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work:
labor:
the end-product:
[the model/idea of a table]
production -->
definite
beginning
definite
end
hannah arendt (1906-1975)
[Q] how public do you think we are when we are -- while listening to our ipods -- taking the bus?
action:
[Q] what kind of equality is arendt talking about here? is it a "universal equality" -- or "equality" as being commensurable?
(1) flight from the earth into the universe
(2) flight from the world into the self
Mao Tse-Tung: "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among People" (1957)
"Those who demand freedom and democracy in the abstract regard democracy as an end and not as a means. Democracy as such sometimes seems to be an end, but it is in fact only a means. Marxism teaches us that democracy is part of the superstructure and belongs to the realm of politics. That is to say, in the last analysis, it serves the economic base. The same is true of freedom. Both democracy and freedom are relative, not absolute, and they come into being and develop in specific historical conditions."
Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) -- "Epilogue" --
"even though we might lack bread and other necessities of life, we wanted freedom. we, the young people, were particularly hampered because we were brought up amidst lies. we continually had to lie. we could not have a healthy idea, because everything was choked in us. we wanted freedom of thought." (a young girl student from the united nations' report on the problem of hungary)
"what I propose is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing." (5)
human condition
human nature
[Q] what are we doing?
"the most radical change in the human condition we can imagine would be an emigration of men from the earth to some other planet. such an event, no longer totally impossible, would imply that man would have to live under man-made conditions, radically different from those the earth offers him." (10)
arendt's critique of traditional political philosophy ~ misrepresentation of human activity
earth ~ the quintessence of the human condition
[Q] is there, then, for arendt, an essence to human existence?
bios -- action (praxis) as the focus --
VERSUS
zoe ~ mere life (bound by necessity & utility)
marx: misconception of political action for a combination of labor & work:
political action ~ making
plato: contempt for democracy -- the political being informed by the knowledge of the philosopher --> "eternal truth"
bios politikos: a life devoted to public-political matters (aristotle) (12)
the question for us is not
"what am i?" or "what are we?"
BUT
neither labor nor work --> bios
- to understand:
. the conditions of the activities of the vita activa
. the difference between utility & meaningfulness
. the political as that which is different from the social
. the difference between whatness & whoness
. FREEDOM as the "reason of being" of the POLITICAL
necessity
usefulness/utility
plato:
perception of truth --> essentially speechless.
promethean powers --> releasing processes with unfathomable consequences:
contemplation versus (political) activity:
acting & being together ~
zoon politikon --
[when translated as]:
going back:
[Q] what kind of activity is labor? and work?
thus: the coercion of truth.
~ alliance between people for a specific purpose.
theoria ~ contemplation --> experience of the eternal. (20)
labor --> condition of life
work --> condition of worldliness
action --> condition of plurality
[Q] do we need others to labor?
[Q] plato's understanding of justice?
[Q] what was the purpose of society for plato? hobbes?
action: entirely dependent upon the constant presence of others. (23)
power --> power struggles regarding the ruler versus the ruled.
"to be political, to live in a polis, meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through force and violence. in greek self-understanding, to force people by violence, to command rather than persuade, were prepolitical ways of to deal with people..." (26-7)
[Q] the distinction between the "what" and the "who" of the human being?
"thought was secondary to speech, but speech and action were considered to be coeval and coequal, of the same rank and the same kind; and this originally meant not only that most political action, in so far as it remains outside the sphere of violence, is indeed transacted in words, but more fundamentally that finding the right words at the right moment, quite apart from the information or communication they may convey, is action." (26)
[Q] back to the link between freedom and speech?
[Q] what about hobbes?
how are decisions made in a political order for hobbes?
private versus public
emerged in the modern age with political form of a nation-state.
body of people & political community ~ family
[Q] examples?
"the vita activa, human life in so far as it is actively engaged in doing something, is always rooted in a world of men and of man-made things which it never leaves or altogether transcends." (22)
[think "private" -- needs & desires]
"whether a nation consists of equals or non-equals is of no great importance in this respect, for society always demands that its members act as though they were members of one enormous family which has only one opinion and one interest." (39)
the driving force of politics (after the model of a household) becomes LIFE itself.
[versus] the polis: realm of FREEDOM.
criticism of -->
politics ~ only a means to protect society
"...in addition to the conditions under which life is given to man on earth, and partly out of them, their human origin and their variability notwithstanding, possess the same conditioning power as natural things. ... this is why men, no matter what they do, are always conditioned beings." (9)
[Q] can we understand this human condition to be the same as a human nature?
the world in which the vita activa spends itself consists of things produced by human activities; but the things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers... (9)
human existence: