Hannah Arendt, theory of revolution, politics of non-violent action

Max Weber y la superioridad sobre Arendt: Hannah Arendt y su errado concepto del poder político a la luz del sociólogo y politólogo Weber: el poder como sometimiento de voluntades. Mi artículo en el portal madrileño @Neupic, líder en el novedoso y revolucionario sistema del periodismo de autor, que es el Periodismo del siglo XXI
https://neupic.com/articles/max-weber-y-la-superioridad-sobre-hannah-arendt

Cosa significa protestare per le strade, perché occupare uno spazio nella città? Veniamo da un recente risveglio, da anni che hanno riportato la politica nelle piazze e nelle strade. In tutto il mondo uomini e donne sono scesi in piazza manifestando un'urgenza condivisa di resistenza, di riappropriazione degli spazi e della capacità di agire e fare politica a partire dalle vite. Come comprendere la specificità di queste esperienze? Perché chiamarle rivolte urbane e non rivoluzioni? Quali sono gli strumenti per leggere una rivolta senza astrarre, generalizzare, neutralizzare? Stare per le strade è la pratica di 'stasis' che crea lo spazio per la rivolta e contemporaneamente dispone un modo affettivo di vivere lo spazio urbano. Durante una protesta, la corporeità è esposta in tutta la sua intensità appassionata e vulnerabile. Il corpo al centro permette di cogliere la relazione che questi eventi intessono con gli spazi urbani, il nuovo senso della politica che propongono e i rapporti tra uomini e donne nel momento della protesta.

Throughout history, violence has been used as a means to achieve political goals, it has proven to have a central role in social and political change. Anti-colonial and liberation movements, including the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli Occupation, have often embraced violent tactics as a means of struggle. All the same, nonviolent principles gained a prevailing status within the Israeli Jewish community supporting the Palestinian cause, anti-Occupation Israeli NGOs and individuals are constantly promoting nonviolence as the only and most effective means of resistance against the Occupation. Subsequently, nonviolence became a central principle for alliances between Israelis and Palestinians struggling against the occupation.
Focusing on the material and ideological conditions in which nonviolence has become the only legitimate discourse within the Israeli anti-Occupation movement; this thesis examines the role of Israeli activism within the struggle against the Occupation, primarily, the influence of the prevailing attitudes concerning nonviolence upon the alliances between Israelis and Palestinians struggling against the Occupation. Using a comprehensive theoretical framework concerning violence, nonviolence and modern structures of control, I argue the emphasis of nonviolence rhetoric and action serves mainly to overshadow and legitimize the violence inherent to the Israeli domination. Thus, these prevailing attitudes among Israeli dissidents unwittingly confirm rather than contest Israeli violence.
In the first part of this study, I set up the theoretical framework through which I seek to examine the axis of violence/nonviolence and the limits of cooperation and struggle in Israel/Palestine. I then review the contemporary state of the Israeli opposition to the Occupation, focusing on the production of the ideology of nonviolence. Finally, I present an analyses focusing on the discursive and practical limits surrounding emancipatory violence produced by Israeli organizations struggling against the Occupation, pointing at the compliance these organizations and individuals partake with notions produced by the State of Israel.

The great political achievement of the modern era, stable representative democracies that legitimate power, are everywhere under attack. No thinker can better help understand our present democratic disillusionment than Hannah Arendt. Arendt argues that as bureaucracies and governments grow, individual action is evermore attenuated in its ability to make a difference in the world. The result is frustration that can lead to indignation and anger of citizens on both the left and the right. And a consequence of this increasing anger and frustration is the glorification of protest as a space of freedom in modern politics. In this paper I explore the works of a number of political theorists who have been writing in the last twenty to thirty years and who are all arguing that the place to look for freedom is not in government, but in protest. And I'm going to contrast them with Arendt's argument that freedom must be instituted and founded in political institutions. The three theorists of protest I have in mind are Simon Critchley, David Graeber, and Jacques Rancière.

À la suite d'Arendt et de Heidegger, le national-socialisme a été réinterprété comme un révélateur de la modernité technicienne au point que l'institution nazie des camps de concentration et d'extermination s'est vue érigée en paradigme de cette modernité. Cette vision postmoderne de l'histoire du XX e siècle mérite d'être interrogée 2. Il importe également d'élucider une question bien actuelle, qui met en jeu les références intellectuelles sur lesquelles appuyer un enseignement portant sur la Shoah. Comment se fait-il en effet que Heidegger, ce professeur et recteur national-socialiste interdit d'enseignement en 1945, a pu conquérir une audience planétaire telle que sa pensée, au lieu d'être reconnue comme un cas exemplaire, dans le champ philosophique, de la vision du monde ou Weltanschauung nationale-socialiste dont ses écrits font l'éloge 3 , est devenue au contraire une source d'inspiration pour penser le nazisme ? De quelle réception at -il bénéficié pour que, du penseur nazi qu'il est à l'évidence, il se soit vu conférer le statut de penseur du nazisme, ce qui est tout autre chose ? Bref, comment en est-on venu à soutenir, aujourd'hui encore, que la philosophie aurait besoin de l'auteur des Cahiers noirs pour « penser la Shoah » ? Que l'étude de l'extermination nazie suppose celle d'auteurs nationaux-socialistes aussi radicaux que Heidegger et qui ont explicitement légitimé cette extermination 4 , cela est justifié, mais 1 Emmanuel Faye est professeur de philosophie moderne et contemporaine à l'université de Rouen-Normandie. Il a publié notamment Heidegger, l'introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie (Paris, Albin Michel, 2005 ; Le Livre de Poche, 2007, traduit en six langues), le collectif international Heidegger, le sol, la communauté, la race (Paris, Beauchesne, 2014) et Arendt et Heidegger, extermination nazie et destruction de la pensée (Paris, Albin Michel, 2016). 2 Dans cet esprit, cet article prolonge et complète un essai récemment consacré à l'étude des relations intellectuelles entre Hannah Arendt et son ancien professeur (Faye, Arendt et Heidegger, op. cit.). À la suite d'un premier ouvrage destiné à montrer, à partir de deux séminaires inédits, que la vision du monde nationale-socialiste s'inscrivait dans les fondements mêmes de la pensée heideggérienne (Heidegger, l'introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie, op. cit.), Arendt et Heidegger s'interroge sur les conditions de la réception planétaire de Heidegger et fait le point sur les révélations apportées par la publication des premiers Cahiers noirs. 3 Martin Heidegger enseigne par exemple en 1933-1934 que « lorsque aujourd'hui le Führer parle sans cesse de la rééducation en direction de la vision du monde nationale-socialiste, cela ne signifie pas inculquer n'importe quel slogan mais produire une transformation totale, un projet mondial sur le fondement duquel il éduque le peuple tout entier ». (Gesamtausgabe vol. 36/37, Francfort, Klostermann, 2001, p. 225). 4 Heidegger a appelé ses étudiants à préparer sur le long terme et à se donner pour but l'« extermination totale » de l'ennemi intérieur incrusté dans la racine du peuple (Gesamtausgabe vol. 36/37, op. cit., p. 90-91) et en 1941, dans ses Cahiers noirs, il a fait l'éloge de la politique nazie contraignant l'ennemi à procéder à sa propre « auto-extermination » (Gesamtausgabe vol. 96, Francfort, Klostermann, 2014, p. 260).

El presente trabajo es una reflexión sobre el totalitarismo en la actualidad tomando como base el estudio de la filósofa Hannah Arendt que en su ensayo sobre “Los orígenes del totalitarismo” describió los elementos más importantes en la construcción del estado totalitario. Luego se presenta como ejemplo totalitario de nuestros días la Federación Rusa, desde la postura del escritor ruso Vladimir Sorokin que describe en su libro “El día del oprichnik” la transformación que ocurre en su país que se encamina hacia un estado absolutista, recordando a los zares de la época imperial.Finalmente se muestra desde el populismo, la llegada del totalitarismo a Latinoamérica, mostrando particularmente el ejemplo de Venezuela que, desde el análisis realizado, se encamina a ser un régimen totalitario.


The present work is a reflection on totalitarianism today, based on the study of the philosopher Hannah Arendt, who in her essay on "The origins of totalitarianism" described the most important elements in the construction of the totalitarian state. Then comes the Russian Federation as a totalitarian example, from the position of the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin, who describes in his book "The day of the oprichnik" the transformation that takes place in his country that is headed towards an absolutist state, reminding the Czar of the imperial era. Finally, from the point of view of populism, the arrival of totalitarianism in Latin America, showing in particular the example of Venezuela that, from the analysis carried out, is aimed at being a totalitarian regime.

Hannah Arendt, « On the Nature of Totalitarianism: An Essay in Understanding » [Conferences New School for Social Research, 1954], Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism, Ed. Jerome Kohn, New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1994, pp. 328-360   

sinfulness, that totalitarianism requires total domination and global rule and is prepared to commit crimes which are unprecedented in the long and sinful history of mankind. Of. The operation Hitler and Stalin performed on their respective ideologies was simply to take them dead seriously, and that meant driving their pretentious implications to that extreme of logical consequence where they would look, to the normal eye, preposterously absurd. If you believe in earnest that the bourgeoisie is not simply antagonistic to the interests of the worker, but is dying, then evidently you are permitted to kill all bourgeois. If you take literally the dictum that the Jews, far from merely being the enemies of other people, are actually vermin, created as vermin by nature and therefore predestined to suffer the same fate as lice and bedbugs, then you have established a perfect argument for their extermination. This stringent logicality as an inspiration of action permeates the whole structure of totalitarian movements and totalitarian governments. The most persuasive argument, of which Hitler and Stalin were equally fond, is to insist that whoever says A must necessarily also say Band C and finally end with the last letter of the alphabet. Everything which stands in the way of this kind of reasoning-reality, experience, and the daily network of human relationships and interdependence-is overruled. Even the advice of common self-interest shares this fate in extreme cases, as was proved over and over again by the way Hitler conducted his war. Mere logic, which starts from one single accepted premise-what Hitler used to call his supreme gift of "ice-cold rea-soning"-remains always the ultimate guiding principle. We may say, then, that in totalitarian governments, Montesquieu's principle of action is replaced by ideology. Though up till now we have been confronted with only two types of totalitarianism, each started from an ideological belief whose appeal to large masses of people had already been demonstrated and both of which were therefore thought to be highly appropriate to inspire action, to set the masses in motion. Yet, if we look closer at what is really happening, or has been happening during the last thirty years, to these masses and their individual members, we shall discover the disconcerting ease with which so many changed from a red *This and the preceding ten paragraphs are from the manuscript entitled "Ideology and Propaganda."-Ed.

The aim of this article is to revisit public happiness as Arendt develops it explicitly in On Revolution-and implicitly elsewhere throughout her oeuvre-in order to philosophically evaluate its ability to beget a political-theoretical framework able to relate politics to an "affective realignment," alternative to the hegemonic paradigms of "againstness" and "resistance." I will analyze the Arendtian theoretical framework regarding action, freedom, and happiness in its relation to the thinker's political ontology, testing its ability to restore for us a political imaginary that is generative and affirmative. Can Arendt can help us understand the political momentum of the present and by so doing help us reassess the political, freeing it from the depoliticized quagmire of these overtly neoliberal times?

Partindo da definição "a contrario" de Democracia como o oposto de Autocracia e de uma leitura social dos processos de democratização, essa tese objetiva avaliar criticamente a teoria da ação de Hannah Arendt, reconstruída a partir de um mosaico conceitual envolvendo quatro fontes que inspiraram seu pensamento: Heidegger, Jaspers, Homero e Marx. Mas, diante da escassez de exemplos concretos, propõe-se ampliar a materialidade dessa teoria por meio de três formas de ação: ação-como-Revolução (problematizada, por encontrar-se em certa medida fora do âmbito político arendtiano), ação-como-Resistência (relativizada, enquanto seja uma definição negativa ou extralegal) e ação-como-Fundação (pouco explorada na literatura, mas entendida aqui como a forma autêntica e promissora de ação em uma democracia). Analisa-se, em cada forma de ação, a controversa distinção arendtiana entre a questão política e a questão social à luz de desenvolvimentos contemporâneos nas teorias da democracia, como a readequação da noção de igualdade e a fundamentação moral dos conflitos sociais na teoria do reconhecimento. Finalmente, por meio de três perspectivas de avaliação e crítica – da “sombra totalitária”, da “justiça social” e da “formação identitária”, conclui-se que se deve responder negativamente às duas perguntas orientadoras da tese: Arendt é uma democrata? Arendt é contra a Democracia?

ABSTRACT
As if Authenticity Matters:
The Fall of Contemplation and The Rise of The Social Realm
Zachary Anton Reznichek
As a corrupted byproduct of socioeconomic politics, curriculum philosophy is unsuitable to solve its own problems or reform itself. Leaving the educational field, I consider the foundation of education through a political philosophy frame. Using Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition to differentiate between active living and merely existing, I explore the pre-Socratic definitions of authenticity, politics, freedom, plurality, public, private, labor, work and action. With this political framework, I investigate the rise of the social realm from the fall of the public and private realms in three key historic periods: Ancient Greece's 4th Century B.C.E. shift from democracy to empire; the institution of neo-Platonism as Catholicism in the 4th Century A.D. to redeem the Roman empire; and the 19th Century lapse into modern consumerism from Marx's inability to reconcile the economic alienation of the Industrial Revolution. I show that the rise of Western society has galvanized essentialism and fostered a disconnect with authenticity and our human senses. I identify the anxiety created by the conditioned feeling that one cannot trust one's own senses is the catalyst of existentialism. I run authenticity through the existential frame of plurality, ambiguity and existential self-validation. It becomes evident that contemplation is the missing element in curriculum philosophy. I review two curriculum initiatives that I believe foster contemplation in students: Transcendental Meditation in schools and Outward Bound educational adventure trips. I make recommendations of how to combine authenticity, Transcendental Meditation, and Outward Bound into practical curriculum philosophy.

Bu makalede, Gezi Parkı olayları sırasında ve sonrasında Türkiye’deki performatif protesto eylemleri ve bu bağlamda performans sanatçılarının rolü üzerinde duracağım. Butler’ın “performativite” anlayışı aracılığıyla, Gezi’nin “performatif” protesto eylemlerinden bazılarının, yeni tiyatro oyunlarında da devamını gördüğümüz daha geniş çaplı bir kültürel dönüşüme nasıl tanıklık ettiğini açıklayacağım. Performans sanatçılarının bir dizi performatif eylem yoluyla Gezi’nin “taktiksel repertuarları”nın yanı sıra (Tilly, 1978), bir “duygu yapısı” (Williams, 1977) olarak Türkiye’deki protesto kültürünün ayrılmaz parçası haline gelmiş olan  ‘yeni’ bir performativite anlayışı aracılığıyla da Gezi’nin simgesel siyasetine (Sears, 1993) katkılarının yadsınamaz olduğu kanısındayım. Özellikle önemli bir performatif taktiği Peggy Phelan’ın “etkin gözden kayboluş” kavramına başvurarak açıklayacağım. Duran Adama tekrar dönerek ve bu eylemi Judith Butler’ın (2011) yorumladığı biçimiyle Hannah Arendt’in “görünüş alanı” kavramına bağlayarak da, fark edilmemiş kalmak ile tanınmamış kimliklere alan açma talep etmek arasında, şimdiye kadar dile getirilmemiş ancak  önemli bir ilişkiyi çözümlemeyi amaçlıyorum. Bunu yaparak, performatif protesto hareketlerini Türkiye'deki maddi muhalif kültürün ayrılmaz bir parçası olarak ele almanın yanı sıra, performatif protesto eylemlerini simgesel olarak okurken bunların kendine has toplumsal ve siyasi yönlerini göz ardı eden son dönem Tiyatro ve Performans Çalışmalarının da bir eleştirisini yapmayı amaçlıyorum.

Edited version of published paper presented at 'Is Black and Red Dead?' Conference, Centre for the Study of Social and Global and Justice (CSSGJ) University of Nottingham, 7-8 September, 2009

https://socialhistoryportal.org/news/articles/110943

Aquello que incita a Hannah Arendt a escribir está vinculado con el intento, tenaz, por comprender el presente. El pensamiento, repite en diversas ocasiones, nace siempre en contacto con los acontecimientos. La exigencia de comprender la terrible novedad del presente constituye, justamente, el motivo por el cual Arendt siente la urgencia de confrontarse con la tradición de pensamiento político occidental. Explorar esa exigencia es el proyecto de este libro. Para ello, fueron convocados algunos de los grandes conocedores mundiales de la obra de Arendt: Fina Birulés, Simona Forti, À. Lorena Fuster, Martine Leibovici y Matías Sirczuk. Con estudios preparados especialmente para este volumen, ellos indagan las lecturas que Hannah Arendt hizo de las obras de Sócrates, de Montesquieu, de Kant, de Rousseau y de Marx. Estas diversas lecturas muestran el modo en que el surgimiento en el corazón de Europa de una nueva forma de dominación puso a Arendt en guardia respecto de una tradición que –desde sus inicios– se instituyó contra la escena plural de la política. “Podría decirse –señalan los editores del volumen– que es el fracaso de la tradición para dar cuenta del totalitarismo lo que le permitió volver sobre los textos del pasado, contar efectivamente una historia […] en la que aparece, bajo una nueva luz, la tensión entre el pensar y la política, entre la filosofía y el mundo plural de la ciudad.”

The paper concerns Hannah Arendt's attempt to identify both historical types and conceptual understandings of revolution that can be considered to be genuinely 'political.' Its aim is to first reconstruct Arendt's distinction between 'political' and 'anti-political' processes and conceptions of profound, lasting transformation. In this section of the paper, it will be shown to what extent the critical distinction she proposes is informed by her understanding of (a) the role of the social question' and (b) the role of violence for the praxis as well as the theory of revolution. In a second step, the focus will be on the problematization of certain aspects of her critique of political revolution that lead, as will be argued, to the counter-intuitive exclusion of a variety phenomena and theories as properly revolutionary. The final part of the paper will hint at the possibility of a productive re-appropriation of Arendt's critique of political revolution.

What is the phenomenon we call public space? How much are we aware of these public spaces mentioned in our daily lives, and how much are we in that public space? How did this phenomenon change and take shape from past to present? In this article I try to understand these questions a little bit and think about them.

For centuries, several disciplines have tried to tackle the topic of how legitimate it is to use violence in order to solve social problems. One of the most recent interdisciplinary approaches (and one of the most successful in present-day Latin America) is the so-called “Ethics of Liberation,” designed by Enrique Dussel. Based on the Theology of Liberation, this theory goes beyond the limits of theology as a discipline and pleads for three ethical criteria that every political revolution must fulfill to use violence in a legitimate way. The first is a formal criterion, which basically takes after the ideal dialogue situation endorsed by Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas, and purports to be rooted in yet another discipline, linguistics. The second is a material criterion, defined as the upshot of an acceptable welfare for all citizens, thus intimately linked with the discipline of economy and political philosophy. The third is a criterion of feasibility, which makes a revolt legitimate if, and only if, it has a reasonable possibility of succeeding; hence strategic issues take a leading role. This essay contends that each of these criteria is conceptually incompatible with violence. Hence, Dussel’s arguments involve multiple contradictions as he aims to justify the use of violence precisely with these interdisciplinary criteria.

Arendt's reflections on the critical issues of Human Rights still hold relevance after seventy years: the news reports the baffling condition of immigrants, refugees, sans papier and people trying to cross borders towards a better life daily. These people are still forced to live outside the law as the displaced persons have been since the two World wars. Arendt's claim on the emptiness of human rights-which are guaranteed only when they are citizens' rights-has been discussed by French philosophers like Rancière and Balibar. These philosophers affirms the effectiveness of human rights for political action: Rancière states that human rights open the political space for the inclusion of the excluded; for Balibar human rights are both extensively and intensively universal, that is, they exclude exclusion. Contrastingly, the Italian jurist Agamben radicalizes Arendt's thesis: human rights are the means for an original violence towards men, because their exclusive inclusion pins them to bare life. This paper aims to discuss these reading on the matter of human rights, focusing on Arendt's constitutional politics. Her discussion on the birth of the United States reveals that she considered the horizontal and vertical multiplication of power institutions as the core solution against both political exclusion and institutional weakening. Universal institutions do not exclude local ones, but they strengthen each other. Arendt's idea offers a way to rethink humanity and universal inclusion, through concrete institutions which make rights effective.

Presentaremos aquí una lectura de Sobre la revolución para poner en valor la tarea crítica sobre los conceptos políticos de la tradición en la elaboración de una teoría política propia de gran originalidad. Primero, analizaremos las dificultades metodológicas y contextuales del libro. Segundo, analizaremos el trabajo de renovación de ciertos conceptos políticos claves para la idea de promesa mutua (su mayor innovación conceptual). Luego, reflexionaremos sobre el tipo de instituciones que piensa Arendt en torno a la fundación de la libertad en el mundo contemporáneo. Finalmente, ofreceremos algunas conclusiones que se desprenden de nuestra lectura del texto.

In the study of revolutionary events, it is often assumed that ‘political crisis’ attests to the failure of revolutionary ideals. Accordingly, revolution is understood as the pursuit of political consensus and the institutionalization of freedom and equality at the level of the state. In contrast, this article describes how, during the recent revolution in Yemen, revolutionaries actively negated proposals for a ‘political solution.’ It explores how the desire to contain power within the imaginary of ‘the people’ and safeguard revolutionary freedom produced instead an ethical charter for perpetuating a crisis of politics. As such, it argues that revolution should be understood less in terms of a seamless teleology of political development and more according to the immediate ethics of living a revolutionary life.

In the following, I will trace the presence of Montesquieu in Arendt’s work, giving an account of both Arendt’s praise for the French writer’s particular way of thinking the political and his approach to problems that will become central to the development of Arendt’s own thought. Firstly, I will follow Arendt down the path that led her to discover fundamental tools in Montesquieu for understanding totalitarianism “with eyes unclouded by philosophy”. Secondly, I will track the way in which the Arendtian reconceptualization of some key political words –power, law and freedom– is threaded through with her reading of the French author. Thirdly, I will look into the way in which Montesquieu’s formulation of a particular link between what Arendt calls the basic experience and the political regime, allows her to go on to discover a criteria that makes it possible to distinguish between political and anti-political ways of living together; and allows us to see that there is a phenomenally essential element within tyranny and totalitarianism that ensures that it “develops the germs of its own destruction the moment it comes into existence”.

¿Cómo fundar regímenes políticos duraderos cuando resulta imposible encontrar un polo incondicionado desde el cual derivar la legitimidad de la ley? ¿Cómo establecerlos en las condiciones políticas de la modernidad, en una situación en que las fuentes tradicionales de legitimidad han desaparecido o se han vuelto ineficaces? ¿Sobre qué -o sobre quién- asentar la fundación? Orientado por estas preguntas, Matías Sirczuk analiza el modo particular en el que Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt y Claude Lefort responden al enigma de la institución del régimen político y a la pregunta por su fundamento. A través de la interpretación de estos autores, el libro despliega los modos disímiles en los que, en un siglo atravesado por la entrada en escena de fenómenos que pulverizaron todas nuestras categorías de pensamiento y nuestros criterios de juicio, es posible pensar lo político de modo inédito.

La propaganda, como Ayala afirmaba, es una irrupción violenta en el mundo de las representaciones de los ciudadanos; constituye un proceso por el cual se ofrece al individuo atomizado un refugio y una seguridad nuevos, como decía Eric Fromm. La Teoría del Emplazamiento/Desplazamiento nos subraya que la propaganda actúa sobre el nivel más profundo de construcción simbólica humana para establecer una "doxa", una creencia fuerte (que aboca al dogma), que transforma nuestros parámetros cognitivos y pervierte las respuestas a las legítimas necesidades de sociabilidad de los seres humanos. Por ello, la Teoría del Emplazamiento propone antídotos frente a estas dinámicas de control social: el impulso de una ciudadanía formada, crítica y creativa, más impermeable a la tormenta de la interesada confrontación política.

Los actos violentos que se narran en La cinta
blanca (Michael Haneke, 2009) nos llevan a
plantearnos ciertas cuestiones sobre lo que
Hannah Arendt dio en llamar “banalidad del
mal” y cómo dicho concepto se refleja en el filme.
Retomando algunas de las cuestiones planteadas
por la autora en sus obras Los orígenes del
totalitarismo (1951), La condición humana (1958) y
Eichmann en Jerusalén. Un estudio sobre la banalidad
del mal (1963) trataremos de dar respuesta a las
siguientes preguntas: ¿son los niños/as incapaces
de percibir la maldad de sus actos?, ¿son
conscientes moralmente?, ¿la violencia se utiliza
como una forma de revelarse frente a la
autoridad o como un modo de poner en juego los
valores que ésta les ha enseñado? Es decir,
¿podemos hablar de la banalidad del mal para
describir los actos de los/as niños/as? La
respuesta a esta pregunta parece ser afirmativa,
pero cabe establecer una distinción importante
entre los diferentes actos que se describen en el
filme, para esto acudiremos también a las ideas
de autores como Peter Sloterdijk y Jean Paul
Sartre.

En la hierba que cubra causas y consecuencias seguro que habrá alguien tumbado, con una espiga entre los dientes, mirando las nubes. Wisława Szymborska (2010, p. 156-157) Escribir sobre Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) en las pri-meras décadas del siglo XXI, puede constituirse en algo reiterativo, incluso riesgoso. Traer al presente reflexiones traccionadas por acontecimientos concretos que impac-taron un siglo diferente del que vivimos, puede tener sus derivas anacrónicas y en algunos casos, resultar im-pugnadoras de los sentidos de aquellas. Sin embargo, las tensiones entre el punto de origen de toda producción intelectual, el espacio-tiempo que la atraviesa y las condi-ciones de aceptación y resistencia, habilitan la posibilidad de desplazarnos de la díada omnicomprensión o sinopsis

The whole article can be read in the following site:
https://www.pdcnet.org/arendtstudies/content/arendtstudies_2018_0999_10_9_16

Further research on this topic can be read here:
https://www.academia.edu/30502447/Ph._D._Hannah_Arendt_on_the_question_of_authority_Concluding_Remarks_

And here:
https://www.academia.edu/31488906/Hannah_Arendt._Una_lectura_desde_la_autoridad_Tesis_doctoral_

Draft Book Proposal--received contract but looking for a different publisher that will guarantee a paperback edition. 

Across Arendt’s writings one can find a deep concern for ways to engage citizens in democratic action.  From her early work on Rahel Varnhagen, to her famous engagement with the challenges of Totalitarianism, to her later works of political theory, to her last works on The Life of the Mind, one can trace a continuing concern with how people can be helped to engage with the social and political challenges of their time.  Why do some people not follow the mass?  What conditions allow citizens to collaborate on political challenges as equals? 

The book will balance an appreciation of her insights into the contingencies of history, the importance of narrative in understanding, and the complexities of collaboration, with limitations in her understandings of brute force and social solidarity.  I will extend on my earlier findings about the (often productive) contradictions and tensions among the different threads of her conceptual analyses, tracing out contradictions in her conception of public engagement.  The book will supplement her thought with insights drawn from other work I am completing on the community organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky.

Arendt argued that actual experience in the world was critical for understanding, and I will argue, in part, that her lack of experience with the lives of workers and poor people (experiences that Alinsky brings to the discussion) ultimately misled her about the limitations of laborers.  And I will draw on evidence that she misunderstood a critical example in her work: the experiences of participants in the different “council” movements she described in On Revolution and which underlay a somewhat utopian vision of an alternative and more authentically “public” society.  In my conclusion I will draw these findings together with actual examples of strategies for civic empowerment from my own work teaching social action skills as well as to the work of different Alinsky-informed organizing groups, laying out what it might look like to bring the visions of Arendt and Alinsky together in a comprehensive vision of civic education.