Out of darkness, light: Arendt's cautionary and constructive political theories

European Journal of Political Theory

Volumn 8, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 157-182

  Berger, Ben ^a  

^a SWARTHMORE COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Arendt; Civic republican; Freedom; Interpretation; Plurality; Totalitarianism; Visibility

Indexed keywords

EID: 63249110291     PISSN: 14748851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474885108100851     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. I am indebted to numerous colleagues (listed alphabetically) for helpful insights and discussion at various stages of this manuscript's development: Sigal Benporath, Peter Berkowitz, Michaele Ferguson, Bryan Garsten, Suzanne Jacobitti, Patchen Markell, Andrew Sabl, Michael Sandel, Roy Tsao and Dana Villa.
2. My analysis here is limited to those aspects of Arendt's voluminous writings concerned with political action and the public realm. For the political realm as the space of freedom, see Hannah Arendt (1993) 'What is Freedom?', in Between Past and Future, p. 146. New York: Penguin Books. For the role of action in the political realm see p. 151: 'Action, to be free, must be free from motive on one side, from its intended goal as a predictable effect on the other.'
3. I use 'literal' not in the sense of 'word for word' but 'the sense expressed by the actual wording of a passage', which contrasts with 'figurative' or 'metaphorical' (Oxford English Dictionary). When I write of interpretations that are almost completely literal I mean interpretations that take at face value Arendt's claims about politics, not interpretations that treat every single metaphor as fact. Arendt invites both literal and figurative interpretations because she mixes literal and figurative language throughout her writings. Cf George Kateb (1984) Hannah Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Evil, p. 162. NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.
4. Arendt writes glowingly of Thomas Jefferson's proposed ward system and its 'basic assumption... that no one could be called either happy or free without participating, and having a share, in public power'. Hannah Arendt (1990) On Revolution, p. 255. London; New York: Penguin Books. Philip Pettit acknowledges the common tendency to associate Arendt with communitarianism, see Philip Pettit (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, p. 8. New York: Oxford University Press. Michael Sandel lists Arendt among 'the communitarian, or republican alternatives' to rights-based liberalism, see Michael Sandel (1984) Liberalism and its Critics, p. 9. New York: New York University Press.
5. See e.g. Benjamin Barber (1984) Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Although Barber does not there endorse all aspects of Arendt's republicanism, elsewhere he groups himself and Arendt as theorists who use strong rhetoric and 'grand theory' in praise of political engagement. Cf. Benjamin Barber (2000) 'The Crack in the Picture Window', The Nation (7 Aug.).
6. See Hanna Fenichel Pitkin (1981) 'Justice: On Relating Private and Public', Political Theory 9(3): 327-52.
7. Cf. Pitkin (n. 6), pp. 327-52; Sheldon Wolin (1983) 'Hannah Arendt: Democracy and the Political', Salmagundi 60: 3-19. And Seyla Benhabib (1994) 'Hannah Arendt and the Redemptive Power of Narrative', in Hannah Arendt: Critical Essays, ed. Lewis and Sandra Hinchman. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. For a dissenting view on Arendt as a Greek idealizer, see Roy Tsao (2002) 'Arendt Against Athens', Political Theory 30(1): 97-123.
8. For example, Mark Reinhart agrees with some of Wolin's and Pitkin's criticisms but proposes to enlist Arendt's insights in his project while 'resisting her impulse to purify'. Mark Reinhart (1997) The Art of Being Free: Taking Liberties with Zarx, Tocqueville, and Arendt, pp. 143-9. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press..
9. Jeffrey Isaac (1992) Arendt, Camus, and Zodern Rebellion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
10. Jeffrey Miller (1979) 'The Pathos of Novelty: Hannah Arendt's Image of Freedom in the Modern World', in Melvyn A. Hill (ed.), Hannah Arendt: The Recovery of the Public World, pp. 183, 202. New York: St Martin's Press.
11. Mary Dietz (2000) 'Arendt and the Holocaust', in The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, ed. Dana Villa, p. 101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12. Ibid.
13. Nancy Rosenblum characterizes liberal democracy according to this Shklarian orientation. See Nancy Rosenblum (1998) Zembership and Zorals: The Personal/ses of Pluralism in America, p. 48. Ewing, NJ: Princeton University Press.
14. Bernard Yack describes some of this confusion, especially as it relates to recent republican or civic humanist arguments whose authors look to Arendt for support. See Bernard Yack (1993) The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought, pp. 9-14. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
15. As George Kateb rightly notes, 'we can learn from Arendt without endorsing every segment of her theory'. George Kateb (2000) 'Political Action: Its Nature and Advantages', in The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, ed. Dana Villa, p. 144. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16. While 'monism' might be a more literal antonym of plurality, Arendt repeatedly uses the term isolation and I follow her intentions.
17. 'Arendt's approach was, in her own terms, "systematic" ... one can discover order without insisting that that there is a final, total order into which all statements or trains of thought fit, leaving no loose ends.' Elizabeth Young-Bruehl (1982) Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, p. 74. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. See also p. 473.
18. James Miller also distinguishes between constructive and non-constructive strands of Arendt's political theory. Miller (n. 10), p. 202. Young-Bruehl distinguishes between Arendt's 'negative reactions' and the 'positive outcome of her impressions' in a situation regarding Arendt's reaction to non-political intellectuals before the war. Young-Bruehl (n. 17), p. 109. I must stress that 'constructive' and 'cautionary' are thematic distinctions. Some of Arendt's books, such as the Origins of Totalitarianism, are mostly cautionary in orientation but contain elements that resonate with her constructive ideals. Others, such as The Human Condition, are mostly constructive in orientation but still contain cautionary elements. On Revolution contains a mixture of cautionary and constructive orientations, the former in evidence when Arendt describes the French Revolution and the latter when she describes the American Revolution. Finally, some writings are only peripherally related to either cautionary or constructive orientations. Eichmann in Jerusalem fits into this category although it does contain passages that relate to each type of theory.
19. For the first point see Margaret Canovan (1992) Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of her Political Thought, p. 281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See also Dana Villa (1996) Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. For the second point see Canovan (n. 19), p. 7. See also Benhabib (n. 7) and Dietz (n. 11) for endorsements of such a contextual reading.
20. I do not intend to elide Arendt's own, clear distinctions between the harms of an overextended 'social' realm and the harms of totalitarianism.
21. Hannah Arendt (1959) The Human Condition, p. 7. New York: Doubleday. Young-Bruehl writes that, for Arendt, 'the political realm, not the social, is the realm of heroism and freedom'. Young-Bruehl (n. 17), p. 256.
22. Arendt (n. 21), p. 176.
23. Ibid. p. 177. Arendt adds that 'liberation... from the necessities of life' is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the more complete freedom of political life. Arendt (n. 2), p. 148.
24. Kateb (n. 3), p. 1.
25. 'The reality of the public realm relies on the simultaneous presence of innumerable perspectives and aspects in which the common world presents itself.' Arendt (n. 21), p. 57.
26. Ibid. pp. 208-9. See also Hannah Arendt (1979) The Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 476. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
27. 'Whenever the man-made world does not become the scene for action and speech... freedom has no worldly reality. Freedom as a demonstrable fact and politics coincide and are related to one another like two sides of the same matter... ' Arendt (n. 2), pp. 148-9.
28. Arendt (n. 21) p. 244.
29. Hannah Arendt (1972) 'On Violence', in Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics, Civil Disobedience, On Violence, Thoughts on Politics, and Revolution, p. 143. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
30. Arendt (n. 26), pp. 200 and 244-5.
31. For example, Arendt (n. 4), p. 253.
32. 32. Canovan (n. 19), p. 7. For a similar point, see Villa (n. 19), p. 84.
33. Arendt cites David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd to illustrate 'modern loneliness as a mass phenomenon'. Arendt (n. 21), p. 59.
34. For 'panopticism' see Michael Foucault (1977) Discipline and Punish. New York: Pantheon Books.
35. Arendt (n. 21), p. 50. In her metaphorical emphasis Arendt departs from Heidegger, who claims that philosophy relies too much on 'seeing' metaphors and proposes that we turn more exclusively to hearing.
36. Arendt (n. 21), p. 179. For politics as a stage for appearance, see Arendt (n. 1), p. 154.
37. Arendt (n. 21), p. 193. Arendt devotes two sections of The Human Condition (28 and 29) to the 'space of appearance', linking appearance to plurality, speech, action, cooperative power, and politics. Arendt (n. 21), pp. 199-212.
38. Arendt (n. 21), p. 193.
39. Ibid. p. 199.
40. Ibid. p. 52.
41. Arendt (n. 26), p. 502; see also p. 482.
42. Canovan (n. 19) writes that The Human Condition is about 'fundamental human activities that bear upon politics'. It is also, however, about fundamental human capacities that bear upon political activities.
43. Natality is synonymous with the power to create and to begin anew.
44. Arendt (n. 21), p. 36. Also Arendt (n. 1), p. 156.
45. Arendt (n. 21), p.186. Arendt also associates courage with leaving the private realm in Arendt (n. 2), p. 156.
46. Arendt (n. 21), p. 194. Given the context Arendt presumably means 'agonistic' rather than the word she uses, 'agonal', which actually means 'associated with agony'.
47. Arendt (n. 4), p. 119.
48. '[N]o activity can become excellent [without]... the constituent elements of the public realm.' Arendt (n. 21), p. 49.
49. Arendt (n. 26), p. 458.
50. 'Speech and action... are the modes in which human beings appear to each other... qua men. This appearance, as distinguished from mere bodily existence, rests on initiative... ' Arendt (n. 21), p. 177. See also Arendt (n. 26), p. 455.
51. Arendt (n. 2), pp. 148-9. Freedom as an inner capacity is the capacity to begin; but beginning is also 'politically... identical with man's freedom'.
52. Hannah Arendt (1970) 'Thinking and Moral Considerations: A Lecture', Social Research 38(3): 446; cited in Canovan (n. 19), p. 269.
53. Of Eichmann Arendt writes: 'There was no sign in him of firm ideological convictions or of specific evil motives... it was not stupidity but thoughtlessness.' Hannah Arendt (1977-8) Life of the Zind, p. 4. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Later in the essay Arendt writes that 'wickedness may be caused by absence of thought' (p. 13).
54. Arendt (n. 21), pp. 5 and 262. Hanna Pitkin points out that Arendt presents bureaucracy, 'the most social [and hence unpolitical] form of government', as 'an abdication of human initiative and judgment'. Hanna Pitkin (1998) The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of the Social, p. 79. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
55. This helps to explain why Arendt herself was uneasy about fame and hostile toward 'the European "society of celebrities" which had existed between the wars'. The celebrities 'whose distance from the nonfamous multitudes brought them blindness and sometimes susceptibility to collaboration with oppressors' had not earned their fame through feats of true greatness. Their repute was thus likely to be 'transient' and unstable, as opposed to the enduring fame of great deeds such as political 'foundings'. Young-Bruehl (n. 17), p. 461.
56. Arendt (n. 26), p. 120, and Arendt (n. 21), p. 55. Further, action 'creates the conditions for remembrance, that is, for history'. Arendt (n. 21), pp. 8-9.
57. Arendt (n. 21), pp. 173-4; also 'The Crisis in Culture', in Arendt (n. 1).
58. Arendt (n. 21), p. 180. Kateb acknowledges that glory does not always motivate those engaging in authentic politics (as in the case of the Hungarian revolutionaries). Kateb (n. 15), p. 139. But those revolutionaries can still achieve glory if their story is preserved in human memory, and that glory will constitute part of their greatness.
59. Arendt (n. 4), p. 220.
60. The phrase is from literary critic Jacques Derrida's work on intertextuality; see Derrida (1981). Mary Dietz uses a very similar metaphor to write about the consistent presence of the Holocaust in Arendt's writings, drawing on Harry Berger's insight into the 'felt absence' of themes that are 'conspicuously exclu[ded]' from great works. Our uses of these felicitous concepts developed separately, mine in the 1997 APSA paper that was this article's first presentation and Dietz's in Dietz (n. 11).
61. Arendt uses 'isolation' and 'atomization' almost interchangeably but uses the former term far more frequently.
62. Arendt (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem, p. 279. New York: Penguin Books.
63. '[T]otal domination.. strives to organize the infinite plurality and differentiation of human beings as if all of humanity were just one individual.' Arendt (n. 26), p. 438.
64. Arendt (n. 21), pp. 212-14; (n. 4), p. 94; (n. 26), 'Epilogue', p. 501.
65. The only truly reliable moral code is 'based entirely on the presence of others'. Arendt (n. 21), p. 238. Nazi totalitarianism, conversely, isolated victims and executioners alike; even Nazi storm troopers were kept in '7total separation from normality', so that 'they could not possibly get used to and take root in any other part of the ordinary world'. Arendt (n. 26), p. 372.
66. Arendt (n. 21), p. 6.
67. Ibid. p. 222. See also Alexis De Tocqueville (1969) Democracy in America, tr. George Lawrence, ed. J. P. Mayer, vol. 2. New York: Doubleday & Co.
68. Arendt (n. 4), pp. 74-9.
69. Arendt (n. 26), pp. 143 and 157. In the analysis that follows I only explain Arendt's interpretation of Hobbes rather than endorse or judge it.
70. Ibid. p. 139.
71. Ibid. p. 141.
72. My term 'moral deformation' implies the corruption of some pre-existing standard. In the previously cited passage (Arendt (n. 26), p. 141) she implies that all people have a 'rightful place' in society and public affairs, a right that derives at least partly from the 'natural connection' among 'fellow-men'. That connection becomes deformed in Hobbes's isolated individual.
73. Arendt (n. 26), p. 193. In characterizing the Boer's moral isolation, Arendt abstracts away from the fact that many of them lived with their families.
74. Arendt (n. 21), 284. See also Arendt (n. 26), p. 342.
75. Arendt (1993) Zen in Dark Times, p. 81. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.
76. Arendt (n. 26), p. 157. Most of Origins of Totalitarianism dwells on coercive as opposed to cooperative power, and coercive power - - which Arendt's constructive theory seeks to delegitimize - is associated with invisibility rather than visible plurality. 'The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are, the less power they carry.' Ibid. p. 403.
77. 'Isolation of atomized individuals provides not only the mass basis for totalitarian rule, but is carried through to the very top of the whole structure.' Arendt (n. 26), p. 407.
78. Arendt (n. 21), p. 188.
79. Arendt (n. 26), p. 438.
80. Ibid.
81. Arendt (n. 2), p. 149.
82. Arendt (n. 26), p. 495.
83. Arendt (n. 21), p. 199. Arendt agrees with Heraclitus that 'the world is one and common to those who are awake, but everybody who is asleep turns away to his own'.
84. A concentration camp survivor 'is often assailed by doubts with regard to his own truthfulness, as though he had mistaken a nightmare for reality'. Arendt (n. 26), p. 439.
85. Arendt (n. 21), p. 238.
86. For example, to enter the public realm is to appear to one's fellows, to 'see and be seen' in the public light. Conversely, to be private is to be invisible, 'that is... deprived of seeing and hearing others, of being seen and being heard by them'. Ibid. p. 58. Whereas plurality and politics involve a public appearance that confirms participants' unique identities, private isolation represents disappearance: 'as far as [others] are concerned, private man does not appear, and therefore it is as though he did not exist'. Ibid.
87. Arendt (n. 75), p. 16.
88. Ibid. pp. 16 and 13.
89. Ibid. p. 22.
90. Arendt describes a 'natural connection' among 'fellow-men' that could form the foundation of such an obligation. Arendt (n. 26), p. 141.
91. Arendt (n. 75), p. 4.
92. Arendt (n. 21), p. 322. In Arendt's works processes are connected with laboring and biological necessity as opposed to acting and political freedom.
93. Ibid. p. 323
94. For scientists' political significance, ibid. p. 322. For her fear of nuclear annihilation see Arendt (n. 62), p. 273.
95. Arendt (n. 21), p. 50.
96. Arendt (n. 75), p. 13)
97. Arendt (n. 75), p. 13. George Kateb aptly challenges Arendt's insistence that all 'worldalienation' is bought at great cost. See Kateb (n. 3), pp. 148-83. I agree with Kateb's point but here I am only concerned with presenting Arendt's argument.
98. Arendt (n. 4), p. 69. Arendt adds that 'the predicament of the poor after their self-preservation has been assured is that their lives are without consequence, and that they remain excluded from the light of the public realm where excellence can shine; they stand in darkness wherever they go'. Adams's Discourses on Davila, from which Arendt frequently quotes, seems strongly to influence her choice of metaphors.
99. Arendt (n. 26), pp. 434-5, 442.
100. Arendt (n. 21), p. 58.
101. Arendt (n. 26), p. 445.
102. Ibid. p. 455.
103. Ibid. p. 458.
104. Ibid. p.473. See also ibid. p. 455.
105. Ibid. p. 437.
106. See Arendt (n. 75), pp. 15-16; also Arendt (n. 21), p. 119.
107. Arendt (n. 4), pp. 95-6.
108. Arendt (n. 2), p. 149.
109. Arendt (n. 4), p. 96.
110. To Arendt, bodily functions not only represent necessity - the opposite of freedom - but are anti-plural in nature. As biologically needy beings, all humans are the same and can be grouped as a single organism. Arendt (n. 21), p. 213. The masses who stormed into broad view during the French Revolution were unitary and unpolitical because 'the cry for bread will always be uttered with one voice'. Arendt (n. 4), p. 94. Further, 'while it is true that freedom can only come to those whose needs have been fulfilled, it is equally true that it will escape those who are bent upon living for their desires', as Arendt claims of the poor. Arendt (n. 4), p. 139.
111. Aristotle's political 'good life' 'was "good" to the extent that by having mastered the necessities of sheer life" and by overcoming the innate urge of all living creatures for their own survival, it was no longer bound to the biological life process'. Arendt (n. 21), p. 37.
112. '[L]ove.... is killed, or rather extinguished, the moment it is displayed in public.' Arendt (n. 21), p. 51. Further, the heart deals with 'problems of darkness' but 'it has no solution for them, since a solution demands light, and it is precisely the light of the world that distorts the life of the heart'. Arendt (n. 4), pp. 96-7.
113. Pity can become an 'all-devouring passion' whose 'very boundlessness... seems to kill human dignity'. Arendt (n. 26), p. 329.
114. Nazi propaganda appealed to the equality of all Germans based on 'nature, and their absolute difference from all other people'. Conversely Arendt insists upon excluding 'givenness' from political consideration, which denotes 'all that is given in us by birth and which includes the shape of our bodies and the talents of our minds... those qualities which usually can become articulate only in the sphere of private life'. Arendt (n. 26), p. 296.
115. Arendt (n. 75), p. 127.
116. Arendt (n. 26), p. 296.
117. Ibid. pp. 434-5 - stress added.
118. Ibid. pp. 439 and 445.
119. The references are to Arendt (n. 21), p. 244, and (n. 26), pp. 434-5.
120. Arendt (n. 4), p. 275. Arendt calls these capacities the required 'political passions', by which term 'she also means virtues, in this context'. Kateb (n. 15), p. 136.
121. Cf. Young-Bruehl (n. 17), pp. 461-3.
122. One of the best examples is Rousseau's admission that he is naturally good but without political virtue, and that he could not have been a citizen in the Social Contract's strictly regimented republic. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1992) Reveries of the Solitary Walker, ed. Charles E. Butterworth, pp. 77 and 83. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.
123. Cf. Wolin (n. 7); Pitkin (n. 6); Benhabib (n. 7).
124. Arendt (n. 4), p. 254; see also pp. 275-80, where Arendt accepts the idea of participation by an elite as long as that elite is self-selected, based on political passions and virtues. Reinhart (n. 8) also notes Arendt's apparent comfort with non-inclusive politics.
125. Pitkin (n. 6) criticizes Arendt on these grounds.
126. As Alexis de Tocqueville suggests, while '[a]t first it is of necessity that men attend to the public interest', in time their involvement may be 'by choice'. Eventually, the initially self-concerned individual may 'find his self-interest in forgetting about himself'. Tocqueville (n. 67), pp. 510-12.
127. While Arendt approvingly cited David Reisman's Lonely Crowd, Nathan Glazer recounts that Riesman rejected Arendt's disdain for 'the social': 'Riesman saw not only that [the social] existed... but that it too had its virtues.' Glazer also implies that Riesman rejected Arendt's cultural elitism, or what Glazer calls her 'disdain for the "bourgeoisie".' Nathan Glazer (2000) 'Tocqueville and Riesman', Society 34(4): 27-33.
128. Arendt (n. 75), p. 72.
129. Roy Tsao's persuasive, literal reading of Arendt's Human Condition chastizes other literal interpreters for not reading Arendt closely enough. According to Tsao, Arendt must not be interpreted as an unqualified enthusiast for the Greek conception of politics, a view that has prompted many literal readers to portray her as a nostalgic elitist. Tsao argues that a careful scrutiny of Arendt's words reveals a hostility toward the Greek 'ambition to attain "everlasting remembrance"' without a Homer, to make deeds imperishable entirely on their own'. Tsao (n. 7), p. 111. Nonetheless, Tsao's interpretation does not show Arendt to have rejected the Greek aspiration to permanence or glory (with which I align her) but only to have disdained their foolish means of achieving it (i.e. without dependence on storytellers).
130. Arendt (n. 21), pp. 240-1.
131. Miller (n. 10).
132. Dietz (n. 11), p. 90.
133. For example, '[v]iolence has always been the ultima ratio in political action and power has always been the visible expression of rule and government'. Arent (n. 26), p. 137. See also pp. 5, 15, 23, 51, to cite only a few instances.
134. Ibid. p 157. Cecil Rhodes personified the inexorable progress: '[no] matter what individual qualities or defects a man may have, once he has entered the maelstrom of an unending process of expansion, he will, as it were, cease to be what he was and obey the laws of the process, identify himself with anonymous forces that he is supposed to serve in order to keep the whole process in motion...' Ibid. p. 215. These words anticipate Arendt's description of totalitarianism's ideological devotees.
135. Arendt's approach here recalls the Hebrew aphorism 'asu s' yag la 'Torah' - translated as 'make a fence around the law' - found in Tractate Avot of the Zishnah (ch. 1, v. 1, p. 489, Mishnayot 4). The aphorism directs religious Jews to forego activities that are not themselves forbidden by Jewish law, but whose consequences might inadvertently lead to unwanted violations. Eliminating the middle activity breaks the chain of potential harm. Mishnayot 4 (1963).
136. In 'On Violence' Arendt deplores the 'traditional concept of power', which holds that 'power is expansionist by nature'. She implies that changing the terms of the theoretical debate may decrease the likelihood of 'violence [being] justified on the ground of creativity'. Arendt (n. 29), pp. 171-2.
137. Arendt (n. 29), pp. 134 and 143.
138. For these reasons I agree with Jeffrey Isaac's claim that, in reading Arendt, 'a purist understanding of power would be misleading', Issac (n. 9), p. 135.
139. Dietz (n. 11), p. 99.
140. Ibid. p. 102.
141. 141. ibid.
142. At greater length: 'today, with populations and homelessness everywhere on the on the increase, masses of people are continuously rendered superfluous if we continue to think of our world in utilitarian terms', and 'totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regime'. Arendt (n. 26), p. 459.
143. Arendt (n. 62), p. 273
144. Arendt (n. 26), p. 492.
145. Tsao's literal reading also acknowledges that much of the confusion around Arendt stems from her own oblique argumentative structure, which 'obscures the critical thrust' of her core insights. Tsao (n. 7), p. 99.
146. Arendt attributed this method to Walter Benjamin but is widely regarded as having embraced it herself. Hannah Arendt, 'Walter Benjamin' in Arendt (n. 75), pp. 205-6. See also Young-Bruehl, (n. 17), p. 95.
147. The excerpts are from Shakespeare's The Tempest, the lines that Arendt famously quotes in her exposition of pearl diving. 'Walter Benjamin' in Arendt (n. 75), p. 193.