Hannah Arendt's Writing - Essay Example

Hannah Arendt views on Democracy Hannah Arendt views democracy from a human being conditioning view. She says the politicians have a pre-revolutionary view on democracy. Arendt sees democracy as a form of freedom which can either be positive or negative. Hannah notes that democracy was detested by governments because it meant giving power to the public. Hannah says that in a democratic state the opinion of the public is given the first priority in ruling. In democracy the spirit of the public is set free .

Hannah says the democracy brings about the unity among the citizens. However, Hannah argues that citizens are often confused when it comes to interpreting the spirit of the public. Hannah notes that it is difficult in a democratic state to find unity among the citizens. The reason behind this is that each individual has his/her own opinion and these opinions do not represent those of the society at large. The society at can not reach a common opinion because the opinions of individuals are formed from free will and interactions.

Many revolutions especially the French revolution failed to be successful and at the end the French resulted to politicized state or terror state. Arendt takes a philosophical step to approach the status of law in totalitarian. Arendt questions the status of laws by defining the word ideology. Arendt claims that governments in totalitarian state are not formed through political philosophy. The totalitarian government does not consider lawless and lawful governments and legitimate and decent power (462).

Arendt is fast to note that totalitarian governments do operate with guidance in the law. Totalitarian is not arbitrary because it claims to observe the laws of nature and history of the state. Arendt writes that the totalitarian regime does not consider laws that are positive even if the governments say so. Arendt claims the totalitarian governments are lawfulness and through this lawfulness they defy the history or nature of history from positive status of law. Arendt says that totalitarian doesn’t translate the status of law standers as wrong or right.

As a result it is difficult to classify individual behaviors as wrong or right. Arendt notes that totalitarian masks or effaces the gap between the ruled and the rulers.Totalitarian government use terror to govern the people. Terror is effective on citizens who are drawn apart from each other. Isolation is the bleeding ground for terror, notes Arendt. Power is achieved by men who work together. Arendt notes that any group of people who are isolated cannot achieve power. Impotence and isolation has been the main cause of governments which are tyrannical.

Tyrannical forms of governments work by isolating the people in order to make them lose contacts of each other. Human beings do not lose all the contacts when they are isolated. They still maintain the all the components of a private life. The human capabilities of fabrication, thought and experience are not destroyed. All that terror does is to disband the human capabilities of doing actions. Arendt is quick to note that lowliness and isolation are different. Loneliness is the social word that is used in sociology.

She clearly distinguishes loneliness from isolation by asserting that one can be in a place where he/she cannot do something because there is no one to help regardless of the people within. One can be lonely for companionship without necessarily being isolated. Isolation is done when human beings are taken apart from each other due to political reasons. These political reasons include destruction of unity to carry out a common goal. Isolation destroys the ability of doing actions and power of the citizens.

Isolation is required for the full capacity of production by human beings. Arendt claims that man is homo Faber and tends to isolate his work from the rest of the human beings. Isolation can be unbearable when the human work world is destroyed. When human beings are conditioned to work or labor, the only thing that makes them to live is that work or labor. When the labor or work is destroyed the human beings become lonely. When a human being loses political power the world views that person as an animal laborans and no one cares about him or her.

Political sphere of life leads to isolation. Arendt argues that loneliness involves all the spheres of life both public and private life. The tyrannical forms of governments obliterate public spheres of life thereby leading to loneliness. (475) Totalitarian on the other hand, obliterate the private life of human beings through their political agendas. When someone is lonely he/she feels that they have no reason of living and thereby they divert to terror. When human beings feel they are worthless, they become desperate and radical.

Loneliness fosters totalitarian governments which is associated with superciliousness and up rootedness. Isolation is a major cause of isolation. Human beings need to interact with each other. Every human being has common sense that controls the actions and relationships they foster. Human beings need to rely on the truth that they need each other. Human beings need someone to fall back to when they lose their directions. Human beings need to reason and find ways of surviving in this world. When human beings use their common sense to reason they can create protected private sphere with a robust public sphere of life (478).

Arendt insists that the world we are living today is is full of totalitarian politics. These politics are full of problems which are in the form of sand storms. The real danger of not having a robust public life is that it will lead to loneliness which is destructive in its own self. Lack of a protected private life will lead to an antisocial behavior that will foster destruction of all human beings.