Hannah Arendt: The singular is never banal

When, if not now? In a world full of totalitarian regimes, full of populist ones fake news, full of wars and imperialism, it’s not just worth reading Hannah Arendt again – it’s becoming a chore! Their works are available, but entire generations have not read them. Your call to think is too often delegated to ideological thinkers, to preachers, to commanders in chief. You cannot and should not leave your own brain switched off when reading her works. Precisely because she too was sometimes wrong or contradicted herself.

The English professor of humanities and human rights at the University of Birmingham, Lyndsey Stonebridge, presents the entire cosmos of the political philosopher to the interested reading public. This is critical in the spirit of Arendt, but at the same time full of empathy for her basic call to think for yourself. The author explores striking stages and turning points in the life of her role model. She weaves in her own experiences and thoughts. Not only Arendt’s major works are the subject of her analysis, but also smaller works and essays, as well as the student’s love for her teacher Martin Heidegger, as it fits into the flowing narrative.

Of course, the first major work with the German title Elements and Origins of Total Domination, with which Arendt established her reputation as an authoritative intellectual, is at the forefront of Stonebridge’s reflections. The book, completed in 1951, “shot up the American bestseller lists in the months after Donald Trump’s election in 2016, and in the first year of his presidency sales increased by a total of over 1,000 percent,” says the author. The loss of open discourse between thinking people led to or supported totalitarianism. This encouraged the rise of the Nazis in Germany. The same applies to Stalinism. Everywhere in the world where totalitarian regimes grew or grew like mushrooms, it was similar: lies, false prophecies, manipulations undermine and destroy every democratic community.

Stonebridge goes through Ahrendt’s works and statements chronologically. She has reservations in two places: On the one hand, regarding Ahrendt’s reaction to “Little Rock” (1957), when an African-American student, together with others, fought for her right to go to a state school, guaranteed by the US Supreme Court, against massive white resistance. The author accuses Ahrendt of having underestimated the fundamental importance of the fight for equal rights for all skin colors. Although Ahrendt was already opposed to all forms of racism from her own experience, she did not find an adequate approach to black America’s fight against racial segregation. Stonebridge also raises objections to her report “Eichmann in Jerusalem”: According to Ahrendt, the form of a “show trial” in the matter of the murder of Jews did not bring the actual defendant Eichmann to justice. And the word about the “banality of evil” that is attributed to Arendt was mentioned shortly after the end of the war in an exchange of letters between Ahrendt and Karl Jaspers – albeit in Jasper’s letter. Stonebridge also objects that Eichmann and his murderous organizational talent were by no means “banal.” But the singular is never banal. With the Shoah, the Nazis offended all of humanity. Ahrendt also wrote that in her trial report, which first appeared in the New Yorker, but didn’t always find the right tone for it.

Nevertheless, this book about Hannah Arendt encourages you to think and act in the spirit of the protagonist.

Lyndsey Stonebridge: We are free to change the world. Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience. A.d. English v. Frank Lachmann. CH Beck, 351 p., born, €26.

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