Politics and Freedom

Arendt on Freedom & Politicsa lecture in 5 parts

Structure of Arendt’s lecture

1) Freedom is the point of politics; freedom is not the feeling of freedom, freedom does not mark the end of politics.

2) Freedom is not free-will, freedom is action.

3) Freedom is not Sovereignty.

4) To be free is to begin.

5) The contemporary dangers from both totalitarianism & consumer culture.

Part I

● Arendt wants to introduce an old Greek idea of freedom

● An idea of freedom that ties together freedom & politics

● “The raison d'être of politics is freedom, and its field of experience is action”

Adversaries

● What does Arendt wish to distinguish (her version of) freedom from ?

● Firstly the idea of 'free will' : Christianity (which she does not come to till part II)

● Secondly the feeling of freedom; ‘inner experience’ : Stoicism (dealt with immediately but briefly)

● Thirdly the idea that freedom marks the limit of politics : liberalism & totalitarianism (the focus of the majority of part I)

Epictetus & self-mastery

● One of the great Stoic philosophers● We can never truly control our circumstances,

all we can control is ourselves● Therefore true freedom is self-mastery

● Arendt dismisses this as ‘derivative’ but does she confuse a pedagogical order for a logical one?

Greek ideas

● A precondition for freedom is the freedom from toil, from the home

● Never forget that the freedom of Greek men was built on slavery and domestic servitude

● But this precondition only allows for, is not the same as freedom

● Real freedom is the freedom to act in the polis.● Real freedom needs other free men to be free with

“not every form of human intercourse and not every kind of community is characterized by freedom”

“Those who confuse liberty with security”

● Arendt has a tricky line to chart :– On the one hand she utterly rejects the totalitarian

identification of politics with all spheres of life (her experience of living & escaping from Nazi Germany made her an unswerving critic of totalitarianims)

– On the other hand she wants to avoid the easy option of opposing totalitarianism with liberalism because liberalism’s separation & opposition of politics and freedom she sees as also wrong

“deserve neither safety nor liberty”

● In the C17th we see a move to argue that the purpose of the State is to provide security

● The purpose of security is to allow civil freedoms● These claims are perfectly understandable in the twin

contexts of the wars ravaging Europe and the rise of a middle class

● But Arendt will not give up on the older idea of freedom. Her resistance reminds me of Berlin’s comment about not collapsing government into mere managerialsim

Part II (p.63)

● Arendt starts talking about “action”● Background: from Human Condition● Labour – toil on the repetitive necessities of life

(e.g. washing up)● Work – creation of objects (e.g. pots) ● Action – by which she means political action. This

takes place in public and changes the world as people come together to produce something new.

Action and Principles

● Acting is not the same as willing● Acting is not the same as choosing

“Unlike the judgement of the intellect which precedes action, and unlike the command of the will

which initiates it, the inspiring principle becomes fully manifest only in the performing act itself, which,

however, does not exhaust its validity.”

Freedom in / is action

“Men are free-as distinguished from their possessing the gift for freedom-as long as they

act, neither before nor after; for to be free and to act are the same.”

Virtù-osity

● Arendt suggests that Machiavelli’s concept of virtù is appropriate for understanding freedom

● In particular she emphasises freedom’s relationship with the performing arts, where excellence and performance coincide

● Politics though is not an art (except metaphorically) because institutions rely on continued action, there is no permanent end object / product

Politics is not management

● We go astray in understanding politics because we see it but rarely.● We think politics is governing, governance, or management –

targets and focus groups.

● True politics is rare, a great speech, a powerful action.

“Courage is indispensable because in politics not life but the world is at stake, a world about which we have to

decide how it is going to look and to sound and in what shape we want it to outlast us.”

Part III (p.67)

● ‘We’ are heirs to a dominant Christian tradition (don’t forget that Arendt was Jewish herself) in thinking about politics

● Arendt points out that so much of our way of thinking about freedom, freedom of the will originates with Augustine.

● The Greeks had no free-will !

I-will / I can

● The Greeks understood problems of moderation and self-control.

● Before one could command others, one had to be able to command oneself.

● Arendt is ignoring here the discussion of ‘akrasia’ or ‘weakness of the will’ but for the Greeks, this was a puzzle (and it rarely had anything to do with the will), not the normal state of affairs.

“Christian will-power was discovered as an organ of self-liberation and immediately found wanting. It is as though the I-will immediately paralysed the I -can, as though the moment men willed freedom,

they lost their capacity to be free.” (p.71)

From virtuosity to Sovereignty

● Instead of looking at the performance to see freedom

● We now look at the conditions to judge freedom● Only the ‘sovereign individual’ is judged to be truly

free● Philosophically, we struggle to find a truly

sovereign individual … this is the problem of free-will (all our actions have either causes or reasons as their foundation)

Part IV (p.73)back to the Greeks – to begin again● Arendt starts with a bit of Ancient Greek:● ἀρχείν : archein● From where we get arché (mon-archy etc.)● Why do we care ? ● Because along with the meanings Arendt

lists for us, it can also mean principle thus tying us back to her earlier linking of action with principles

To begin

● Arendt adds a new complexion to what makes something a political action :

● it must be a beginning (of something)● or in other words, a foundation.● Arendt writes of actions as ‘miracles’● NOT in the sense of the ‘super-natural’ but in

the sense of the unexpected (though with hindsight they may appear inevitable)

Part V (p.77)Contemporary Dangers

● Arendt’s view of politics is inherently anti-conservative.

● It is opposed to the idea both that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ and that ‘nothing can be done’.

● But being anti-conservative is not the same as being nice – you can have a reactionary politics (think Tea Party) as easily as a progressive one.

● Arendt ends very sombrely – she was concerned about the end of life from nuclear warfare, but we may have similar worries about ecological disaster

● Even the more upbeat amongst us can see the difficulty in her vision of politics.