Hannah Arendt: life and creativity

About what totalitarianism, philosopher Hannah Arendt knew firsthand. Being of Jewish origin, she passed through the Nazi concentration camp, where she was lucky to be saved. Subsequently, she reached the US and lived in this country until her death. Her works on phenomenology influenced philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jurgen Habermas, Giorgio Agamben, Walter Benjamin and others. At the same time, these works alienated many people, even close friends. Who is this woman who received such an ambiguous assessment in society? Our article will tell about the life of Hannah Arendt, her becoming as a philosopher and briefly clarify the essence of her books.

Childhood

Hannah Arendt was born in 1906, October 14, in the city of Linden (German Empire). Both her parents were from East Prussia. Engineer Paul Arendt and his wife Marta Cohn were Jews, but they led a secular lifestyle. Already in her childhood spent in Königsberg, the girl encountered manifestations of anti-Semitism. In this case, she was instructed by her mother. If anti-Semitic remarks were heard from the teacher, Hannah had to get up and leave the classroom. After that, the mother had the right to complain in writing. And her girlfriends-anti-Semitic classmates had to confront herself. In principle, her childhood passed happily. In the family did not even use the word "Jew", but also did not allow themselves to be treated disrespectfully.

Hannah Arendt: Biography

The girl since childhood has shown a penchant for the humanities. She was educated at three universities - in Marburg, Freiburg and Heidelberg. Her spiritual teachers in the field of philosophy were Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. The girl was not at all a "blue stocking". In 1929, she married Gunther Anders. But this marriage collapsed in eight years. Secondarily, she married Henry Blucher. Being perceptive, the girl immediately realized that she was being promised to her and her relatives by the Nazis coming to power. Therefore, in 1933, she fled to France. But Nazism overtook it and there. In 1940, she was interned in the Gurs camp. She managed to escape, and she went to Lisbon, and from there - to the United States of America. Hannah Arendt settled in New York, worked as a correspondent in The New Yorker magazine. In this capacity, she was in 1961 in Jerusalem, on the trial of Adolf Eichmann.

This event served as the basis for her famous book "Banality of Evil." At the end of her life she taught at universities and colleges in the United States. She died at the age of 69 in December 1975 in New York. About the difficult fate of Hannah Arendt in 2012, directed by Margaret von Trott was shot the eponymous feature film.

Importance in philosophy

In the creative heritage of Hannah Arendt about five hundred different in the subject works. However, all of them are united by one idea - to comprehend the processes taking place in the society of the twentieth century. According to the philosopher of politics, mankind is threatened not by cataclysms of nature and not by invasion from outside. The main enemy lies inside society - this is the desire to control everyone. Hannah Arendt, whose books disappointed many Jews, did not think in terms of "peoples", "ethnic groups". She did not divide them into "guilty" and "lambs for slaughter." In her eyes, they were all human. And every person is unique. She is the founder of the theory of the birth and existence of totalitarianism.

The main works. "Banality of Evil"

Please, this is the most scandalous book that Hannah Arendt wrote. "The banality of evil: Eichmann in Jerusalem" came out two years after the trial of Obersturmbannfuehrer SS. It was the testimony of the "architect of the Holocaust" that compelled the philosopher to rethink the events that occurred during the reign of the Nazis and give them a new assessment. The head of the Gestapo department spoke about his work on the "final solution of the Jewish question" as a clerical routine. He was not at all a convinced anti-Semite, tormented by a bathert, a psychopath or a flawed person. He simply carried out the order. And this was the main nightmare of the Holocaust - the terrifying banality of evil. The philosopher does not show piety before the victims and indiscriminately does not blaspheme the entire German people. The greatest evil is produced by a bureaucrat, meticulously fulfilling his functions. The guilty system that creates these responsibilities for mass destruction.

"On Violence"

In 1969, the philosopher continued to develop the theme of power and human freedom. Violence is just an instrument by which some people and parties achieve what they want. So says Hannah Arendt. "On violence" is a difficult and philosophical work. A political theorist differentiates between concepts such as rule and totalitarianism. Power is associated with the need to act together, seek allies, negotiate. The absence of this leads to a loss of authority, coherence. The ruler, feeling the trembling throne under him, tries to keep himself by violence ... and he himself becomes his hostage. He can no longer loosen his grip. Thus, terror is born.

"The origins of totalitarianism"

This book was published in 1951. It is thanks to her that Hannu Arendt is called the founder of the theory of totalitarianism. In it, the philosopher examines the various social constructions that existed throughout human history. She comes to the conclusion that totalitarianism is not like tyranny, despotism and examples of authoritarianism of antiquity. It is the product of the twentieth century. Classical examples of a totalitarian society Arendt calls Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia. The philosopher analyzes the socio-economic reasons for the inception of this system, isolates its main features and features. Mostly the book examines examples of terror in Nazi Germany, which Hanna Arendt herself faced directly. "The origins of totalitarianism", however, is a timeless work. Some features of this system we can see in modern societies of the twenty-first century.