Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Arendt: The Meaning of Revolution
9
Hannah Arendt
1906-1975
The Meaning of Revolution
Place
your logo here
Part One:
Revolutions aren't merely changes
They're beginnings
When did Revolutions become Social?
Society of Abundance
Part I
Emancipation of All
Labor = not just toil, but source of wealth
America became the symbol of a society without poverty
Power, Divided
Montesquieu's Division of Power: Divide power even though your leaders are chosen.
(This doesn't happen to the same extent in Europe; they believed that the state wouldn't survive if it was divided--the nation-state required undivided power)
Power, Divided
In the US: Branches of government; local and state politics, term limits, elections, limited government, the Bill of Rights
Spirit First
Jefferson: The experiment was that the poor would participate, just like the rich--galvanized the Revolutionary Spirit
Spirit First
The discovery: Change the 'fabric' of society first--an insistence on equality.
Get Revolutionary before you get a Revolution
Plus, it turns out that a mild government is a good refuge for those who want to be revolutionary...
Equality and Time
Equality grew up natrually in the US, not through bloodshed.
Is this a uniquely Christian concept?
Equality and Time
No:
The condition for Revolution was probably secularism
Rectilinear History does gain traction from Christianity, but only Christian history
Modern Revolution:
Truly Unknown Prior to US and French
Part II
Novelty
Novelty
They are New: a story that has never been told
Plot: Emergence of Freedom (versus Liberation)
Liberation: Absence of active restraints on you
(Condition of Freedom; doesn't automatically lead to it)
Freedom: Previously understood to be the range of non-political activities which a body politics will permit or even guarantee
Freedom, for Arendt, is something more...
Greeks & Freedom
Greeks & Freedom
Polis is an Isonomy : No distinction between Ruler and Ruled
No-Rule
People who were critical of the system said that it would just devolve into a "democracy"
Isonomy =/= an equality of condition
Because we are not born equally, we need institutions that will make us equal
Herodotus: if there is a ruler, there is no freedom. (Even the ruler is not free; if you disable equality, you disable politics)
Freedom is Public: activities seen by others who judge/remember them
Freedom for Us
Freedom for Us
Aiming at Freedom for these Revolutions meant something different
Didn't have "civil rights" in mind (ability to participate freely)
Instead: three inalienable rights of man
Basically aimed at Liberty: freedom from unjustified restraint;
NEGATIVE FREEDOMS
To have positive freedom, we needed the Republic
Only through participation could positive rights be guaranteed; it was discovered that participation was actually enjoyable
What IS Freedom, then?
Page 26
The ability to start ANEW--to experience novelty, to participate in something unprecedented
ONLY NEWNESS IS REVOLUTIONARY
Machiavelli/ Revolutionary?
A. Still believes in some kind of cyclical: Monarchy -> Democracy -> Oligarchy -> Monarchy
B. Sought a revival of roman antiquity (based on Authority)
Part III
C. Sought a Foundation--a new beginning, which required violence and change. Is THIS revolutionary?
Yes:
1. Rebellion and Revolt existed--but they didn't include freedom
2. Always based on replacing one leader with another--not for Machiavelli. He imagined a new type of unified Italy based around a free Republic.
Part IV
Revolutionary Spirit
vs.
Spirit that actually grew out of revolution
Modern yearning for novelty at any price
Part IV
Originally: Revolution was an astronomical term
Even the Glorious Revolution of 1660 was a restoration of monarchy
Revolutionary Intent? (37)
Revolutionaries weren't that interested in the experience of the new
Many participating in the revolution thought it was a restoration, not a revolution
Revolutionary Intent? (37)
Only after the fact did they realize it was a revolution (Paine: it was a counter revolution)
Novelty was around at this point, but it wasn't used as a political term or goal
Only through these revolutions did we realized that a new beginning could be a political phenomenon--that a new beginning could be the result of what men had done.
The French
1789 Def of Revolutionary: Following a pre-ordained path; Anonymous Force, beyond the willful aims of agents.
1789: The king: "It's a revolt!"
"No, it's a revolution!"
Part V
Resistant to human control; beyond the power of a king
Upheaval: the poor came into the light--the public realm must now be public.
It was a revolution because it was a wave beyond human control
History Emerges
What emerged was not a science of politics, but a philosophy of history
Hegalian Conception of History: Actions unfold based on conditions alone; events are pre-ordained, even if we cannot predict them; history occurs out of necessity.
History Emerges
The fallacy in this version of history: viewing human action from the standpoint of a spectator rather than an agent
Revolutionary Paradox
Necessity vs. Freedom:
Revolution is derived from necessary conditions and carries humans on its unstoppable flow (absence of freedom) in order to establish freedom through revolution (the new/unknown.
Revolutionary Paradox
Both natural sciences (cyclical, law-abiding, conditional march of history) and Rectilinear (unkown, open ended) based on political experience
French?
It was the French Revolution that gave us this concept--not the American
The US revolution was re-infected with the reclamation of the old
French?
Since then:
People are swept up by revolutionary stormwinds into uncertain futures (instead of architects designing revolutions
Only the practice of doing something new resulted in revolutions, but this was in large part due to circumstances.
Events vs. Architects
History gave the Americans the opportunity; it would have been their fault not to seize it
Only after the fact could we look back and see that it was unparalleled
Events vs. Architects
50: It was the course of events, not men that they had imitated; they knew that A Revolution must devour its own children; each party must play a particular role for the revolution to occur