Interview Hannah Arendt 1

[umkalzum]

please put english subtitles!!

[FriendsofBayMeadows]

What insights--Truth is reality etc. Keep humanity free and miracles can happen.

[FriendsofBayMeadows]

What insights--Truth is reality etc.

[jackseneca]

Yes. Is there an full english version?

[sunshineandwerewolf]

Is there an full english version of this interview?

[Brantinger]

I dont know why Arendt is ranged in typical west-european anti-americanists, since she spoke so admiring of the american heritage, even if she wasnt free of critique. She criticized the european political culture and systems on the backround of the praise of the political tradition of the USA. @Fscxxx: If u want the people to rule, u should be fine with Arendt because that is exactly what her republicanism is about, emerging from the critique of the extrem representative system of Europe.

[cgordonjr]

She foresaw clearly the political and historical process that has been threatening the American's citizens freedom and menacing the spirit of the Constitution.

[lowcomotive]

fscxxx, as a portuguese (european), sometimes i ask people here the same question, why west europe criticize so much USA if it was USA who avoid a nazist europe in all XXth century?

[fscxxx]

Ironic that a woman who would have persihed in some God-forsaken concentration camp in the east now critiques the imperial American presidency of national security ushered in by FDR. If we had been a real republic, we would not have fought that war, and Arendt would have homeless or dead.

Most of these WWII German refugees, from Arendt to Leo Strauss, Marcuse, Fromm and Adorno, have done more damage than good. They were highly over-rated. The Brits knew better all along.

[iaeruo]

fscxxx...what about all the refugees what where artists? you can't discount Paul Klee, Wasily Kandinsky or Lazlo Maholy-Nag. What about the Bauhaus? The Bauhaus refugees are responsible for giving the West it's monolithic Modernist skyscrapers..

[fscxxx]

Bauhaus is an abomination that has destroyed city landscapes across the world, from NY to Cairo. What is do desirable about monolithic anything?

[iaeruo]

fscxxx....nothing is desirable about the monolithic skyscraper. they are alienating and i detest them. im just trying to show that thinking is not limited to the isms of nationalities - it's memes can transcend cultural carriers

[rodmilne]

If I understand your point, the European intellectuals refugeed in the United States should have abandonned the practice of critical thinking upon their arrival here. Would that have been the American way?

[fscxxx]

Of course rodmilne, that is precisely what I'm saying, that intellectualism is un-American, how prescient of you. Perhaps I'm criticizing the content of her thinking, not the fact that she thinks, and getting beyond the easy hero-worship of anyone who impresses the Anglo-Saxon world by speaking with a German accent. Wie dumm von Ihnen, Canadien!

[portoxali]

Soviet Republic contributed most of all allies in this war, however this does not deminish its responsibilities in all crimes that followed this event..Similarly, even though US opened its doors for the European intelectuals and provided shelter for them, this does not makes its politics immune to any sort of criticism showed by these people

[bandigger]

fscxxx, you are simply a fascist... And if people like arendt hadn't emigrated to the USA, you would have mostly half brained fat hamburger eaters. USA can thank its success in great part to the "brain drain" thing.

[fscxxx]

A "fascist?" Fascist. This is the "discourse" your Frankfurt School has taught you, to call anyone whom you disagree with a fascist? A small "r" republican is a fascist. And your pseudo-sophistication is ever SO DAMN ELITIST. I want the people to rule; you refer to them as hamburger eaters. Please.

I suppose la haine du bourgeois est le commencement de la vertu is what you consider "democratic."

[bandigger]

However, it is NOT an argument for denying somebody's right to criticze the political system of the USA that she was a refugee, who could only have survived that way. It exactly retreating from those democratic virtues you're very proud of...

[bandigger]

(part2)

There are serious problems with the American democracy (electing Obama seems to provide some hope) but as Richard Rorty notes, plutocracy is a better term of the pol. formula of the USA. By the way Arendt saw very promising political traditions in the history & intellectual history of the USA - read "On revolution" from her! However this democratic (or republican) tradition is in very great danger and seems to have been seriously damaged.

[tristanXIV]

it is no different from people on the Right, who are still stuck in a 1950s mentality, and label anybody who is on the Left as a communist or socialist as a way to scare people. This seems to be a problem of the limits of language, new terms are perhaps need it.

The Right is no less elitist than the Left; they have their own guidelines of who is the responsible citizen and who shouldn't belong to the political process like the poor and the unemployed.

[4limitedgovt]

@tristanXIV It's obvious you haven't done any research. You're not thinking for yourself, but simply regurgitating what you've been told. I'm on the right, and I'm not living in the '50s. (First of all, any generalization about human behavior is a lie. We're not all alike.) No one I know, who has the CORRECT, WELL THOUGHT OUT convictions of conservatism, is living in the past. They just don't like big gov't, taking from people who work hard, to give it to others, and they want to be LEFT ALONE.

[Uruguruh]

@fscxxx You want the people to rule; that's a beautiful dream. Is there one country in the world where 'the people' rule. They do so only in name, in reality there are only few who are really in power.

Secondly; 'the people' are prone to populism and demagoguery, which lead them to think they want something, where they are only manipulated into some beliefs.

Is that desirable?