After reading Arendt a little more closely, and formulating my response to the 'art of politics' question posed in class, I have come to the conclusion that Arendt's argument is accurate- but with a few caveats.
Arendt's argument that politics exists solely to bring forth in men that which is 'great and radiant' (pg. 206), is entirely on topic. Arendt seems to be focused on the belief that the goal of politics is to further the human race, to allow those who are great to 'dare the extraordinary' (pg. 206). What she doesn't say explicitly (but what seems to be implied) is that the goal of politics is to allow those who are great to be discovered, to be taught, to be equals, to succeed. In our own society, the entire political sphere is dedicated to the 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Arendt is simply arguing that the pursuit of those ideals which allow us to prosper as individuals and as a polity are the only reason to come together in a public setting... by crowd-sourcing our ideals and ideas and separate perspectives we are lending power to the political body, which in turn illuminates those concepts and ideas that forward us as a people, as a country, and as a race. Arendt fleshes this out by discussing Aristotle's notion of actuality- where he states that politics is in the best interest of mankind precisely because mankind is coming together to bring out the best in itself. Although one can argue that Arendt ignores social issues in her discussion of politics, I would support the notion that Arendt was simply including them in the catch-all of problems and obstacles that 'great and radiant' solutions are meant to solve- and which are her entire rationale for the existence of politics itself.
I don’t think I agree that Arendt believes “the goal of politics is to further the human race”. Arendt seems pretty adamant that politics are not supposed to have any goal or aim. Action (the political), in Arendt’s mind, cannot have a goal, by definition, because there is no possible way of knowing what will happen when one undertakes action. Being courageous, taking action with no other purpose but to do so, and knowing that you have no control over or knowledge of the consequences is what makes something political.
ReplyDeleteArendt would also take issue with “the pursuit of happiness” having anything to do with politics. She says, “For only the animal laborans, and neither the craftsman nor the man of action, has ever demanded to be ‘happy’ or thought that mortal men could be happy.” I don’t know if that means she doesn’t think “happiness” exists; at the very least, she places it in the private realm. She does not think happiness or consideration of it belongs in the public realm.
I disagree that Arendt implies that "the goal of politics is to allow those who are great to be discovered." First, as Madeline pointed out, this is a specific goal. According to Arendt, politics and political action should be without goals. However, this is not merely a constraint imposed on us by the unpredictability of human affairs, but an acknowledgment that, for Arendt, the importance of action does not lie in what it achieves, but rather in the action itself. Action itself is vital, not because it has the potential to achieve human happiness, but because only through action can people actualize themselves in the 'space for appearance' and become human in a meaningful sense.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I would argue that when Arendt talks about achieving what is 'great and radiant' in politics, she is not talking about policy decisions or the solution of problems. The idea that politics is good because it allows us to pursue those policies which lead to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' is a social view. It looks at what is good for a group of people, or a nation as a whole. Arendt explicitly separates the political from the social, and in fact claims that the absorption of authentic political action l by social concerns is a great problem of modern politics.