Re: {GEOG 5100} Abridged summary of geog-5100@googlegroups.com - 2 Messages in 1 Topic
Michael Sz
Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière Reflection Michael Szuberla
The Origins of Totalitarianism: Imperialism (OoT) might be summarized as follows: humans become abstract beings with no substantive rights when circumstances exclude them from membership in an imagined community (the nation-state).
OoT presents its conceptual framework through a historical narrative that begins with Europe’s imperial involvement in Africa (c. 1884-1914). The bourgeoisie initiated this imperial expansion in a drive to find investment outlets beyond Europe for superfluous money (what David Harvey would call an over-accumulation of surplus capital). The bourgeoisie subsequently demanded protection for these new over-seas investments. Because the drive of imperialist activities in Africa involved “expansion of political power without the foundation of the body politic” (135HA) the new territories did not mesh with the existing structure of the imperial nation-states. Nation-states, Arendt explains, are based on the consent of the governed. As a consequence of the state’s limitations, an alliance of mob and capital ruled the imperial territories outside the scope of the body politic of the nation – in this context violence flourished.
Administering the new territories involved two new methods that would eventually boomerang back on the imperialist governments: race-thinking and bureaucracy.
Arendt identifies the South Africa as the place of origin for racism as an imperialist “ruling device.” Among other things, racism modified the mythology of the nature of the nation into a pseudo-religious narrative of a homogenous chosen people with an “innate capacity to rule and dominate” (221HA). This new legend influenced thinking about the composition of nations. Specifically, nation-states aimed to be homogeneous tribes and in the process eliminated the rights of minorities. Ultimately, the new race-based conception of the nation displaced the state and all its universal guarantees of rights.
The expanded distances covered by the new empires interfered with the influence of the democratic techniques of the parent countries. Consequently, a proto-totalitarian form of bureaucratic rule filled the democratic void and ultimately migrated back to the imperial powers. Arendt elsewhere characterizes the “terrifyingly normal” character of the totalitarian bureaucrat in the person of Eichmann whose pursuit of banal career goals and unquestioning “following [of] orders” sacrificed his autonomy and humanity.
Both racism and bureaucracy undermined the “universal validity of the law” (221HA) and created a category of subjects who were not full citizens.
A central and circuitous issue for both Arendt and Rancière involves “the rights of man” which declared that “all men are born free and equal” (303R). Rather than wading into Rancière’s double negations[1] --- I will focus on the “spheres of implementation” of these rights. For Arendt, rights are realized in the political sphere, protected by democratic governments and possessed by citizens. In this rendering, the loss of legal personhood leads to the loss of home and loss of life. Rancière insists, if I understand him correctly, that Arendt is incorrect in insisting that politics are a precursor for rights. For Rancière “freedom and equality” are assertions not givens. This approach seems to indicate that rights are taken, not given. It may sound Hobbesian but my impression of Rancière is that politics involves asserting rights in the face of a “state of exception.”
[1] “The Rights of Man are the rights of those who have not the rights that they have and have the rights that they have not” (p302R).
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- Arendt Reading Guide [2 Updates]
Kaitlin Fertaly <kaitlin...@gmail.com> Oct 21 03:21PM -0700
Kaitlin Fertaly
GEOG 5100
Response to *Origins of Totalitarianism *by Hannah Arendt
In the second section of *The Origins of Totalitarianism* by
Hannah Arendt, she focuses ...more
Eric Reiff <ear...@gmail.com> Oct 21 04:11PM -0700
Eric Reiff
Discussion Paper 6
Hanna Arendt, *The Origins of Totalitarianism – *Pt 2, “Imperialism”
Jacques Rencière, “Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?”
21 October 2012 ...more
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