Hannah Arendt

John Perry
Coming up on Philosophy Talk…

Ken Taylor
The Philosophy of Hannah Arendt.

Hannah Arendt
Let’s face facts, let’s be realists: all power ultimately is violence.

Ken Taylor
Her great works: On Revolution

Hannah Arendt
Violence does not promote causes. But it can indeed serve to dramatize grievances, and to bring them to public attention.

John Perry
The Origins of Totalitarianism

Hannah Arendt
In a fully developed bureaucracy, there is nobody left with whom one could argue, to whom one could present grievances on whom the pressures of power could be exerted.

Ken Taylor
The Human Condition

Hannah Arendt
People don’t realize that life is an uending contest, that violence is an element of life.

John Perry
Why was Arendt so controversial?

Hannah Arendt
It’s a very quick question.

John Perry
From Germany to Paris to New York.

Ken Taylor
Hannah Arendt—coming up on Philosophy Talk, after the news.

Ken Taylor
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

John Perry
…except your intelligence. I’m John Perry.

Ken Taylor
And I’m Ken Taylor. We’re coming to you from the studios of KALW in San Francisco.

John Perry
Continuing conversations that began at philosophers corner on the Stanford campus. The number you can call to join our conversation is 1-800-525-9917. That’s 1-800-525-9917.

Ken Taylor
Today, we’re going to do another in our series of profiles and leading philosophers. This time our topic is one of the great political theorists of the 20th century, Hannah Arendt.

John Perry
You know, Ken. all the philosophers we talk about here on Philosophy Talk have interesting thoughts. But many of them have pretty dull lives. Hannah Arendt was definitely not one of those. She led a very interesting life and the events in her life had a lot to do with her philosophy.

Ken Taylor
Well, she certainly had fascinating ideas. She wrote about totalitarianism, the human condition and fundamental issues in political theory. She wrote an influential book about the trial of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, a book that made famous the phrase the banality of evil. She died in the mid 1970s. So you know, the last part of our philosophical career is an important point corresponds to the first part of mine at the time, you know, she was a leader of the New York intellectual scene, but I have to admit something. I don’t really know how she got to be at the head of that scene.

John Perry
Well, it’s pretty interesting. Arendt was Jewish. She was born in Germany early in the century, she actually grew up in Koenigsberg famous because it was consomme town. He’s famous to philosophers. In a 20. She studied with Martin Heidegger with whom she had an intense love affair. Then she went on to write her dissertation with Jaspers on Augustine.

Ken Taylor
Oh, wait a minute, go back a second. I know that Heidegger was a great philosopher. But wasn’t he also a Nazi? What’s a young Jewish graduate student in Germany, doing having an affair with a Nazi?

John Perry
Well, Heidegger wasn’t a Nazi then. He joined the party after Hitler’s rise to power in the mid 30s, when he was rector of the University of Freiburg. It was politically motivated, I think. But to get a bit ahead of our story, Iran actually returned to Germany from New York in the early 50s. When the occupation forces after the war, were trying to decide what to do with Heidegger. Iran’s dealings with Heidegger before and after his Nazi period, by the way, are a topic of a recent very interesting play Hannah and Martin.

Ken Taylor
So tell me a little bit about a wrench life between her dissertation in the 50s.

John Perry
Well, anti semitism and Nazism began to affect her in a big way in the late 20s. And 30s. You know, that in Germany, after you write your dissertation, you have to write another big book called The ability Etsy owner habilitation. She was prevented from doing that, because because she was Jewish, and that meant no chance of getting a job in Germany.

Ken Taylor
So I guess, well, obviously, she managed to get out of Germany and to avoid the camps.

John Perry
Well, just barely, she began to study anti semitism, which drew attention to her she she moved to Paris after being questioned by the Gestapo, which was a good idea. But But of course, even there, the Germans invaded and things were difficult. She worked before the invasion to help Jewish refugees in Paris, and she actually spent some time in prison but escaped. In 1941. She made it to the US She held a number of posts finally becoming the first woman to be a full professor at Princeton in 1959. Hannah Arendt died in 1975.

Ken Taylor
So you can certainly see connections between her life the story of her life and her work. I mean, just look at the titles of some of her books like The Origins of Totalitarianism. But John, you know, you’re you’re an analytic philosopher, and I So am I and we’re both philosophies of language. Have you really ever dug in much into the details into the nuts and bolts of Arendt’s philosophy?

John Perry
Well, I do know that she prefers to be called a political theorist. I know that her books nevertheless, we’re very philosophical, with all sorts of interesting ideas about the nature of action, of course, particularly political action. But you’re right, I’ve led a double life, consumed with dull ideas about the philosophy of language. I’m no expert on political philosophy or on Hannah Arendt, but luckily, our guest is Seyla Benhabib from Yale University.

Ken Taylor
And we’ll start by asking Professor Benhabib to tell us more about Arendt’s philosophy and political theory.

John Perry
Then we’ll examine a key concept of Iran’s philosophy, the concept of a public space for political discussion and action—exactly the sort of thing that totalitarian regimes eliminate.

Ken Taylor
Then we’ll consider whether the Internet gives us a new kind of public space—political space in Arendt’s sense.

John Perry
But first, our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Julie Napolin, is going to dig into the background on her and a little bit more, including a bit from that play I mentioned, “Hannah and Martin.” She files this report,

Julie Napolin
Hannah Arendt tackles one of the most baffling questions in the history of philosophy: Who are you?

Karen Feldman
In “The Human Condition,” this is her book from 1958, she writes about the who somebody is versus the what they are.

Julie Napolin
Karen Feldman is Assistant Professor of German at UC Berkeley. She says for aren’t there is no answer to that question.

Karen Feldman
What we are is how we define ourselves as a woman as a Jew, as a vegetarian, all the different possible identifications we could offer, who somebody is, she writes, is revealed in the kinds of things you say and do in a political vein in a public sphere, among other free human beings.

Melissa Friedman
My name is Melissa Friedman, and I am an actor and founding artists of Epic Theater Ensemble, one of the artists who founded a theatre company in New York City that is dedicated to placing theater at the center of civic dialogues.

Julie Napolin
Friedman incorporates our thoughts about public speech and action into her theatre company.

Melissa Friedman
It is a way to look at something in multiple it from multiple perspectives, and you see it in a human form. But in a book, you see it in your own mind. But when you see people on stage battling these questions, you have a chance to watch human grapple.

Julie Napolin
In 2004 Epic Theater produced “Hannah and Martin,” a play conceived by Friedman and written by Kate Fodor. It’s about the affair between Arendt and her mentor, Martin Heidegger, who later joined the Nazi Party.

Hannah and Martin
November 7, 1946. Dear sir: I find myself in an awkward position of needing to correct certain damaging statements that I made to you regarding Professor Martin Heidegger.

Julie Napolin
After the war, Heidegger was not allowed to teach or publish. Arendt spoke out against him, then met with him in 1950, not having seen him since before the war.

Melissa Friedman
Something in that meeting—she went there to confront him, but something in that meeting in Germany happened where she not only forgave him, but also was the reason he continued to be published and translated all over the world.

Karen Feldman
I think she wanted to rescue this talent, of thinking that she believed he had for others that this was part of the human world, as she believes the human world is the sum of the products that human beings make and Heidegger’s thought and his books, these are part of the human world. The play takes us back to that moment with Heidegger, in the spirit of Arendt’s work, the play directly engages us in a decision

Hannah and Martin
Well, Hitler has blood on his hands, and he shook hands with Himmler, who shook hands with the Minister of Education, who shook hands with Professor Martin Heidegger, who shook hands with me. I wonder if the hand you take is been stretched out for help. What then? A sin to take it? Or a sin to refuse?

Melissa Friedman
There’s nothing quite like such a compelling piece of theatre, you know, when you have something that well written, but then, you know, probably equally as compelling as the story itself, which is really interesting, a story of forgiveness. And a question about what what we can forgive in our society and, you know, politically speaking with what are we allowing in the public forum?

Karen Feldman
I think for Arendt it’s not a matter of asking others to judge us but rather, it’s a matter of us making judgments ourselves. I can imagine instead a more Arendtian version being to turn to the audience and say, Do you have blood on In your hands, because it’s not about them judging her. In this instance, it’s about learning to as she writes famously think without banisters, learning to think and judge for oneself.

Julie Napolin
For Philosophy Talk, I’m Julie Napolin.

John Perry
I’m John Perry. Thanks, Julie. That was another Julie, Julie Queen as Hannah Arendt. With me is Ken Taylor

Ken Taylor
And our guest today is Seyla Benhabib. She’s a professor of political science and philosophy at Yale University. She’s a very prolific, prolific and widely celebrated author. But for our for pertinent to our discussion today is her book “The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt.” Seyla, welcome to Philosophy Talk.

Seyla Benhabib
Hi, Ken. Hi, John.

John Perry
Thanks for joining us, Seyla. And I know you’ve written on many things in political philosophy and in many figures, but how did you get particularly interested in Hannah Arendt?

Seyla Benhabib
Well, I discovered her in 1972, when I entered Yale graduate school after having completed a degree in Philosophy at Brandeis, and that fall, I remember encountering two of her books, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and the human condition, you know, sometimes in philosophy, you run into a works, you know, you’re not understanding, let’s say, more than half and you’re not getting it, but you have the sense that the book is speaking to you was almost written for you, and it is so deep, and you’re just completely compelled by it. And for me, it was interesting that I discovered both or properly more political, sociological writing the Origins of Totalitarianism, and the human condition at the same time, I mean, what attracted me to the Origins of Totalitarianism, I must admit, was the section on anti semitism. And growing up as a Jewish woman in Turkey, myself, I mean, I did not encounter the same kinds of discrimination that I, you know, that people in Germany had experienced. But there was something about the way in which she portrayed the cultural and political conditions that led to the emergence of anti semitism in Europe, that just was extremely, extremely compelling to me. At the more philosophical level, you see, I was already interested in German philosophy and the human condition, started pulling together a lot of threads. And in particular, those were the days when we all read Marx and her critique of Marx in the human condition or a distinction between labor work and action, and particularly the distinction between labor and work, where at the moment we all of us were really talking about,

John Perry
Tell me tell me more distinction between labor and work. I mean, that’s, that’s one of those things I only half understand tell us a little bit a bit more than why that is central to her reaction to totalitarianism.

Seyla Benhabib
Yes. Well, I remember the phrase from John Locke in the Second Treatise of some civil government, where Locke says the labor of our body and the work of our hands, labor is the constant physical exertion that is part of the you know, lifecycle as human beings to survive, to go on, we have to clean and eat and produce and basically become part of, you know, like the force of nature ourselves. But work is when the energy that you expand the activity that we engage in, leaves something tangible. This could be buildings, this could be manuscripts, this could be an artwork, it could be something like an everyday object, but work produces in orange terms, a world that we can share with others, and he or she entered.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, but so I’m a laborer. Now let me understand the real significance of this just really briefly, I’m a laborer on a on an assembly line. And I just produced this little I just do this little thing hammer this little nail, but the whole group of us produces a car is that labor or work or what I mean, am I laboring assembly line worker or am I working?

Seyla Benhabib
Yeah, I mean, in any complex human activity, you know, these dimensions of course, sort of, you know, fall together, you know, in an assembly line, there is also action being together you know, with others, let’s say you are a trade union organizer or you are sort of debating as to you know, how you should organize the production line as to how much you know, you should be able to produce that would then be also action. Now, when we look at any phenomena in the world, we are going to see the way philosophers usually tell us that any complex phenomena can be analytically distinguished into various categories. So something like, you know, work on the assembly line has both the dimension of labor, the gestures that I have to make, you know, the way my body must, you know, perform a certain operation, but it also has the dimension then of work as well as having, you know, the dimension of, of action.

Ken Taylor
So, we’re gonna have to dig into this three part distinction a little bit more after the break. You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today we’re discussing the work of Hannah Arendt with Seyla Benhabib from Yale University.

John Perry
Arendt’s philosophy dealt with a big philosophical and political questions that emerged from the catastrophic currents of the 20th century Nazism Stalinism, and the Holocaust. Share your thoughts on Hannah Arendt and these big issues. Join us by calling 1-800-525-9917.

Ken Taylor
Political theory and totalitarianism—when Philosophy Talk to continuous.

The First Edition
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

John Perry
“The Human Condition” is one of Arendt’s most enduring books. And like all her work, it was shaped directly by political events of the 20th century. Now all of us really had our lives in thought shaped by the highs and mostly the lows of that tumultuous and ghastly century, even if not as dramatically as Arendt so share your experiences and thoughts as we look back on that century. This is Philosophy Talk and I’m John Perry.

Ken Taylor
And I’m Ken Taylor. Here’s a question for you. How do you conceive a political debate and political space? How do Fox News or PBS or calling radio work as public space for political discussion in your life? The toll free number to join us is 1-800-525-9917.

John Perry
Our guest is Seyla Benhabib from Yale University.

Ken Taylor
So Seyla, I want to take you back a little bit to this concept of action and public space, you distinguish labor from work, and we got into that a bit, but tell me more about action and public space?

Seyla Benhabib
Well, maybe I should also say that aren’t herself named The Human Condition Vita Activa of active life, and it was translated as the human condition. I would say that probably her biggest contribution to philosophy comes from her theorization of this concept of action, the it actually seems so ubiquitous, but for her, it is the fundamental way in which we speak and we act we are together, we reveal who we are in speaking and acting. And she says most of our action is also in the form of speech. In this respect. She’s also very close to Vidkun. Stein actually another philosopher of language, but four aren’t human beings, reveal who they are to each other. In the public in the public sphere, some the public sphere, she calls sometimes the space of appearance, the mode in which we are together, in acting and speaking.

John Perry
So totalitarianism, really, right? This is this, this really undermines this whole public sphere. I mean, this is really the worst thing about it, I guess, from her.

Seyla Benhabib
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, she sees totalitarianism as trying to do something in politics that have never been ventured before, namely, eliminating the space of spontaneous coming and speaking and acting together, which for her is part of the human condition. So totalitarianism, she says somewhere is like an iron band. Now imagine a group of human beings, and then iron band is thrown around them. And if you pull this band together, plurality is eliminated. And you know, you’re trying to create one voice one person, but what you do is it’s almost like taking the oxygen out of the room.

Ken Taylor
Right, as you extinguish the conversation in a way. But let me take you back once one second one step, because you talked about the public space. And I always think of the public in contradistinction from the private, and I might, and one might think, is, who one is really revealed by one’s actions in a public space, are by what one does in the privacy of one’s own home and family and all that. I mean, why is identity constituted by the public rather than the private?

Seyla Benhabib
Absolutely, I mean, I think this is this is really a key a key issue I would say in this respect, I wouldn’t agree with aren’t myself because there is a fundamental way in which we also reveal ourselves in the private but look, she was a civic Republican in the Aristotelian tradition, the tradition of you No Machiavelli, Rousseau, Jefferson, for her human activity had a, a kind of fundamental value, when it was activity, not just geared towards personal private concerns, but activity in the public whereby we three I tried to create something together and we aspired for a good that each of us by ourselves would never be able to attain.

John Perry
Let me just interview you mentioned risk. So, and a lot of thinkers think that, you know, the roots of totalitarianism go back to this, this, this difference between Rousseau and and lock that Rousseau with his idea of the, you know, the joint wheel of everybody involved in the Polit in the polity really set the stage for totalitarianism does it does Arendt share that that view of Rousseau?

Seyla Benhabib
No, Arendt does not think that was so easy, pre totalitarian thinker, although she is equivocal, I mean, she in them, she does not have a great praise for her. So in one respect, she finds Rousseau’s concerned with intimacy, which comes across in the confessions, almost as problematic as the fact that, you know, the social contract, which in some ways is such a fundamental book about freedom and equality and standing under the law then creates no space for continuous public political participation. So I, you know, she gives a very nuanced reading of Rousseau on the one hand as being sort of the philosopher of intimacy and on the other hand, having really this concept of the public manifesting itself through the general well, but how does the general will express itself and aren’t there is very much the participatory Democrats saying the only way in which the general will can express itself is in action, participation, discussion, debate and deliberation.

Ken Taylor
You’re listenin to Philosophy Talk, we’re talking about the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, one of the most influential and consequential political philosophers of the 20th century. And we’d like you to join this conversation: 1-800-525-9917. And Grant in San Francisco is on the line. Welcome to Philosophy Talk.

Grant
My question is this. I’d like your observation. I disagree. I believe that Hannah was famous for his statement of the almost cliche or expressions of banality of evil. And I’m wondering if you would agree or not that W. George W. Bush, that stands for Worst worse ever. But if he would be a perfect example of that, for example, he supposedly gave up golf, it turned out maybe you deliberately didn’t. But, you know, it seems to me whether or not you’re, it’s I find it difficult to call him evil. And yet, it seems like maybe that’s the face of it.

Ken Taylor
Seyla, first explain what Arendt met by the phrase—I think often misunderstood—the banality of evil and then we’ll see if we can apply it to some contemporary cases.

Seyla Benhabib
Right, I mean, it’s one of her most misunderstood phrases, obviously, and the book out of which it comes—

John Perry
Oops, the books out of which it comes is “Eichmann in Jerusalem.”

Ken Taylor
So we seem to be having some technical difficulties.

John Perry
Ken and I have lost contact with Seyla, I hope our listeners haven’t.

Ken Taylor
So we’re talking about the phrase, the banality of evil, John.

John Perry
You said it was misunderstood. How’s it misunderstood?

Ken Taylor
Well, I’ve not quite I mean people think it has to do with evil is such an ordinary occurrence. But it was I think it was all about the sort of whole sort of baring architecture, bureaucratic architecture of evil. Right, that that and it became such an ordinary, it’s such an ordinary unremarkable guy, like Eichmann couldn’t participate in this enterprise. Right? And it just became a kind of matter of course, but it was an ordinary guy who wasn’t particularly if you look at him distinguish are distinguishable from anybody else. But the whole bureaucratic architecture of of Hitler ism and Nazism kind of helped turned him into his massively.

John Perry
Now I suspect we should probably forego grants invitation to discuss George Bush bush. In comparison with with Eichmann and all that stuff. You’ll just have to guess how great a president we think George Bush is. But the Eichmann thing is a bit. I mean, we have we have this Hannah Arendt coming out of German Germany she’s she’s experienced totalitarianism and as our guest, Shayla Ben Habib suggested totalitarianism came as a bit of a surprise to the political theorists of rents generation they hadn’t. They hadn’t been prepared for it. It was something new in the world that didn’t fit into the established categories of political thought retrospectively, some people see it then in in Rousseau, but But it came as a surprise and and what was it that was so different in her analysis was that what totalitarianism is it was different from what we’d seen in the world before. It eliminates this public space. It’s not that it wins all the arguments, but there’s just no room for argument. And, and so so her philosophy then turn to the analysis of argument, what is it to argue? What is it to perform a political argument? What are you trying to do and the connections between the distinctions between labor and action and work and the importance of public space? Or what kind of just rooted in her totalitarianism

Ken Taylor
I think Seyla is back with us. So Seyla you there?

Seyla Benhabib
Yes, I’m here. I’m here. At what point did we get interrupted?

Ken Taylor
Are you hearing us all along? We weren’t hearing you?

Seyla Benhabib
No, no, I was just going on about the banality of evil.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, we lost you too. Live radio. So explain the banality of evil.

Seyla Benhabib
The most important thing to remember about this phrase—it comes out of the book “Eichmann in Jerusalem”—is that she did not mean that evil was banal or, or should not be condemned. And but what she meant was that banal, perfectly ordinary people who are neither particularly evil or depraved themselves can get caught in a machinery and perform acts that we would consider evil or in some ways, assist in the performance acts that are, that are evil. And for her the 20th century, particularly the second half of the 20th century was, therefore such a sort of moral morass, because it gave rise, you know, to actions and to phenomena of this kind. So banality refers to the psychology and the moral character of the individuals involved.

Ken Taylor
So right, so their actions, so you so you make one of the characteristics if I’ve got this, right, what are the characteristic things about the 20th century states and societies is the massive bureaucratization of everything, right, and you just become an actor in this massive bureaucracy, independently of its means its aims, right? So you have a massive bureaucracy for exterminating the Jews, and you just take a job as a, you know, as a list maker, or something like that. And you just write down the list of the Jews, who’s gonna go to the work camps, who’s gonna, and it’s just your job.

John Perry
And you know, when I want to emphasize I’m not saying that, that there’s a real close connection between Eichmann and the current Republican administration or anything like that. But both with the in current administration’s the bureaucracy has become big. And when you read these memoirs, you see that people really don’t have much space to sit back. And just and think about what they’re doing, they’re mostly carrying out actions, dealing with the press dealing with the United Nations, whatever they do, that are kind of dictated by the bureaucracy.

Seyla Benhabib
Right may add something I mean, since we are trying to think about the contemporary situation, I would say that maybe even more than the bureaucracy, if we want to understand what aren’t had in mind with this term, think of something like Apple grape. Okay. Think of what happened there. Think of the soldiers involved, you know, and I always think, you know, to the young woman, last name was Englander, you know, think of what happened there with particularly perfectly ordinary people. But we’ve all seen the pictures, we’ve all you know, we have some understanding of the acts and so on. You know, these were not extermination camps or anything, but there was a degree of moral depravity and humiliation and things that were done to each other, which, you know, what, by perfectly you know, by people who are our neighbors, our soldiers, etc. I think that’s what she had in mind.

Ken Taylor
But okay, so Seyla, there’s a little bit of a paradox here, because the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century also corresponds to the rise of democratic politics and party politics and mass participation. How do these two these two tendencies live together? I mean, does Arendt have anything to say about how these two tendencies live together?

Seyla Benhabib
Well, I mean, I think that mass democracies for her were a challenge, not because she was an anti Democrat. I mean, I think that sometimes commentators have said that she wasn’t particularly fond of democracy, but she was concerned about the tendencies in mass democracies to create uniformity of opinion, to create concern in terms of concerned with private life. And to deep politicize I mean, this is the irony, you know, that mass democracies have both, you know, tendencies to create sort of conformance behavior and at the other at the same time privatization. And you know, she was in this respect, always, an activist who emphasized the commitment to the public think, the Civic Republican moment.

Ken Taylor
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. We’re talking with Sheyla Benhabib about the philosophy of Hannah Arendt. You can join this conversation by calling 1-800-525-9917. Once again, we’re discussing Hannah Arendt with Shayla Benhabib beam from Yale University.

John Perry
We’ve discussed totalitarianism, how that fits in with Hannah Arendt kinds of concepts of action and labor. In the next section, we’re going to do something a little bit different. We’re going to ask well, how about the internet? Is this going to be a realization of a rent concept of a public space? Or is it is it threatened to be just another way under the guise of mass democracy of, of excluding action of the kind we want? So stay with us and we’ll talk about the internet as public space

Ken Taylor
…when Philosophy Talk continues

The Limousines
Internet killed the video star.

John Perry
Hannah Arendt held public space to be a condition of freedom and political action. Does the internet fit this definition? To the extent that it does? Can we preserve the internet as a public space as a 21st century, agora, or whatever? Tell us what you think: 1-800-525-9917. I’m John Perry. This is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Ken Taylor
…except your intelligence. I’m Ken Taylor, and our guests is Seyla Benhabib from Yale University. I want to preface this discussion of the internet with I’m gonna underline something you said about Hannah Arendt political philosophy, this distinction between the public and the private. You know, one of her complaints about mass democracy, as you said, is that things that belong in the private sphere, and this fear of intimacy and all that sort of stuff creep out, not just creep out, explode out into into the public, and that kind of swamps the public space, and she wants to recover this public space, but the Internet has a place that just accelerates this trend towards, you know, stuff exploding stuff, otherwise private exploding out into, you know, discussions among individuals who have no connection to each other. I mean, what what’s going on with that?

Seyla Benhabib
Well, it’s, it’s a new media media is changing, you know, our lives. I mean, you can have, you know, Facebook, as well as talking points, memo, I guess, and you have to deal with the, with the new and very mixed reality. I mean, there is no question about this, that right now, you know, the internet is an alternative public sphere, it is creating alternative political conversations. It is creating a world of information. That is really amazing. I mean, as a scholar, I am now beginning to see more and more articles also in refereed journals, and in other places that go www dot, you know, and it so it’s become, within five years, it’s become plausible.

Ken Taylor
But do you think it’s, but do you think it’s a public space in the sense that Hannah Arendt intended, where we, you know, make ourselves manifest this world of appearances, we decide what we’re going to do together, how we’re going to live together, everybody adopting everybody else’s point of view and, and making themselves known and who they are? I mean, is it a public space?

Seyla Benhabib
No, it isn’t, in that it isn’t in that sense. And I’ll and there is, of course, in Arendt’s model, a sociologically look, she was thinking of the Greek marketplace, or at the most our town halls, or public square, right, her concept of the public was very much maybe architecturally governed by the metaphor of the public square, but when you think about the public, also as the medium through which you interact, you communicate, and you said something very important about taking the standpoint of the each of each other, I don’t see any reason in why, through our internet communication, you wouldn’t also be able to take the standpoint of the other broaden your vision and learn about it. I mean, this I think goes goes on when people let’s say, it’d be you know, in some cases in you know, in China, let’s say if they have access or we can communicate with them, there is a broadening there is a broadening of our of our vision, I mean, it isn’t exactly the Agora and there. Now, on the other hand, there is of course, the problem of anonymity.

John Perry
Right, exactly. Right. I mean, yeah, exactly. And you know, you talk about the world of appearance, very, very important concept in German philosophy and Hannah Arendt Of course, the Internet gives you another layer of world of You’re into Can you can be, you can be someone on the internet, you can have as one of the big programs a second life, and how that’s going to bear out. There’s also this, there’s so many things good about the internet. I mean, I read The Huffington Post and the Drudge Report and, and go to their bloggers, and it’s just a much richer informational environment than when it was kind of, you know, read the New York Times and watch CBS News. But on the other hand, there’s there is this thing that this bureaucracy is zation of going to the internet, and finding dirt about John McCain or Obama and putting it out, and you’re very, very intelligent people are obviously wasting their lives with this kind of creepy work.

Ken Taylor
And back to the anonymity thing, John, because one of the things about the public space for a rant was that it’s a space in which people disclose to one another, their identity, right, but the internet, you can disclose your identity where you can often not disclose it. So it’s not the space of mutual understanding and acceptance, because disclosure is supposed to be, you know, preparatory to that, right.

Seyla Benhabib
Yes, it is. And I mean, there’s one other aspect that we should mention, and which is what distinguishes it also from a, you know, democratic public sphere. And that is fragmentation. I mean, this isn’t just, you know, the the problem with the internet, this, this comes in, you know, with channel surfing, or maybe even choosing your newspaper, but it’s just exaggerated that in some ways, the space of communication and information is increasing, in other words, is there is less and less of an obligation for us to share even in a mutually intelligible vocabulary, you see, we can each withdraw into our own little cocoons and balloons, and communicate, you know, with each other only in our chat rooms. And this is adding to the fragmentation of the social, which is a problem that our societies right now, you know, are really dealing with.

Ken Taylor
So let me ask you a question based on that, because one of the, in some ways, I really am an admirer of urens philosophy, she writes with such power and such sweep, and it draws so many different things together. But in some ways, I think, cash for description of politics well as it might be, certainly isn’t a description of politics as it is, in some ways, I think it may be our cake, because it doesn’t answer to the situation of how do we divided and as fragmented as we are live together? Right? I mean, it’s it makes this public space in which I don’t know we abandon the private or something, or it’s, or shut off the private and engage in this public deliberation. But about what, you know, I’m not quite sure what. And then I just wonder if it’s a it’s it’s a description of our politics or politics that could plausibly become hours. What do you think?

Seyla Benhabib
I believe that in every good politics, there is a dimension of what aren’t was talking about? Let me let me frame it this way. I mean, the biggest challenge to her understanding of politics is what we call interest, group liberalism, right? Why should we leave interests at home, so to speak, they are part of the public sphere. And you know, politics is about negotiation, you give some you take some it’s about power. And this this notion of sort of pluralist liberalism, where politics is also like the marketplace, right? She is holding up another picture of the political Yes, she’s a bit of a purist, but she’s saying, look, there’s also going to be moments in the political where it isn’t just about your interest in horse trading, but you are going to have to engage in some vision of the common and you’re going to have to transcend yourselves, you’re going to emerge as those civic civic actors. And I think that politics is not always like that. But it has moments like that.

Ken Taylor
So let me ask you, though, about this private versus public one more time. So how does how does who I am sort of, to my wife and my most intimate connections, and within the family sphere, and you know, in the privacy of my study, identity in that sense, right, and even identity, my sense of my ethnic allegiances, right? How does any of that enter into politics for for a right, do I just leave that all behind?

Seyla Benhabib
No, but it has to be transformed. You don’t enter the political sphere as the sort of the the bourgeois concerned with his or her own backyard. The political sphere is transformative. It is transformative in the sense that you have to find a language in terms of which to articulate publicly MIP also private concerns I mean, maybe I’m going to try to translate aren’t here for our times. It isn’t as a private concern, have no space in the political let’s say if you are a mother, and you are contracted concerned about product safety in for the toys of your children, you can enter the political space when you make this issue into something, let’s say that we should all be concerned about because global capitalism is you know, putting all these products out there but we are citizens are not really paying sufficient attention to safety issues. This four aren’t would be completely a political a political moment. But you have to go through this process of transforming private concerns into public right claim.

Ken Taylor
That makes sense to me. There’s a political theory that I sometimes think I rent kind of anticipated tell me if I’m right or wrong, but deliberative democracy, people folks say, you know, we should get together and deliberate you should only offer public reasons for any policy decision, and deliberate and deliberate and deliberate until you reach some kind of consensus and she kind of a deliberative democracy, democracy person or not.

Seyla Benhabib
I think that she certainly she certainly anticipated. I mean, I think that we all are all her something in that respect. I mean, she has a very nice phrase where she says, What is the origin of the word interest, right? An interest in Latin comes from the two phase inter SF that which is common to us that which is among us, whereas we understand interest coming out of the more utilitarian Anglo American tradition as simply what is self directed, directed towards one but she’s saying look, inter asked is what is inter as it what is among us what is between us? So in much of politics, yeah, we have to deliberate about what can become common to us about the world that we can become the building common, very important concept in her world building.

Ken Taylor
On that note, Seyla, I’m gonna thank you for joining us. It’s been a very, very nice conversation, despite the technical difficulties. Our guest has been Seyla Benhabib professor of political science and philosophy at Yale University, noted author, but for our purposes, author of “The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt.” So John, what did you learn today?

John Perry
Well, I went to a fascinating figure and reading a rant reading about a random I mean, from my relatively amateurish picture, I see kind of going back to Locke and Rousseau and attempt to find something in the middle. That’s not the general will which, which brings with it all the worries about totalitarianism as the only way of reaching agreement, but it’s not just interest, you know, let’s negotiate either it’s, it’s a sense, like you say, deliberative democracy, we have some obligation to think and put ourselves in the position of what’s good for the whole. But but we don’t expect to get anything like a general will.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, you know, what I learned today that even through technical difficulties, philosophy can shine through, because, you know, we apologize for the fact that we lost the air for a little bit, but hey, we soldiered on, and and philosophy works even even when things other things don’t work.

John Perry
Right. So so you can visit our website, philosophytalk.org, where you can also download podcasts of our program. So please go check it out.

Ken Taylor
John, you believe in safe radio, don’t you?

John Perry
Absolutely.

Ken Taylor
Well, we’re in trouble. We can’t go on because I forgot my conundrum.

John Perry
Oh, luckily, we have one on the line now, Ken.

Ken Taylor
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, William. So where you calling from?

William
I’m calling from the College of Charleston in South Carolina.

John Perry
The College of Charleston in South Carolina. Are you a student or a faculty member?

William
I’m a student, a philosophy major.

John Perry
Ever take any classics?

William
No, not yet. No.

John Perry
Okay. Well, I know a good classics professor down there named Phillips. You should take a class from him.

Ken Taylor
But why don’t you tell us what’s your conundrum, William?

William
Well, a large percentage of the student body smoked cigarettes. And I hate smoke. And I inhale it whenever I go walk to class. It is pretty much unavoidable. I’ve spoken to the President at a student body government meeting. And I’ve emailed him persuading him to do something about the smoking issue. I have also spoken to the Dean of Students and the head of health services, and they have told me that the school cannot discriminate against smokers. Public Safety has the right to fine people, but they’ve chosen not to.

Ken Taylor
Well, you know, this is South Carolina. Is that still a tobacco economy down there?

William
It is pretty large. Yeah, yeah.

Ken Taylor
So you know, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. If you think you would ever ban smoking altogether.

John Perry
Let me ask you this. How do you feel about smokers? I mean, just quite apart from what they’re doing to your lungs. How do you feel about them? Do you feel are kind of irrational?

William
Totally. I think that they’re wasting their money on things that are bad for the environment, bad for their health and bad for other people.

John Perry
So suppose you weren’t even on campus. But you had the president’s ear, would you still encourage him to totally ban smoking for the good of those students? Certainly. Do you think that there’s a little bit Have paternalism or control involved in in those kinds of attitudes. I mean, what I’m asking is, to what extent are you really outraged by the increase in probability that you’ll get lung cancer? And and to what extent are you just outraged at the whole culture of people who smoke, ruin their own health and don’t care about the environment?

William
Well, yeah, my health is very important to me. But I also have come to think that in this day and age with all the awareness that has been brought about by the effects that smoking can cause that I think people really should now I really say, you know, what, smoking is really bad for people.

Ken Taylor
So I want to, I don’t like smoking. I don’t like smoke. So I agree with you in your condemnation of, of smoking as a habit and of the industry that produces this thing of the government that allows it to go on, I think it should be. I mean, if I were to, if I were a public policy maker, I would basically tax it out of existence. But you know, what, I think free autonomous people have a right to do things that are bad for them and, and that other people don’t like. Now, you know, sometimes there are these, what economists call externalities, right? Where if I’m pumping pollutants into the air, you know, everybody has to pay the cost of that. And that seems wrong. So the polluters should have to be taxed to recover the costs of the what these externalities, so I think that’s right, with smoking. All right, with smoking taxied out of existence.

John Perry
You know, one thing I could do is tell you what it was like when I was in graduate school and and people used to smoke these double cigars twisted together and, and soaked in rum in the in the seminar so that the mean lung cancer wasn’t your problem at all. It was a blinding headache. But I won’t bore you with that. So here’s my advice, William, first, you need to really be philosophical about this into a philosophy major and try to separate your different motives. If you’re really just interested about your health, then I think get one of those masks to wear. As you go from class to class. I mean, seriously, I mean that people do that in Japan, they do it in lots of places, it makes a lot of good sense. And, and don’t worry about the behavior rather than a large part of philosophy is control what you control.

Ken Taylor
But there’s something morally objectionable about a universe in which people are allowed to make the environment the shared environment such that other people have to wear a mask because of their habit.

John Perry
I know, but I’m talking about I mean, yes, there’s something morally objectionable about the universe. Let’s analyze that statement. Right? You You do a lot of things in life because other people don’t behave perfectly, then to the extent that your your concern is the environment. I doubt if smoking is the thing to worry about. To the extent that you’re concerned about the health of the other students, you’re probably going to have more success in a non coercive way to educate them. And I’m sure there’s plenty of room for it. So So I would say separate your motives, and don’t glom them all together, and then take appropriate action for each.

Ken Taylor
So you feel resolved? You feel enlightened?

William
Yeah, yeah, maybe it’ll just apply to Stanford for my Masters.

John Perry
There you go.

Ken Taylor
If you have a philosophical problem or quandary that’s affecting your work or your play or keeping you awake at night, John and I would be happy to lend an ear and maybe give you some sound advice.

John Perry
Go to the Philosophy Talk website and poke the conundrum’s button with your mouse, or just send an email to conundrums@philosophytalk.org. Philosophy Talk is a presentation of Ben Manilla productions and the trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University copyright 2008.

Ken Taylor
All right, executive producer is David Demarest.

John Perry
Our production coordinator is Devon Strolovitch. Daniel Elstein is our Director of Research. Lael is our webmaster. Also thanks to Zoe Corneli, Merle Kessler, Corey Goldman, and Mark Stone.

Ken Taylor
Philosophy Talk is sponsored in part by Powells City of Books—on the web at powells.com. Support also comes from the Templeton Foundation.

John Perry
And from various groups at Stanford University, the friends of Philosophy Talk, and the members of KALW San Francisco where our program originates.

Ken Taylor
The views expressed (or mis-expressed) on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders.

John Perry
The conversation continues on our website, philosophy talk.org. I’m John Perry.

Ken Taylor
And I’m Ken Taylor. Thank you for listening.

John Perry
And thank you for thinking.

Hannah Arendt
Perhaps just for today you will allow me to smoke immediately.