Hannah Arendt and Action

Hannah Arendt is an unfortunate Jewish woman who knew she had to escape Europe when Hitler came to power. She was one of the rare woman thinkers in the history of philosophy. She was also interested in politics after witnessing the Reichstag fire in 1933. Arendt was born on 14 October 1906 and died on 4 December 1975.

Today I am going to discuss why Arendt thinks that “the doubters and the skeptics” will be much more reliable under the circumstances of total moral collapse: what made these people act differently than all the rest?

“In this respect, the total moral collapse of respectable society during the Hitler regime may teach us that under such circumstances those who cherish values and hold fast to moral norms and standards are nor reliable… Much more reliable will be the doubters and skeptics…” (“Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship”, p. 45)

Hannah Arendt thinks that the measures of reliability are first ability, desire to examine and make up our own minds, second the consciousness, awareness of the fact that we are just by ourselves, we remain by ourselves from the beginning of our lives till the end. Therefore, we are only responsible for ourselves. For instance, we should ask only ourselves whether we want to live with a murderer or a victim - who in this sense is both ourselves. Since skeptic and doubtful people are used to doing, and behaving these things, Arendt thinks that they are the ones who are much more reliable.

However, Arendt also comments on the "responsibility of the world" (“Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship”, p. 47) She thinks that we are responsible to others but not the sense of obedience. We should act, listen to our reason, should know how much we are responsible, and this responsibility should not turn into obedience. Because this excess responsibility can turn into obedience which belongs to unmatured people. In Kant's philosophy, Arendt also thinks that we should become mature, we shouldn't obey the command, or thought of others. We are only with ourselves.

Personally, I agree with her argument, I believe that we can only rely on ourselves, with reason in ourselves, we are capable of doing everything. I think that obedience and trust in other people's reasons means escaping from becoming mature and afraid of pulling the strings. This means my cowardice. We should be brave and powerful and listen to our reason, ourselves.

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