Hannah Arendt has a way of meandering through her points in The Human Condition. While as a narrative, or at least by structuring them as dialogues like the Greeks she adores so much, this approach might be comforting and engaging it instead comes across as dense. At times Arendt's prose begins to slide towards being indecipherable but for the most part this just seems to make her ideas harder to digest than they need be.
One of many perspectives I enjoy of hers is found on pgs. 29-30
"What prevented the polis from violating the private lives of its citizens and made it hold sacred the boundaries surrounding each property was not respect for private property as we understand it, but the fact that without owning a house , a man could not participate in the affairs of the world because he had no location in it which was properly his own"
I think this is an interesting perspective for us living in a society that in many ways was founded as an exercise in negative liberty. The Polis seemed to require no distinction to provide clear distance from the private goings on of their citizens. This is provided from its form, not just an ideal or belief in a "right" . I think this important for us to remember when thinking about what structures of society can protect the individuals interest while also allowing someone to be human in their interaction with the larger group.
I agree that Arendt's ideas were more convoluted than they needed to be, especially with her many references to the Greeks. That made it slightly hard to focus on exactly what she was saying.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to contrast modern society with it's expectation of privacy from government, with the polis and its belief in minimal privacy for citizens. I agree with Arendt that our society should function more like the polis, in that it would accomplish more if more citizens were involved. People do need to have more interaction with each other in that regard.