“Things and men form the environment for each of man's activities, which would be pointless without such location; yet this environment, the world to which we are born, would not exist without the human activity which produces it, as in the case of the fabricated things; which takes care of it, as in the case of cultivated land;or which established it through organization, as in the case of body politic. (p.22)

While upon a second or third reading it becomes clear what Arendt is trying to convey (the world that we live in would not exist would not be so without human activity). Unfortunately this sentence suffers from wordiness and and runs quiet long. Furthermore, this sentence is for a lack of a better word, clunky. In other words this sentence does not flow very well and thus requires several readings to fully understand what she is trying to say.

I have a question concerning the reading for this week (I hope questions are an acceptable form of post). On page 40, Arendt first makes the distinction between action and behavior, the former belonging to the public (political) realm and the latter belonging to the sort-of public, sort-of private (private made public?) social realm. She writes later, "This modern equality, based on the conformism inherent in society and possible only because behavior has replaced action as the foremost mode of human relationship..." (41).

It seems like this is a trivial distinction. Aren't behaviors just action in the aggregate? I understand that she's trying to discuss the "equalizing" effect of society, or the conformity society demands of people through a prescribed pattern of behavior, but I think its an unhelpful choice of words, if nothing else. Am I just getting too stuck on the plain-text reading of it?

Personally outstanding passages by Arendt

My example of a poorly written sentence comes from the bottom of page 16:

"If, therefore, the use of the term vita activa, as I propose it here, is in manifest contradiction to the tradition, it is because I doubt not the validity of the experience underlying the distinction but rather the hierarchical order inherent in it from its inception"

The most important problem I have with this sentence is that it runs for far too long. Also the way it is phrased made it difficult to follow as I was reading so I had to reread it a few times and I still dont know that I fully understand Arendt's intention behind it.  Her contrast between vita activa and vita contemplativa is interesting though their are several more run on sentences and instances of odd word choice which made this a difficult section to read and comprehend. Had I been reviewing this book before its release I would have encouraged Arendt to slim down some of her sentences and maybe alter her word choice in certain spots.

My choice for a good sentence:

"The mortality of men lies in the fact that individual life, with a recognizable life-story from birth to death, rises out of biological life." (19).

This is a very clear and concise sentence which conveys its intended message very well. Arendt is making an interesting distinction between the human life and all other life and while this statement may not be without its flaws, at least it is much clearer than my previous example. This sentence is part of her larger argument that men are the only true mortals as each of us is distinctly unique while other creatures only exist as members of a species and lack the unique characteristics of man. This viewpoint can arguably be challenged by notions of unique animals such as pets or other beings which are capable of producing works and deeds which may detract from the quality of the sentence. I did enjoy this section more so than others and thought that this passage was a good way of conveying Arendt's message.

Blog Post 4/4/12 Arendt Sentence Examples

My choice for a ‘bad sentence’

“The astonishing flowering of poetry and music from the middle of the eighteenth century until almost the last third of the nineteenth, accompanied by the rise of the novel, the only entirely social art form, coinciding with a no less striking decline of all the more public arts, especially architecture, is sufficient testimony to a close relationship between the social and the intimate.” P.39

This is a bad sentence because it does not read well at all. The meaning is not hard to ascertain but it is so poorly formed that the reader must spend extra time just to get the gist of it. This is because this sentence has way too many commas and is far too long. After reading the whole thing, the reader has to stop and break down the meaning of each individual phrase to put together what it means as a whole. Here is how I would rewrite the sentence to make it easier on the reader.

During the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the intimate arts of poetry and music were accompanied by the rise of the novel, an entirely social art form. This, in combination with the decline of public art forms such as architecture, is evidence of a close relationship between the social and the intimate.

My choice for a ‘good sentence’

“The distinction between man and animal runs right through the human species itself: only the best (aristoi), who constantly prove themselves to be the best (aristeuein, a verb for which there is no equivalent in any other language) and who “prefer immortal fame to mortal things, “are really human; the others, content with whatever pleasures nature will yield them, live and die like animals.” P. 19

This is one of the best sentences that I have read by Arendt because not only is it extremely powerful (like many of her other sentences) but part of the reason it is so powerful is because of how clear and concise it is. If you take out the parentheses, it reads like this.

“The distinction between man and animal runs right through the human species itself: only the best who constantly prove themselves to be the and who “prefer immortal fame to mortal things, “are really human; the others, content with whatever pleasures nature will yield them, live and die like animals.” P. 19

In one sentence and only one sentence, she states exactly what it is that she thinks makes us human. Whether you agree or not if the quest for immortality is where the line should be drawn, it forces you to deeply reflect on the content of the writing. This is an impressive thing to accomplish in just one sentence and is surely a sign of intelligent, thought provoking writing.

Bad and Good Sentences

Hey everyone. I have to admit my level of comprehension of this reading wasn't great, but bearing that in mind, let me give this a shot. I also forgot to pay attention to good and bad writing as I was reading this, but from skimming through some pages here are examples that stood out to me.

Bad sentence:

"What all Greek philosophers, no matter how opposed to polis life, took for granted is that freedom is exclusively located in the economic realm, that necessity is primarily a prepolitical phenomenon, characteristic of the private household organization, and that force and violence are justified in this sphere because they are the only means to master necessity-for instance, by ruling over slaves-and to become free."

I've read this several times and my brain always seems to get lost by the end, especially at the "and to become free" with as many interjections and commas as there are in this sentence, there are a few too many new things to jump around with to follow clearly. This sentence does not clearly articulate what I think she means which is that Greek philosophers regardless of their opinion on polis life took for granted about freedom is that it was only in economics, and not a characteristic of private places, and that because of this there was violence in the household against among other things slaves. At least I think that's what this was saying. It's written so badly I'm not even 100% sure of that.

Good sentence:

"The public realm, in other words, was reserved for individuality; it was the only place where men could show who they really and inexchangeably were."

This is about as straight forward and clear a sentence as one could be. In this sentence Arendt clearly coveys the point that the place where individuality flourished was in the public realm and that that's where men could really be themselves. Unlike many of her sentences, this did not require me to go back and reread it several times to grasp it.

I think part of my overall problem with most of Arendt's writing is that I am not very used to reading theory. Different writing styles are used for different things, and I don't generally read much beyond encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines, and online sites, which are a very different kind of writing from many fictional stories and from philosophical and theoretical works. Perhaps as I read more of this type of writing I shall become more accustomed to it. I think Arendt's intended audience was fellow intellectuals, theorists, and philosophers, not the average Joe.

Blog/Comment Assignments

Week 2
Post to Blog by Wed @9pm
everyone with last name A-M

Comments on Posts by Thurs @8am
everyone with last name N-Z

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

Questions to think about as you are reading...
--How does Arendt define "labor," "work," and "action"? Do Arendt's definitions match your own conceptions?
--What is the vita activa? How does the vita activa relate to politics?
--What is the relationship between the "private" realm and the "public" realm, according to Arendt? Can you think of contemporary examples of the private and public?
--What is the "social," according to Arendt? Does she find it problematic?
--How does Arendt understand "appearance" in the public realm?
--Why is "goodness" destructive of the public, according to Arendt?

And to get the ball rolling....

My choice for a 'bad' sentence:
"The objectivity of the world--its object- or thing-character--and the human condition supplement each other; because human existence is conditioned existence, it would be impossible without things, and things would be a heap of unrelated articles, a non-world, if they were not the conditioners of human existence." p. 9
My explanation for why:
I think the ideas that Arendt tries to convey in this sentence are profound (i.e., that humans reside in and interact with a world of objects and things; that those materials gain significance and meaning because of the way that they are used and perceived by humans). However, I do find Arendt's repeated use of "thing" and "object" confusing on first read because of the vagueness and abstractness of both nouns. She uses "objectivity" in a way that is surprising to me and it took a couple of readings to make some sense of what she meant. Also, I was confused a little bit about how the verb "supplement" is supposed to operate: does the human condition really supplement the objective world or is it necessarily dependent upon it? Maybe another verb choice would have been better?

My choice for a 'good' sentence:
"Privacy was like the other, the dark and hidden side of the public realm, and while to be political meant to attain the highest possibility of human existence, to have no private place of one's own (like a slave) meant to be no longer human." p. 64
My explanation for why:
I think that this sentence conveys a range of ideas in an elegant and also thought-provoking way. Arendt had previously discussed how privacy was thought of by the Greeks and Romans as a form of deprivation (namely, in the private realm one could not participate in politics and one was tied to bodily needs). In the sentence above, she builds upon and complicates that earlier conception by indicating that a complete lack of privacy was also a deprivation. As a result, she leads the reader (me) to some new thoughts about the risks possible with too much privacy and too little privacy. I also liked how Arendt was able to illustrate how privacy was a necessary factor in politics. Finally, Arendt used an evocative example ("like a slave") to lend detail and specificity to her argument.