- Author : Chiwon Choi
- Publisher : Zeitschrift der Koreanisch-Deutschen Gesellschaft fuer Sozialwissenschaften
- Publication : Koreanisch-Deutsche Gesellschaft Fuer Sozialwissenschaften(K-G Association For Social Sciences)
- Volume : 34(4)
- Date : December 2024
Abstract: Arendt claimed to think without a banister. However, as is most clearly confirmed in The Human Condition(1958), she never thought without banisters. What she has thrown away is, however, only the banisters of modernity, not the those of antiquity and the Middle Ages. For her, the loss of tradition is virtually nonexistent or just an empty phrase, since she persistently emphasizes and attempts to restore ancient traditions and authority. This self-contradiction is the characteristic and essence of Arendt’s thinking. Above all, she does not touch at all on the principles of modern practical labor nor considers she critically the problem of private property right as Hegel and Marx did, but deals with ‘labor’ of modern society with banisters of antiquity. This is anachronistic. ‘Labor’, ‘work’ and ‘action’ are merely ideal types(Weber) as heuristic means for thinking about reality, but she is silent about this point. Her banisters, which oppose the modern ideas of Hegel and Marx, is heavily influenced by the legacy of German Historicism and Romanticism as the antipode to the Enlightenment. Her banisters, which are ideational, are supplemented by another powerful ones, the theological·moral logic of good and evil and the esthetic logic of beauty and ugliness. She arranges ‘labor’, ‘work’ and ‘action’ according to ‘the hierarchy of vita activa’ and uses all kinds of literary and poetic symbols, rhetoric, and imagination to blur her ideational banisters, making it difficult to see. The human condition is in this respect a product of literary imagination but spreads a kind of gospel about life. In other words, it retains elements of revelation and prophecy and appeals to Arendt’s believers. In conclusion, The Human Condition has enough value to be evaluated as a beautiful literary work as much as the metaphor of ‘thinking without a banister’, however, this does not mean that her banisters has disappeared or has been abandoned as she claims. Her claim that the banisters have been removed from the thinking herself is either a lie or lip service to deceive the reader. Rather, she shows a self-contradiction in that if there had been no ‘banisters,’ not only would she never have been able to think as she wanted, but her own thought itself would not have been established. All this is revealed in the structure and character of her banisters and in their intellectual origins.
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