découvrit la toile.
Le tigre était couché et ne se souleva pas. La vaste rumeur qui
monta des Chinois, stupéfaits à sa vue, ne sembla pas l’intéresser.
Dans la demi-obscurité, il fixa sur moi seul ses yeux
phosphorescents, étranges, immenses, ses yeux que je reconnus
pour les avoir contemplés par un crépuscule semblable.
Rien ne put détourner son regard, ni les enfants qui essayaient
de le piquer avec des baguettes, ni les cahots de la cage quand elle
franchit la porte. Lui aussi, m’avait reconnu.
Il me sembla qu’il éprouvait la même tristesse que moi, qu’il y
avait dans le balancement de son cou une fatigue analogue à la
mienne. Nous ressentions tous les deux la même angoisse
misérable des êtres qui vont engager une lutte sans pardon et qui
portent le fardeau de leur propre férocité.
Malgré la cage, les fouets, les pieux, je ne me sentais pas le plus
fort dans cette lutte. Il y avait un élément qui m’échappait, une arme
inconnaissable que je pressentais en la possession de mon
adversaire et, pendant que la cage roulait parmi les autres cages et
que les Chinois criaient de joie, j’étais triste, horriblement triste, de
toute ma haine contre les bêtes que j’allais si justement concentrer
contre cette bête plus féroce que les autres.
DEUXIÈME PARTIE
LES YEUX DU TIGRE
Je me suis toujours considéré comme très intelligent parce que je

me suis gardé des livres et de la culture et que mon esprit s’est
développé sous l’influence directe de la vie, mais je n’ai jamais pu
dire avec certitude si le fond de ma nature est vraiment bon.
Il est difficile d’établir dans l’âme d’un homme la différence entre
la bonté et la méchanceté. On est bon avec certains êtres, mauvais
avec d’autres. Les sentiments généreux sont relatifs à la façon dont
on a dormi ou digéré son repas.
Je ne sais pas si je suis bon, mais je sais que possédé par la
passion de la vengeance, je m’abandonnai à cette passion avec la
même ardeur que si elle avait été un devoir.
Ali le Macassar n’avait pas trompé les indigotiers de M. Varoga,
les malheureux habitants de la vallée de Mérapi. Son maître, le
dompteur, avait de bonnes raisons pour faire souffrir le tigre captif, le
tigre géant, le tigre unique de Java.
Je commençai par l’enfermer dans la plus solide, la plus épaisse
cage que je possédais, car les animaux sauvages trouvent dans
certains accès de fureur des réserves de force inattendues.
Son étonnante mâchoire allongée sur ses pattes de devant, le
tigre s’obstinait à demeurer immobile et silencieux et il plongeait son
regard dans le mien, dès que j’apparaissais devant lui. Pour le forcer
au mouvement et le faire tourner dans sa cage, je le privai d’abord
de nourriture, car le premier effet de la faim chez les fauves est
l’ancestrale poursuite de la proie.
Quand je l’eus affamé, je l’assoiffai pendant des jours. Mais
comme s’il comprenait mon désir et s’il était résolu à ne plus le
satisfaire, il se recoucha, après des milliers de tours, et il se mit à
souffler sinistrement, sans me perdre de vue.
Je fus saisi du besoin impérieux de l’entendre rugir. Je le
réveillais dès qu’il s’endormait en lui donnant des coups avec une
barre de fer. Mais il se contentait de grogner, et c’est moi qui
éprouvais la rage que je voulais lui communiquer.
Alors, je me fis apporter une lance malaise et je lui trouai une
patte de part en part. Il rugit enfin. Ce rugissement couvrit toutes les
voix de bêtes, emplit mes vastes jardins convertis en ménagerie,
retentit dans les rues avoisinantes. Mais ce rugissement terrible, ce
cri de douleur et de fureur impuissante n’eut pas parmi les autres
animaux, l’effet d’épouvante qu’engendrent d’ordinaire les voix des
lions ou des tigres.
Le soir de la patte trouée, comme si elles avaient répondu à un
ordre, toutes les bêtes s’éveillèrent dans toutes les cages, une
communication s’établit, un souffle de révolte passa.
Les singes bondirent, se suspendirent par leur queue, lancèrent
des morceaux de noix de coco à travers les barreaux, jacassèrent
furieusement en montrant les dents. Les condors des Andes
ouvrirent leurs ailes comme s’ils allaient s’envoler vers leurs terres
lointaines. Les aigles étirèrent des ongles démesurés. Le tapir se mit
à renifler stupidement. Les pecaris se heurtèrent les uns les autres,
l’ours dansa les bras en croix ; une sarigue, oubliant tout sentiment
maternel, lança son petit contre la muraille de sa cabane ; les gavials
firent claquer leur mâchoire hors de la vase des bassins grillés ; les
fourmiliers fendirent l’air avec la projection de leur langue ; les
hyènes ricanèrent ; les tortues coururent dans le jardin, tirant de leur
carapace une mince tête inaccoutumée ; les serpents endormis se
dressèrent et firent craquer leur peau ; les panthères répondirent aux
jaguars ; une girafe caracola au hasard en lançant des coups de
pied ; deux éléphants apprivoisés se mirent à barrir désespérément
comme aux jours de rut et même des puces savantes, qui étaient
dressées par une nièce d’Ali, firent des sauts si prodigieux qu’elles
disparurent à tout jamais dans les herbes.
Tous les gardiens furent sur pied en un instant. Les fouets
claquèrent. Quelques revolvers partirent. Les cornacs des éléphants
accoururent. L’ordre fut rétabli avant la venue de la nuit et il n’y eut
que les puces de perdues.
Mais je ne pus comprendre ce qui était arrivé et ma fureur
s’accrut de cette sorte de complicité que je sentais autour de moi
entre les bêtes.
J’en arrivai, au bout de quelque temps, à être comme hypnotisé

par le tigre. Je pensais à ses yeux phosphorescents en m’éveillant,
je croyais les voir devant moi et je m’habillais à la hâte pour courir
dans le jardin, réveiller le tigre avec la lance ou un fer rougi et fixer
ses yeux, les fixer inlassablement.
Cette envie de regarder le tigre devint une hantise, une torture
quotidienne si grande que j’en souffrais physiquement. Mes traits se
tirèrent et je maigris sous l’empire de cette obsession.
Pour m’en débarrasser, je conçus, d’accord avec Ali, le projet de
crever ces yeux maudits, ces énormes yeux magnétiques. Je fis
forger deux pointes d’acier séparées entre elles par une largeur à
peu près égale à la tête du tigre et je les assujettis au bout d’un
épieu, de façon à pouvoir d’un seul coup détruire les deux prunelles
verdâtres, les deux prunelles émeraudes, couleur d’eau, couleur
d’absinthe en mouvement.
La cruauté de cette action ne m’apparaissait pas trop grande, de
même qu’elle semblait normale à Ali, car nous pensions tous les
deux à nos angoisses des jours précédents, quand nous fouillions la
forêt de Mérapi au bruit des tam-tam, nous pensions à Eva errante
et à son corps sans doute déchiré par le monstre dans quelque
tanière inaccessible.
D’un seul coup ! Je voulais que ses deux yeux soient crevés d’un
seul coup ! Quand la lance à double pointe fut prête, je profitai d’une
heure où le tigre avait son mufle allongé sur ses pattes, face à moi et
où il me fixait avec ses immenses prunelles couleur de l’envers des
feuilles du palmier nibong et de certaines étoiles, par certains
automnes clairs.
Au lieu de me fier à moi-même, j’eus l’absurdité d’écouter Ali qui
prétendait avoir appris depuis sa plus tendre enfance à jeter la lance
et être sûr de ne pas le manquer. Je lui confiai le soin de la
crevaison des yeux.
Le tigre dut comprendre. Malgré la rapidité du mouvement d’Ali, il
fit un mouvement de la tête en se dressant et une seule pointe
s’enfonça profondément dans un de ses yeux, dans l’œil gauche.
Le rugissement qu’il poussa fut effroyable, mais il n’y avait dans
ses sons qu’une douleur désespérée et la ménagerie autour du tigre,
désormais borgne, resta silencieuse.
Il s’était dressé sur ses pattes de derrière, entraînant la lance et
dans le mouvement qu’il fit, il retomba sur le bois de l’arme et le
cassa net.
Ali voulait recommencer, mais je l’en empêchai. Le spectacle de
cet œil ouvert était trop atroce. Puis je sentis tout de suite que le
magnétisme dégagé par deux yeux fixes avait disparu et qu’il ne
pourrait plus se dégager par un seul.
J’étais délivré et je voulais que le tigre gardât la faculté de
reconnaître, à travers les barreaux de sa cage, son maître et son
bourreau !
LA SOUFFRANCE DES BÊTES
Ma haine pour les bêtes augmenta d’autant plus que je la

consolidai de tout mon amour pour Eva et de mes sentiments de
piété filiale.
Je fis venir de Malacca une vieille Malaise, célèbre pour sa
connaissance des poisons, et je lui achetai quelques-uns de ses
secrets. Je tirai, avec sa collaboration, de certaines herbes et des
huiles de certains poissons, des substances vénéneuses qui avaient
la propriété de faire souffrir, sans causer la mort.
Avec une joie amère et profonde, je fabriquai des mélanges
subtils, je composai des ingrédients dévorateurs d’intestins animaux
et je les glissai dans des boulettes de farine soigneusement cuites.
J’empoisonnai tous mes serpents.
J’en avais une incomparable collection.
Je possédais des orvets délicats, de couleur métallique avec des
reflets d’étain et de cuivre ; des typhlops pareils à des aiguilles et si
petits qu’on les aurait pris pour des vers, s’il n’y avait pas eu le bruit
de leurs crocs minuscules ; des pythons pareils à des troncs
d’arbres ; des eryx de Thébaïde avec des plaques jaunes et noires
régulières qui faisaient penser à un damier roulé autour d’un bâton ;
des amphisbènes au corps cylindrique et à la tête obtuse ; des
cobras de toutes sortes ; des najas à coiffe ; des serpents cornus ;
des serpents à lunettes ; des serpents danseurs et un tortrix
phénomène avec une langue démesurée dans une tête de mouton.
Très peu moururent. La science de ma vieille femme de Malacca
était grande. Je ne pus malheureusement contempler, comme je le
désirais, les souffrances de mes ennemis ophidiens. La douleur
provoquait des bondissements, des soubresauts redoutables. Il fallut
attacher avec des cordes les couvercles des baquets où vivaient les
serpents et je dus me contenter du bruit des sifflements et du
désespoir des coups de queue.
Les enfants de Singapour obtenaient une pièce d’argent par tête
de crapaud qu’ils m’apportaient. J’en avais réuni un grand nombre.
Je venais d’acheter au maître d’équipage d’un vaisseau qui arrivait
d’Amérique, une famille de pipas qui sont de curieux crapauds à tête
triangulaire, avec un long cou doué d’une certaine sveltesse.
Je leur fis subir le même sort qu’à mes serpents.
Ali ayant enfermé par hasard dans une cage un de ces pipas
avec une grosse couleuvre, je fus témoin de la terreur du pipa qui
allongea son cou tremblant jusqu’à le briser et mourut d’épouvante,
avant d’être absorbé par la couleuvre.
Cela me donna l’idée d’un nouveau supplice ; celui de
l’épouvante.
J’enfermai les faibles avec les forts, je mis face à face des
victimes et des bourreaux. Je fis manger les crapauds par les
serpents. Puis je livrai mes serpents à mes jabirus à long bec, à mes
savacous à bec large et court, à mes marabouts au bec en couteau,
à mes agamis au bec en fer de sabre. Je me délectai au craquement
des épines dorsales, au froissement des écailles, au broiement des
têtes plates.
Mon esprit subit une singulière évolution.
L’œil sanguinolent du tigre, la mort des serpents et des crapauds,
après la douleur du poison, cela ne me parut pas suffisant. Je voulus
faire souffrir toutes les bêtes, car je sentais qu’il y avait un lien de
parenté étroite entre les espèces les plus différentes.
J’enflammai, une fois, le plumage d’un héron qui m’avait déplu et
je le fis courir comme une torche oiseau dans une cour où je l’avais
enfermé.
Je fus irrité, jusqu’à en être réveillé la nuit, par l’intelligence d’un
couple de singes cynocéphales du Siam et de leurs enfants.
Ils étaient de grande taille. Ils habitaient une hutte au fond du
jardin, buvaient et mangeaient à la manière des hommes, faisaient
de petits travaux sur les indications de mes employés, étaient
toujours aimables et doux. Chaque soir, à la minute où le soleil
disparaît sur les rochers des îles Carimons, chaque matin, au
moment où il se lève sur les rivages feuillus de Battam et la mer de
Chine, ils poussaient des cris, ils se tenaient debout et il y avait dans
leurs gesticulations quelque chose de sacré qui faisait penser aux
rites d’un culte primitif.
J’avais nié longtemps que des animaux pussent adorer le soleil.
Je m’étais moqué des voyageurs qui m’avaient raconté que dans le
haut Siam, ils avaient été témoins, à l’orée des grandes forêts, de
véritables cérémonies cultuelles accomplies au lever du jour, par le
peuple des singes.
Je vis de mes yeux, une scène qui ne me laissa aucun doute à
cet égard.
Je m’étais levé un matin plus tôt qu’à l’ordinaire et j’eus l’idée de
guetter ma famille de cynocéphales. Je les aperçus dans le
crépuscule auroral, sortant de leur hutte et se disposant en demi-
cercle silencieusement. Lorsque le premier rayon du soleil atteignit
le sommet du plus haut palmier du jardin, le père de famille, dont les
yeux étaient tournés vers le palmier, leva les deux bras et à ce signal
ils poussèrent tous ensemble un cri où il y avait une gravité
inaccoutumée.
Mais alors, soit par oubli des rites, soit par puérilité naturelle, le
plus petit des singes, qui était un enfant, quittant la place qui lui avait
été désignée, se mit à faire deux ou trois gambades et à se frotter
plaisamment le dessus du crâne. Une grande consternation
s’empara de toute la famille et le père saisissant son fils par le cou,
du revers de la main lui administra une sévère correction, puis le
lança dans la hutte où ses gémissements m’apprirent jusqu’au soir
qu’il était enfermé par ordre paternel.
Je ne pensais jamais à Dieu et ne pratiquais pas la religion
protestante dans laquelle j’avais été élevé, mais j’attribuais aux
religions, en général, une supériorité vers laquelle je me refusais à
m’élever. Je ne pus supporter l’idée que ces créatures de la forêt
participaient d’un idéal que je m’étais interdit.
Le soir même, je déposai une jatte pleine de vin et d’alcool de riz
au seuil de la hutte des cynocéphales et je recommençai le
lendemain, et les jours suivants.
Les effets s’en firent sentir rapidement. Les singes vécurent dans
l’ivresse et perdirent les qualités qui les faisaient aimer. Au lieu de
provoquer l’admiration par leur vive intelligence et leur fantaisie ils
devinrent des bouffons ridicules dont s’amusait tout le personnel de
ma maison. Ils cessèrent de balayer et de faire des commissions. Ils
se mirent à voler et leur douceur se changea en méchanceté.
Je vins les guetter à nouveau, au lever du soleil. Ils ne se
tenaient plus droits. Ils ne poussaient plus de cris rythmés. Ils
couraient en se donnant des coups réciproquement autour de l’auge
vide où avait été le vin et ils en léchaient les parois. Le Dieu qui
commençait à naître dans leur âme était mort.
Je souffris aussi à cause de l’amitié d’un affreux chien jaune,
sans race, et d’un lion.
Un de mes employés avait mis le chien dans la cage du fauve
pour voir comment il serait dévoré. A sa grande surprise, le chien
n’avait montré aucune terreur et le lion aucune envie de dévorer
cette proie. Ils avaient joué ensemble et dormi à la fin, l’un dans les
pattes de l’autre. On parla de cette amitié dans Singapour et
beaucoup de gens vinrent voir les deux animaux dans la même
cage.
Comme le chien prélevait sa nourriture sur la part du lion, sans
provoquer la moindre colère de son compagnon, il fit des excès de
viande et contracta une sorte de gale. Je simulai pour cette maladie
un profond dégoût et j’en pris prétexte pour faire tuer le chien.
Désireux de me prouver à moi-même que les animaux n’étaient
pas capables d’un vrai sentiment amical, je me procurai, le
lendemain, un chien jaune, de la même taille que le premier et à peu
près semblable et je le fis placer dans la cage du lion.
Mais celui-ci entra dans une terrible colère. Il mit à mort, d’un
coup de griffe cette caricature d’ami et il rugit longtemps
désespérément à cause du souvenir de la bête galeuse que l’on
avait arrachée à son affection.
Un castor apprivoisé s’était construit une habitation en terre d’un
confortable extraordinaire. Il y avait transporté deux petits chats
trouvés je ne sais où et il les avait élevés avec sollicitude.
Mademoiselle Whampoa étant venue voir de nouveaux animaux que
j’avais reçus d’Afrique, remarqua les petits chats qui étaient
recouverts d’une fourrure splendide.
Je me hâtai de les lui offrir, non pour lui faire plaisir, car je
trouvais que cette jeune Chinoise riche était ridicule par l’affectation
de ses connaissances littéraires, mais dans le but de séparer le
castor de ses enfants d’adoption. Elle emporta les petits chats. La
maison des Whampoa était de l’autre côté de la rivière, derrière le
quartier chinois. Une haute muraille la séparait du faubourg.
Il y avait le lendemain matin au pied de cette haute muraille un
castor désespéré qui avait traversé Singapour en gémissant et que
lapidèrent les enfants.
Je me plus à torturer des béos.
Les béos sont de petits oiseaux très rares qui ont dans leur
plumage toutes les couleurs du prisme. Ils possèdent des nerfs
d’une si incroyable délicatesse que la vue d’un peu de sang répandu
suffit pour les faire mourir. Ils ont reçu le don de la connaissance
musicale, et ils souffrent et tombent en pâmoison, s’ils entendent
jouer faux.
J’en avais une demi-douzaine que j’avais payés très cher.
Comme ils étaient originaires de la Chine du Nord, je pensai que la
musique chinoise était celle à laquelle ils devaient être le plus
sensibles.
Je louai un joueur de raga avec l’ordre de jouer aux béos des airs
affreusement faux, de gratter son instrument d’une façon
discordante. Les oiseaux musiciens crièrent d’abord comme s’ils
étaient traversés par des aiguilles. L’un d’eux perdit la raison et se
noya volontairement dans le bol où il buvait. Les autres expirèrent
par le déchirement de leurs nerfs et je regardai avec satisfaction la
mort parcourir ces petits arcs-en-ciel de plumes.
Ma haine des bêtes me poussa à augmenter ma ménagerie
d’une collection de monstres comme si je trouvais dans la
déformation des espèces animales une satisfaction à cette haine.
Je me procurai un cheval nain d’Islande et un de ces ânes
rarissimes, nain aussi, qu’on ne trouve que dans les îles Andaman
où ils vivent à l’état sauvage.
Ils étaient tous les deux de la hauteur d’un chien de moyenne
taille. Le cheval avait une queue démesurée, l’âne d’extraordinaires
oreilles qui tombaient presque sur ses pieds. J’achetai, au poids de
l’or, un renard de l’Australie orientale dont la queue forme un large
parasol velu sous lequel il dort, abrité du soleil ; une chauve-souris
vampire dont la tête ressemblait à celle d’un philosophe chinois et
qui avait de longues moustaches tombantes et une tortue
platysterne de la rivière Tachylga qui avait un crâne dur comme une
pierre et une carapace molle sur laquelle étaient gravés très
nettement des caractères thibétains.
Ali le Macassar fit un voyage dans les Célèbes et à l’île Komodo,
lieu sauvage où vivent encore des représentants d’espèces
disparues. Il eut le bonheur de capturer un zanglodon, sorte de
poisson-lézard qui peut courir sur deux petites pattes de derrière
presque aussi vite qu’un homme, un stégosaure, sorte de poisson
porc-épic à bec crochu et un moas, autruche ridicule avec des yeux
exorbités et pareils à des boules de lait.
J’aménageai dans de vastes aquariums toutes les espèces
curieuses de l’univers sous-marin, des scorpènes blanches et
cornues, des pelors filamenteux, des monocentres du Japon, des
rémoras à ventouses, des simoksokas à marteau, des narwals à
épée, des lamentins avec des mamelles féminines et des ébauches
de bras humains.
Mais j’apportais dans ma passion de collectionneur une volonté
de déformation. Je coupai une oreille de l’âne nain, une seule ; je
rasai un côté des moustaches de la chauve-souris vampire, un seul
côté ; je dénaturai les caractères Thibétains de la tortue platysterne ;
je sciai des cornes, teignis des poils et inventai des appareils pour
déformer les fils des monstres et les rendre plus monstrueux.
Je crois qu’à cette époque de ma vie, la douleur causée par la
mort d’Eva et ma soif de vengeance troublèrent un peu mon esprit.
Je fis mille imprudences. J’entrai dans les cages des animaux les
plus féroces, avec ma cravache pour seule arme. Je luttai corps à
corps avec un ours blanc. Je fis travailler une bande de douze
hyènes qui sont les bêtes les plus foncièrement stupides et
mauvaises de la création. Je séparai deux jaguars mâles en train de
se battre et il n’y eut que la cage du tigre de Mérapi où je ne pénétrai
pas, car je savais avec certitude que mon pouvoir de maître expirait
là et que, dès que j’en aurais franchi la porte, je serais déchiqueté en
quelques secondes.
Et pourtant, je devins Panikia. Un Panikia est, comme chacun le

sait, le détenteur d’une formule magique dont l’action s’exerce sur
l’esprit de l’éléphant et qui, lorsqu’on en fait résonner les syllabes,
cloue sur place cet animal, même s’il est sauvage, et le rend docile
et fidèle.
On est Panikia de père en fils, en vertu d’un secret qu’on se
transmet sous la garantie du serment le plus sacré. Comme le
nombre des Panikia dans la Malaisie ne doit pas diminuer, en vertu
d’un mystère qu’il est vain de vouloir expliquer, le Panikia qui n’a pas
d’enfants doit choisir un homme qu’il estime pour lui confier son
merveilleux pouvoir.
Un vieux Malais de Timor se trouvant très malade, fit le voyage
de Singapour pour me transmettre la formule magique contre un
serment et quinze roupies qui devaient servir à ses funérailles.
Je n’ai jamais cru à ces billevesées que sont les superstitions. Je
donnai toutefois les quinze roupies au Panikia de Timor et gravai
dans ma mémoire les quatre paroles et leurs intonations. Il est dit

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Hannah Arendt: Between Ideologies

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ISSN 2662-6039 ISSN 2662-6047 (electronic)

Cover illustration: Oleksiy Maksymenko/Alamy Stock Photo

Hannah Arendt is a figure frequently studied and, quite frankly,

Thus, this book strives to unearth Arendt’s approach to the ideological

Florida Legislature, USA Rebecca Dew, Ph.D.

1 The Absent Arendt 1

2 Arendt Reading Aristotle 35

3 Arendt Reading Kant 53

4 Arendt Relating to Karl Jaspers 81

5 Arendt Thinking Through Heidegger 109

6 Arendt Along with the Existentialists 141

7 Arendt as Atypical 167

8 Arendt in Anticipation 185

The Absent Arendt

Tracing the development of modern philosophical history from the pen

© The Author(s) 2020 1

to associate modernity with a “revival of political thought”.1 As such, she

presents a future that can only be categorized as doubtful. In light of this,

helped train young émigrés to Palestine (Agriculture et Artisanat), then

I consider the picture Arendt portrays to be complicated insofar as the

While Arendt’s treatment of modernity is well-represented in her essays

calculated, and secretive consistency of the totalitarian regime is compa-

of its anti-tradition, its tendency towards the violent in its exaltation of

postmodernity: “Arendt calls on us to recognize that human plurality is

sustained by intersubjective acknowledgement. The reality of the world

conceive of politics as a means for the satisfaction of individual prefer-

its eventual substitution of bureaucracy, the rule of nobody, for personal

of the Arendt–Heidegger tandem remains Villa’s Arendt and Heideg-

totalitarian (although Arendt does not consider all consciences equally

relation to modernity, and, on the other, emphasizes that she is a woman

The comparative shortage with reference to other philosophical influences

of freedom and the spontaneity of new beginnings of relevance not only

65. Guignon (1993); Mulhall (2005).

(Benhabib 2003, 22–3, 28–9, 94). Her misattribution is further compli-

128. Jaspers is considered an important influence on Arendt, even alongside

Baehr, Peter. 2008. The ‘Masses’ in Hannah Arendt’s Theory of Totalitarianism.

Cascardi, Anthony. 1997. Communication and Transformation: Aesthetics and

Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon

Arendt Reading Aristotle

© The Author(s) 2020 35

Les jours passèrent. Le découragement s’empara des âmes. Les

Je me souviens de la singulière impression que j’éprouvai

LES YEUX DU TIGRE

Je me suis toujours considéré comme très intelligent parce que je

J’en arrivai, au bout de quelque temps, à être comme hypnotisé

Ma haine pour les bêtes augmenta d’autant plus que je la

Et pourtant, je devins Panikia. Un Panikia est, comme chacun le

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