Bernstein kicks things off by pointing out that back when Hannah Arendt passed away in 1975, most people only knew her because of the fuss over her book about the Adolf Eichmann trial and that striking phrase, "the banality of evil". Sure, a group of people in the US and Germany knew her other works, but she wasn't exactly seen as a major political thinker globally. Fast forward to now, and things have changed _radically_. Her books are in tons of languages, and people everywhere are really, truly fascinated by her work, with conferences, articles, and even social media buzzing about her ideas. So, what's behind this surge of interest?. Well, Bernstein argues that Arendt was incredibly sharp in spotting some of the deepest, most confusing, and downright _dangerous_ issues in modern political life. The tricky part? Many of these problems haven't just stuck around; they've gotten _more_ intense and dangerous. When Arendt talked about "dark times," she wasn't just talking about the absolute horrors of 20th-century totalitarianism. She described darkness descending when the public space – where people can show, for better or worse, who they are and what they can do – loses its light. This happens through things like "credibility gaps," "invisible government," speech that hides the truth instead of revealing it, and empty exhortations that cheapen all truth. It's tough not to feel like we're living through dark times right now, globally, isn't it?. But Arendt believed that even in the darkest times, we can find "illumination," not so much from abstract theories, but from the lives and works of individuals. Bernstein wants to show us that Arendt herself provides this kind of illumination. She helps us get a critical handle on our current political headaches and highlights ways we might restore the dignity of politics. And _that's_ why she's absolutely worth reading and rereading today. **Getting to Know Hannah Arendt: Life Lessons and Fortuna** To really get Arendt's thinking, it helps to know a little bit about her journey. Bernstein gives us a brief glimpse into some moments that really shaped her. He mentions her fascination with Machiavelli's idea of Fortuna, or luck. And Arendt, unlike her friend Walter Benjamin, who seemed cursed by bad luck, actually had Fortuna smile on her at some critical points. Born in 1906 into a non-religious German-Jewish family, she was part of a brilliant generation of intellectuals. She studied with major philosophers and theologians in the early 1920s. But as the Nazis and their horrible antisemitism grew, Arendt agreed to help her Zionist friends by researching Nazi propaganda. This led to her being arrested and interrogated for eight days in 1933. Luckily, she refused to give anything away and was released – an incredible stroke of fortune, as many others in similar spots were killed. This brush with danger convinced her to leave Germany illegally. She made her way to Paris, which was a haven for many Jews fleeing the Nazis. Arendt ended up being officially stateless for 18 years until she became an American citizen. This personal experience profoundly shaped her deep sensitivity to the terrible situation of stateless people and refugees. Life for illegal German exiles in Paris was tough; they often couldn't get papers to work. But Arendt was lucky again, finding work with Jewish and Zionist groups, including one that sent endangered Jewish youth to Palestine. She also met Heinrich Blücher in Paris, who she married in 1940. Then came another twist of fate. In May 1940, just before the Germans invaded France, the French authorities ordered all "enemy aliens" (ages 17-55) to internment camps. Arendt was sent to Gurs camp in southern France. She later wrote about this experience with biting irony, calling those interned "the kind that are put in concentration camps by their foes and in internment camps by their friends". Astonishingly, Arendt managed to escape Gurs during the short time the Nazis were invading. Many women who stayed were later sent to Auschwitz under Adolf Eichmann's orders. Another piece of luck: she was separated from Heinrich and her mother when interned but managed to reunite with them through a series of fortunate coincidences. Now the challenge was escaping Europe entirely as a stateless, illegal German-Jewish refugee. This meant needing a US visa and a way out of France to catch a ship in Portugal. Bernstein points out a disturbing parallel here with the Kafkaesque difficulties faced by Syrian refugees seeking entry to the US today – the suspicion, hostility, and severe restrictions. But Fortuna seemed to intervene again for Arendt. She and Heinrich got visas from Varian Fry of the Emergency Rescue Committee in Marseille. They dodged the French police, escaped France, traveled across Spain, and finally reached Lisbon. After a three-month wait, they got a ship and arrived in New York in May 1941. Hannah's mother arrived a month later. Looking back, it's clear just how much sheer luck played a role, making the difference between life and death. She could have been killed during her interrogation in Berlin, failed to escape Gurs and ended up in Auschwitz, or failed to get a visa and been stranded in France like so many others who were sent to concentration camps. Arendt arrived in New York at 35, barely knowing English, a language she'd never been immersed in before. German was her native tongue, and she always loved it, especially German poetry. Yet, she set out to master English, publishing articles in Jewish periodicals with help from friends. She worked for Jewish organizations and became a senior editor at Schocken Books. In 1944, she pitched a book idea, initially titled "The Elements of Shame: Anti-Semitism – Imperialism – Racism". She worked on it for four intense years, changing its scope and content several times, eventually deciding to focus on totalitarianism. Published in 1951, _The Origins of Totalitarianism_ was a massive, dense book in three parts: Antisemitism, Imperialism, and Totalitarianism. It was immediately recognized as a major contribution, though its title is a bit misleading. Arendt wasn't just giving a historical account of causes; she aimed to trace the scattered "subterranean elements" that came together in the horrifying new phenomenon of totalitarianism. Like her other major works, _The Origins_ was controversial but established her as a major political thinker. Over the next 25 years, she published a string of provocative books and essays, and many unpublished works have appeared since her death. Bernstein focuses on key themes from her work that speak to our current problems. **Statelessness and Refugees: A Life's Foundation for Thought** One of the most profound things about Arendt as a thinker was her belief that serious thinking must be rooted in lived experience. She herself said that behind even abstract theories are incidents and stories containing their full meaning. Thought itself, she felt, arises from the actuality of incidents and must be guided by experiences. Arendt's primary lived experience after leaving Germany was as a stateless German-Jewish refugee. Refugee organizations helped her get a visa, financial aid for travel, and settle in New York. Many of her closest friends throughout her life were also refugees who had fled the Nazis. This experience deeply shaped her early thinking. As a child, she wasn barely aware of being Jewish, but by the 1920s, the viciousness of Nazi antisemitism made it unavoidable. She famously said, "If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man, or whatever". In the 1930s and 40s, much of her writing focused on the "Jewish Question" and Zionism. She wrote for a German-Jewish newspaper in New York read by other exiles. She even argued strongly for an international Jewish army to fight Hitler before the US entered the war. In 1943, she published a powerful article, "We Refugees," capturing the experience with insight, wit, irony, and melancholy. She noted that the meaning of "refugee" had changed; it wasn't just about fleeing for political opinions, but about being condemned as a member of a race. Refugees were simply those who arrived in a new country without means and needed help. Many refugees pretended to be optimistic, eager to assimilate and build new lives. Arendt satirized this, telling a story about a German Jew in France who formed a society to help German Jews pretend they were already French. The sad truth, she said, was the loss of homes, jobs, language, family, and friends. People were advised to forget the horrors, but beneath the surface was a struggle with despair and confusion about identity. Arendt, though independent, felt this deeply. She described the absurdity of being expelled as a Jew, then called a "boche" (German slang) by the French, playing the role of prospective citizens for years, only to be interned as "boches" when the war started. Then, after the German invasion, they weren't freed as Jews but remained jailed because they were Germans. This experience of being bounced around from one designation to another was chilling. Arendt saw the plight of Jewish refugees as part of a larger, deeper issue: the mass phenomenon of statelessness that had emerged after World War I. She argued that these refugees were the "vanguard of their peoples" and that Jewish history, for the first time, was intertwined with that of other nations. The whole system of European peoples collapsed when its weakest member was excluded. She delved into this more formally in a key chapter of _The Origins_, titled "The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man". She called the existence of an ever-growing number of stateless persons "the newest mass phenomenon" and "the most symptomatic group in contemporary politics". Their existence wasn't due to a single cause, and once a group became stateless after World War I, they could rarely, if ever, regain a normal legal status. Bernstein notes that it's almost eerie how relevant this observation is today. Nearly every major political event in the last century has added new categories of refugees, and the phenomenon is now global, with increasing resistance from nations to accept them. Millions live in refugee camps with little hope of returning home or finding a new one. Arendt was one of the first major political thinkers to highlight this growing population as the most telling symptom of contemporary politics. Arendt traced the roots of mass statelessness back to the decline of the nation-state. She used the term precisely, distinguishing "nation" (a dominant cultural, linguistic group) from "state" (the legal status of citizens within a territory). From the beginning, there was tension between these two. Who truly belonged to the "nation"? Who deserved citizenship and rights?. This problem was made worse by the Minority Treaties after WWI, supposedly meant to protect minorities in new European states. But these treaties effectively stated that _only nationals_ could be citizens enjoying full legal protection. Others needed "laws of exception" unless they fully assimilated. Arendt saw this as hypocritical and a failure, leading to more stateless people fleeing persecution. Nation and nationalism triumphed over state and legal rights. This danger was built into the nation-state from its start. The breakdown of the balance between nation and state led to a terrifyingly swift disintegration of this form of government. Bernstein again finds an uncanny parallel today with the rise of ugly nationalism where right-wing parties claim only "true" nationals deserve full rights. A further stage Arendt identified was "denationalization" – stripping people born in a nation-state of their citizenship. This happened systematically to Jews in Germany long before extermination. Sovereign nations have always claimed absolute rights over immigration and expulsion. Denationalization wasn't just a Nazi program; many European countries passed laws to get rid of "undesirable" inhabitants. Bernstein points out that policies today, like ending programs for children brought illegally to the US, have the same practical effect as denationalization, deporting them to places they've never lived. Reading Arendt on these issues today feels incredibly current. While the categories and causes of refugees differ, the phenomenon of political events constantly creating new masses of stateless people persists. Refugees remain the most symptomatic group in politics. Despite international efforts, sovereign nations still fiercely guard their right to exclude refugees, using tricks to keep them out. The very concept of sovereignty is being abused for exclusion. The main "solution" seems to be more and larger refugee camps, housing millions with little hope – more than when Arendt wrote _The Origins_. These camps are the only "country" offered to those fleeing turmoil, persecution, or poverty. In essence, the problems Arendt highlighted have intensified. **The Right to Have Rights: Beyond Inalienable Declarations** The situation of stateless refugees forces us to confront tricky questions about "Rights of Man," "inalienable rights," and "human rights". Arendt called these "perplexities," issues she felt people often preferred to ignore or cover up with clichés. She wasn't just asking questions; she felt we _had_ to think about these issues. She noted that declarations like the French Rights of Man and the American "inalienable" rights were important historical turning points. They meant that Man himself, not God or tradition, was the source of law. These rights were declared "inalienable," needing no external authority because Man was their source and goal. No special laws were thought necessary to protect them, as all laws were supposed to rest upon them. Man was the sovereign in law, just as the people were in government. However, Arendt spotted a paradox: these rights were assigned to an _abstract_ human being, disconnected from real, concrete individuals. Neither the French nor Americans initially meant these rights for everyone, not even everyone within their borders. Despite the noble words about inherent dignity, human rights quickly became tied to _national_ emancipation. Only a government of one's own nation could truly protect these rights for its citizens. The moment people lost their own government and had to rely on these "minimum rights," it turned out there was no authority or institution willing to guarantee them. For those who lost legal and civil rights, the loss of these rights effectively meant the loss of their supposedly inalienable rights too. Human rights, presented as universal and inalienable, proved – and continue to prove – unenforceable even where constitutions are based on them. Beyond this enforceability issue, there's also confusion and disagreement about what exactly these "human inalienable rights" are, despite efforts by groups like the UN. While the human rights movement has grown massively, the fundamental problems Arendt identified about guaranteeing and protecting these rights still persist. Arendt's thinking on statelessness is deeply personal, blending her own experience with broader analysis. She powerfully described the plight of the rightless. The first loss is losing one's home, the entire social fabric one was born into and where one had a place. While displacement has happened throughout history, the unprecedented part is the _impossibility_ of finding a new home. During the Nazi era, and again today globally, there's no country where migrants can go without severe restrictions, be easily assimilated, or found a new community. Governments use various means to block their entry. The second loss is government protection. Asylum traditionally offered protection for individuals fleeing persecution. But today, even countries granting asylum are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. Asylum is for exceptional individual cases, not masses of refugees. Arendt noted that being forced to leave today often has little to do with anything a person did or thought. The truly devastating calamity of the rightless is not just losing home and protection, but losing belonging to _any_ community. Arendt chillingly described the "logic" in Nazi Germany: stripping people of all legal status was the first step. Jews were deprived of rights long before extermination, cut off by ghettos and camps. The extermination didn't start until the Nazis were satisfied no country would claim these people. A state of complete rightlessness was created _before_ the right to live was challenged. Arendt's point is profoundly disturbing today. The growing masses of refugees treated as "superfluous" echoes this. Even without totalitarian regimes, there's a thin line between stripping away all rights and destroying life itself. The "totalitarian solution" of making people superfluous still haunts us. The most fundamental loss for people deprived of human rights is losing a place in the world where opinions matter and actions are effective. It's losing the right to belong to the community one is born into. This isn't about losing freedom or justice (rights of citizens), but losing the _right to action_ and the _right to opinion_. In short, Arendt was deeply skeptical of abstract human rights that lack effective institutions to guarantee and protect them. While "Rights of Man" were important historically, her central point is that the most fundamental right is the "right to have rights". This means the right to belong to an organized community that guarantees and protects rights. Losing this political community, not specific rights, is the calamity. A person can lose specific rights and retain dignity, but the loss of a polity itself "expels him from humanity". These thoughts on the right to have rights are, Bernstein tells us, where many of Arendt's major political themes begin. Her investigation of plurality, action, speech, public space, empowerment, and public freedom – the elements of a kind of politics where human potential can be fully expressed – all stem from this. She constantly returned to what it means to live in such a political community. **Total Domination and the Chilling Logic of Superfluousness** Arendt returned to these ideas in her analysis of total domination in _The Origins_. By focusing on the horrors of totalitarianism and what it sought to destroy in humans, she deeply appreciated what is needed for our humanity to thrive. She saw concentration and extermination camps as the "laboratories" where totalitarianism's belief that "everything is possible" was "verified". The goal was to destroy human plurality and differentiation, turning people into mere things. She outlined a three-stage "logic" of total domination. 1. **Killing the juridical person:** Stripping people of legal rights. The Nuremberg laws in Nazi Germany did this to Jews and others. In camps, no one had any rights. This is just the beginning. 2. **Murdering the moral person:** Making even martyrdom impossible. Totalitarian terror triumphed when conscience decisions became impossible, forcing choices between terrible evils, like betraying friends or sending family to death. Who could solve the dilemma of a mother forced to choose which of her children would be killed?. 3. **Destroying individuality:** Eliminating spontaneity, the capacity to begin something new from one's own resources that isn't just a reaction to the environment. This is almost always successful after the juridical and moral person are destroyed. Totalitarianism's ultimate aim is to make human beings "superfluous". It doesn't just want to change the world or society, but "transform human nature itself". This focus on eliminating spontaneity and individuality, turning humans into "living corpses," brings to mind Primo Levi's description of the "Musselmann" in the death camps. These were emaciated individuals, described by Levi as the "backbone of the camp," an anonymous mass without thought, too empty to truly suffer, already seemingly dead. Arendt didn't use the term, but she saw these "living corpses" as the epitome of an unprecedented form of absolute or "radical evil". This phenomenon was so overpowering it seemed to break down all known standards of understanding. The only discernible thing was that this radical evil emerged where all men became equally superfluous. Arendt's analysis of this "logic" connects directly to her worry about the creation of superfluous stateless refugees. She concluded her discussion of total domination with a grave warning that we should take seriously today. The danger of the camps is that with growing populations and homelessness, masses of people are constantly made superfluous if we view the world in purely utilitarian terms. Political, social, and economic events seem to silently conspire with totalitarian tools designed to make people superfluous. The "factories of annihilation" demonstrate a "swiftest solution" to overpopulation or socially rootless masses, and they remain an "attraction as a warning". Perhaps the most unsettling sentence, according to Bernstein, is the very last one in that section of _The Origins_: "Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of strong temptations which will come up wherever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social and economic misery in a manner worthy of man". Arendt was careful to distinguish totalitarianism from other forms of authoritarian rule; no other regime had attempted such systematic total domination to destroy human nature itself. Totalitarianism as a government form might be gone, but totalitarian "solutions" remain powerful temptations. We see this in genocides and the use of torture since. With millions treated as superfluous, Arendt's warning about the fragile line between destroying the right to have rights and destroying life itself is incredibly relevant. **Loyal Opposition: Arendt's Complex Relationship with Zionism** When Arendt fled Germany in 1933, she was most disappointed by how many intellectuals tolerated or cooperated with the Nazis. She found this repulsive and decided to actively oppose them. She asked herself what she could do _as a Jew_, realizing her Jewish identity had become a purely political problem for her. She wanted to do practical, exclusively Jewish work, which led her to work in France. Though she never joined a Zionist party or considered moving to Palestine, she worked for Youth Aliyah, helping send young Jews to Palestine, and even accompanied a group in 1935. Her initial attraction to Zionism was because, unlike assimilationists, Zionists were politically active against Hitler. She was drawn to Bernard Lazare, whom she saw in the tradition of the "Jewish pariah" – figures like Heine, Chaplin, and Kafka. Lazare was a "conscious pariah," a rebel who believed Jews should join other oppressed groups to fight injustice. He knew that emancipated Jews must become aware of their pariah status and rebel, fighting for freedom alongside all the downtrodden. Arendt herself was a "conscious pariah," believing in joining others to fight for justice. This was her initial reason for working with Zionists, but things changed in the 1940s. As the horrific details of the Holocaust emerged, there was growing international sympathy for Jews. Meanwhile, the British, who governed Palestine, faced increasing turmoil and violence from both Jews and Arabs and wanted out. Zionists saw this as a chance to create a Jewish state. What deeply troubled Arendt was the Zionists' increasing tendency to ignore the "Arab question" – the fact that most people in Palestine were Arabs. Arendt never held back her opinions. She strongly objected when Zionists proposed granting minority rights to the Arab majority in Palestine, arguing that for 50 years, Zionists had ignored or suppressed the issue of Jewish-Arab relations. Her sharpest criticism came after American Zionists (and later the World Zionist Organization) resolved in 1944 to establish a "free and democratic Jewish commonwealth... [which] shall embrace the whole of Palestine, undivided and undiminished". For Arendt, this was a turning point where moderate Zionists gave in to extremists. Her article "Zionism Reconsidered" was incredibly vehement, filled with irony, sarcasm, and blunt denunciation born of her anger and disappointment with extreme ideologists. It was so inflammatory that one Jewish journal refused to publish it. She knew her dissenting voice was a minority one, often shouted down, but this didn't stop her. She wanted an honest discussion about Arab-Jewish issues when many Zionists refused to face reality. She adopted the motto, "the victorious cause pleases the gods, but the defeated one pleases Cato". This meant defending the defeated cause, not just because it was defeated, but because historians (especially modern ones) often favor the "victorious" narratives, a bias Arendt, like Walter Benjamin, criticized. Arendt knew firsthand what it meant to dissent and be condemned for it, becoming a pariah among her own people long before the Eichmann controversy. She was disturbed by the shift towards extreme revisionism and the pressure for ideological conformity. In her view of politics, public debate among differing opinions is vital. The drive for ideological unanimity, replacing different perspectives with a single "truth," is an ominous tendency of our mass age. This tendency was perfected by totalitarian terror. As she wrote after hostilities broke out, unanimity is dangerous; it destroys social and personal life based on human difference. Unanimity isn't agreement but fanaticism, tending to eliminate those who differ. Bernstein highlights that Arendt's thinking about politics, especially the importance of plurality and debate, was rooted in her experience of dissenting from Zionist unanimity. She advocated for a Jewish _homeland_ where Jews and Arabs could live together with equal rights, not a Jewish _nation-state_. For many Zionists, this was seen as absurd and a betrayal. Arendt predicted that a Jewish state would fuel militant nationalism in both Jews and Arabs. When the UN voted to partition Palestine in 1947, Arendt was aware there was no clear way to implement or enforce it. War soon broke out. Even amidst the fighting in 1948, she argued that Arab-Jewish cooperation, though seemingly impossible, was the only "sober statement of the fact that without it the whole Jewish venture in Palestine is doomed". She admired figures like Judah Magnes, who led a small group advocating for a unified country of Jews and Arabs. Arendt made a chilling prediction even if Jews won the war. The resulting land would be far from the dream of world Jewry. The "victorious" Jews would live surrounded by hostility, isolated within threatened borders, preoccupied with self-defense to the exclusion of other interests. Jewish culture and social experiments would cease, and political thought would center on military strategy. This would be the fate of a small people outnumbered by hostile neighbors. Given this grim outlook, what did she suggest?. She urged the UN to bravely go to individuals (both Jewish and Arab) known for sincerely believing in cooperation and ask them to negotiate a truce. She wasn't proposing two separate states but consistently argued the nation-state model wasn't viable. So, what was her alternative?. It wasn't just theoretical; it had practical urgency. Here, Bernstein sees the first outlines of her alternative to the nation-state – what she later called the council system. Citing Magnes's proposals, she advocated for a federated state. This would avoid the "troublesome majority–minority constellation" and would be based on Jewish-Arab community councils, resolving conflict at the local level. She knew her proposal would be attacked as a "stab in the back" in the prevailing atmosphere of enthusiasm for a Jewish nation-state. But she insisted it was the only "realistic" way to save the homeland idea. Thinking of herself as part of the "loyal opposition," she ended her article outlining concrete conditions for a realistic solution, emphasizing local self-government and mixed councils as the only path to political emancipation for Palestine. Sadly, she concluded, it was too late. There was no significant group willing to take her seriously or listen to her insistence that peace required direct negotiation and cooperation. Like Cato, she was defending a defeated cause. Bernstein notes that despite all the changes since the 1940s, her observations and warnings are remarkably relevant today. She was perceptive about the deep, unresolved problems and the danger of ideological unanimity that silences dissent. She warned that Israel would face problems regarding its Arab population's rights, worsened by occupation. While no one can predict the future of the conflict, Bernstein states one thing is clear: peace won't happen unless the problems Arendt identified are honestly confronted. **Racism and Segregation: A Difficult Moment** Arendt was no stranger to controversy. She expressed her opinions forcefully, often hitting raw nerves. While often insightful, she could also be obtuse, sometimes imposing her own categories on reality instead of being sensitive to its complexity. In the 1950s, she sparked a fierce controversy with her "Reflections on Little Rock". This essay was prompted by the desegregation crisis following the Supreme Court's _Brown v. Board of Education_ ruling. In 1957, when 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford tried to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, the state Governor used the National Guard to stop her, and a screaming white mob threatened her. A photograph of this horrifying scene shocked the world. Arendt was asked to write about it, but her submitted article was so controversial that _Commentary_ hesitated to publish it. She withdrew it but later agreed to publish it in _Dissent_ in 1959 with a note. Arendt surprisingly opposed federally imposed integration of public schools. Using her distinction between the political, social, and private, she claimed social discrimination shouldn't be outlawed politically. She argued that if white parents wanted their kids in all-white schools, the government shouldn't interfere. Government acts in the name of equality, which she felt didn't apply to the social sphere. She even suggested Black parents were using their children for political battles. Education, she felt, should be a private matter, and government shouldn't interfere with parental choice except to ensure compulsory attendance. Furthermore, she defended the idea of states' rights, aligning with segregationist arguments that the federal government shouldn't interfere with state-enforced segregation. Bernstein points out she failed to grasp the disastrous political, economic, and social consequences of discrimination and how "state's rights" was used to enforce ugly practices. Arendt rarely backed down from her opinions, but she did admit misjudgment here after Ralph Ellison, the acclaimed Black writer, critiqued her. Ellison argued she failed to understand the experience of people trying to find their place in a society that denied them recognition. He specifically charged her with failing to understand the ideal of sacrifice among Southern Blacks, accusing her of flying "into left field" by saying parents exploited their children. He felt she had "absolutely no conception of what goes on in the minds of Negro parents when they send their kids through those lines of hostile people". Arendt wrote to Ellison, acknowledging her error, admitting she didn't understand the "ideal of sacrifice" and the "element of stark violence, of elementary, bodily fear in the situation". Despite this private acknowledgment, criticism of her essay persists today. Critics like Danielle S. Allen and Kathryn T. Gines have detailed her factual errors and misguided opinions. Bernstein agrees that she didn't understand the depth and political consequences of discrimination against Blacks in America. However, he pushes back against calling her a "white supremacist" or "anti-Black racist," epithets sometimes used. He suggests that if we "think with Arendt against Arendt," we can find resources in her own writings to confront racism today. It's important to see her thinking on racism in her earlier works, particularly _The Origins_. She grappled with the biological racism of the Nazis. In tracing totalitarianism's elements, she focused on the racism inherent in imperialism. She distinguished colonialism (which included extermination of native peoples) from imperialism, where expansion for expansion's sake became dominant. She graphically described massacres in the "scramble for Africa," where brutal administrative massacres of millions were justified by imperialist racism, anticipating Nazi ideology. Arendt consistently condemned racist ideology. Even in _On Violence_, despite other problematic remarks, she stated that racism is an ideology based on pseudo-scientific theories leading to deliberate, murderous acts, not just vague prejudices. Violence in interracial struggle is a logical consequence of this ideological system. Despite these insights into racism as an ideology, she failed to apply it fully to the experience of Blacks in America. She didn't object to discrimination in the social realm, only its _legal_ enforcement. She characterized segregation as a social custom distinct from politics, claiming only its legal enforcement was unconstitutional. Bernstein finds her description of discrimination somewhat naive, blurring the line between benign social choices and the vicious, humiliating discrimination Blacks faced daily. She used a problematic analogy: comparing someone choosing only Jewish company for vacation to forced segregation. This was grossly insensitive and misapplied her own distinctions between political, social, and private realms. What's perplexing is that Arendt's other writings offer resources for a more nuanced understanding of discrimination. While analogies between Jews and Blacks must be careful, her own experience might have been relevant. Didn't she say if attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew?. Why isn't this relevant when Blacks are attacked as Blacks?. Or consider her "conscious pariah" idea: shouldn't Blacks, treated as outcasts, become conscious rebels against oppression?. Her description of Kafka's character "K," a social outcast wanting only to be treated normally in a society that has ceased to be human, could apply to minorities facing humiliating discrimination. She might have realized the problem wasn't just what Blacks should do, but the larger white society they lived in. When a Black person is seen _only_ as a Black person, they lose the freedom of action that is specifically human; their deeds are reduced to "Negro" qualities, treating them like specimens, not individuals. Despite critiquing her Little Rock essay, Bernstein sees her as prescient in some ways. Hopes in the 1950s that school integration would solve the "Negro question" were high, but Arendt was skeptical. Many argue today that de facto segregation is as bad or worse. She doubted civil rights laws alone would end discrimination. She felt the US had never honestly faced the "original crime" of excluding Blacks and natives from the republic's founding consensus. She was ridiculed for calling miscegenation laws (still existing in many states) a more flagrant breach of the Constitution than school segregation. The Supreme Court only struck these down in 1967. She was also ahead of her time asserting the right to marry who one wishes is an elementary human right. So, without excusing her errors, Bernstein believes her writings contain valuable insights for resisting racism today. **The Banality of Evil: Beyond the Monster Myth** Few things in Arendt's career caused as much uproar as _Eichmann in Jerusalem_, first published as articles in _The New Yorker_ in 1963. She was viciously attacked, accused of making Eichmann look better than his victims and blaming Jews for their own destruction. Her style, seen as ironic or "flippant," offended many. The phrase "the banality of evil" seemed to trivialize the Holocaust. The attacks got personal; she was called a self-hating Jew. There were attempts to stop her book's publication, and some of her closest friends cut ties with her. Reading the book today, it's hard to fully grasp the intensity of that furor. While valid criticisms exist, like her controversial brief discussion of the Jewish councils (prominent Jews chosen by Nazis to organize communities and fill quotas for extermination). Arendt's judgment on their leadership was harsh, claiming cooperation helped lead to millions of deaths. This is seen as an inflammatory and irresponsible claim, failing to account for the complex situation and varying actions of leaders, some of whom chose suicide. No one can know how many would have died without the councils. However, Bernstein argues there's a huge gap between what Arendt actually wrote and the "image" her critics attacked. The charge that she exonerated Eichmann is flat-out false. She considered him one of the "greatest criminals" and strongly defended Israel's right to try him. She argued throughout her report that he was fully responsible. While critical of the prosecutor's style, she deeply admired the judges and completely endorsed their finding of Eichmann's responsibility and guilt, calling it "the truth". She even endorsed his death sentence. When she used "the banality of evil," she wasn't offering a theory, but describing a _factual phenomenon_ she observed at the trial. Eichmann's deeds were monstrous, but he wasn't a monstrous person. He struck her as banal, ordinary, caught up in clichés and routine. In the book's postscript, she explained: she meant evil deeds on a vast scale not stemming from particular wickedness, pathology, or conviction in the doer, but from someone whose only distinction was "extraordinary shallowness". Eichmann wasn't like literary villains. "Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement he had no motives at all," she wrote. He "never realized what he was doing" in the sense of lacking imagination to see from his victims' perspective. He could discuss his career details endlessly but lacked an "enlarged mentality". It wasn't stupidity, but "sheer thoughtlessness" that made him one of the greatest criminals. Years later, in a lecture, Arendt reiterated that "the banality of evil" was a factual observation, not a theory. Eichmann's deeds were monstrous, but the doer was not; his characteristic was an "authentic inability to think". He could easily accept a new set of rules, seeing the change from "duty" under Nazis to "crime" at trial as just another "language rule". Debate continues about Arendt's accuracy in depicting Eichmann. Bernstein believes it wasn't entirely accurate, as later information showed Eichmann boasted about his role among former Nazis in Argentina. Historian Christopher Browning agrees Arendt's concept is important for understanding _many_ perpetrators but perhaps not Eichmann himself, suggesting she was partly fooled by his trial persona. However, Bernstein argues that even if Arendt was historically mistaken about _this specific Eichmann_, the _idea_ of the banality of evil is profoundly important and relevant today. The strong reaction it provoked reveals a deep-seated tendency to think of evil in absolute terms – monsters vs. victims. We want monstrous deeds to come from monstrous people. This expectation is deeply entrenched. The prosecutor in the Eichmann trial certainly portrayed him as a demonic mastermind, which was factually false. Arendt also rejected the idea that Eichmann was _merely_ a cog, arguing that in law and morality, one must ask _why_ someone became a cog and continued to function that way. Arendt's major point is that we shouldn't mythologize evil. Her mentor Karl Jaspers had similarly argued against seeing demonic greatness in Hitler, comparing Nazis to bacteria that cause epidemics – terrible, but still just bacteria. Arendt echoed this when criticized, saying evil isn't "radical" but "extreme". It lacks depth and any demonic dimension, spreading like a fungus on the surface. It is "thought-defying" not because it's profound, but because when thought tries to reach its roots, it finds "nothing" – that's its banality. The idea of banal evil is relevant because it confronts the reality that horrific deeds can be done by ordinary people for mundane reasons. As Arendt put it, "most evil is done by people who never made up their mind to be either good or bad". **Truth, Politics, and the War on Reality** The intense backlash against _Eichmann in Jerusalem_ led Arendt to write "Truth and Politics". She felt many criticisms were based on a distorted "image" rather than her actual writing, with lies circulating about her report. This prompted her to explore fundamental questions about lying, truth, and politics. She opened the essay arrestingly, noting that truth and politics have always been on bad terms, and truthfulness isn't typically seen as a political virtue. Lies have long been viewed as necessary tools for politicians and statesmen. This raises big questions: Why is this the case? What does it mean for politics and for truth itself? Is truth inherently powerless, and power inherently deceitful?. The conflict between truth and politics is ancient. Arendt divided her discussion into "rational truth" (like mathematical or philosophical truths about eternal forms, like Plato's ideas) and "factual truth". Rational truths are necessary, while factual truths are contingent – they happened but didn't have to. Plato saw a conflict between philosophical truth and political opinion (_doxai_), which he viewed as unstable and lacking true knowledge. Politics, based on opinion, seemed to be where power and might ruled. Plato's _Republic_ tried to argue for justice based on eternal standards of rational truth. This conflict arose from two opposing ways of life: the philosopher seeking eternal truth and the citizen engaged in the changing world of the polis. Opinion was often degraded compared to truth, which was politically significant because "opinion, and not truth, belongs among the indispensable prerequisites of all power". While vestiges remain (like attacks on scientific truth), the ancient conflict between rational truth and opinion isn't the main problem today. The idea of philosophers having special knowledge setting political standards has been largely abandoned. However, Arendt draws a lesson: the tradition of political philosophy often tried to impose its standards of truth on politics. For Arendt, politics _should_ be about debating opinions among a plurality of human beings in a public space – she celebrated, rather than denigrated, the conflict of opinions as the core of politics. By "opinions," she doesn't mean poll results. Individuals _form_ opinions through public debate, considering different viewpoints. To form an opinion, she suggested imagining other people's standpoints, engaging in "representative thinking". The more standpoints considered, the stronger and more valid the opinion. Forming opinions isn't a solitary act; it requires genuine encounters with differing views, whether real or imagined. Opinions aren't judged by fixed tests but by the strength of argument in public debate. This requires a community of political equals willing to expose their views to critique. Bernstein sees a relevant lesson here: the dangerous tendency today to refuse to listen to those who disagree, reinforced by media that caters to existing prejudices. Arendt also sharply distinguished opinions from group interests. Interests are relevant politically as _group_ interests. Opinions, however, belong _only_ to individuals who think "coolly and freely". No multitude can form an opinion. Opinions arise where people communicate freely and can make their views public, but they too need purification and representation. The opposite of rational truth is ignorance; the opposite of factual truth is _deliberate lying_. Factual truth is much more fragile because facts are contingent. It's easier to deny factual truths or eliminate them through lying. Factual truth faces hostility when it clashes with deeply held convictions. A common technique to deny factual truth is claiming it's just another opinion – a tendency increasingly prevalent today. Facts should inform opinions, even if opinions differ, but facts themselves shouldn't be disputed. "Freedom of opinion is a farce unless factual information is guaranteed and the facts themselves are not in dispute". Arendt gave the example of Clemenceau, asked what historians would say caused WWI, replying he didn't know but was sure they wouldn't say Belgium invaded Germany. But she notes even this shows naiveté; history _can_ be rewritten to obliterate facts, as seen in totalitarian societies and practiced by politicians today. The constant danger is that powerful techniques are used to deny factual truth, turning facts into opinions, and creating a world of "alternative facts". Arendt warned of an even greater danger: the total substitution of lies for factual truth doesn't just mean lies are believed and truth rejected, but the sense by which we navigate reality – the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood – is _destroyed_. She had a deep insight into what many feel is happening now: the very categories of truth vs. falsehood are being obliterated. This makes lying boundless and often meets little resistance. Traditionally, political lies aimed to deceive others, still recognizing a truth/lie distinction. But Arendt noted the deceiver can come to believe their own lies. She told an anecdote about a sentry who cried wolf so successfully, he eventually rushed to the wall himself. This shows how much our grasp of reality depends on sharing a world with others and the difficulty of sticking to an unshared "truth" (or lie). The more successful the liar, the more likely they are to fall for their own fictions. Dealing with a deceiver who believes their own lies, or worse, can't distinguish lies from truth, is much harder. The political liar, being a "man of action," tries to change the world to match their lies. Totalitarianism did this extremely. This temptation exists today in non-totalitarian societies. Arendt's description of totalitarian propaganda is disturbing in light of current events. People obsessed with escaping harsh reality, feeling a loss of status and a familiar world, are prime targets. When the sense of a common-sense world collapses, factual truth loses importance. What convinces masses isn't facts, but the consistency of the fictional system they feel part of. People feeling neglected yearn for narratives that explain their misery and promise redemption. Authoritarian leaders exploit this anxiety, blurring truth and reality. Argument and facts aren't important; an appealing fictional story can be foolproof against reality. Arendt also discussed "image-making" as a new form of lying, where factual truth is discarded if it doesn't fit the desired image, and the image becomes a substitute for reality. Such lies involve violence, destroying whatever they negate. Traditional lies hid things; modern lies destroy them. Bernstein points to recent examples, like claims about crowd sizes, fraudulent votes, or denying election interference, where fabricated images become reality for followers who dismiss conflicting facts as "fake news" or conspiracy. Arendt wrote decades ago that tellers of factual truth were often seen as more dangerous than real opponents. She wasn't optimistic that truth-tellers would always win; factual truth is often powerless against image-making and power. Image-makers know this, which is why they attack free press and institutions seeking impartial truth. Focusing on lying by authoritarian leaders is one aspect, but Arendt also discussed image-making involving complex systems. In "Lying in Politics," her response to the Pentagon Papers, she analyzed the systematic deception of the American public by government authorities during the Vietnam War. Lying was widespread, from phony body counts to doctored reports. This grand-scale lying involved complicity across government levels. The fragility of facts makes deception easy and tempting; lies are often more plausible and appealing because the liar knows what the audience wants to hear and tailors the story. What's striking about the Pentagon Papers lying is that while image-making occurred, accurate intelligence _contradicted_ the manufactured image, but this was ignored. "Problem-solvers" substituted "scenarios" for facts, exhibiting a false sense of omnipotence. They became obsessed with the image – the US as the greatest power. "Image-making as a global policy" aimed not at conquest but winning "people's minds" – something new in history's follies. How could "problem-solvers" ignore reality?. Arendt noted a new twist: self-deception came _first_. The deceivers started by deceiving themselves. Convinced of overwhelming success in public relations and the ability to manipulate people, they anticipated belief and victory in the battle for minds. Living in a "defactualized world," they ignored facts that contradicted their image, including the audience's refusal to be convinced. Arendt left us with an ambiguous conclusion. On one hand, organized lying and image-making seem boundless. On the other, systematic political lying eventually breaks down; it can destroy factual truth but never replace it. Arendt shows how effective and dangerous political lying can be, warning against the naive belief that insisting on truth is enough to challenge the power of lies. Image-makers are sophisticated at discrediting factual truth, calling free press "fake news". The greatest danger is when the very distinction between truth and falsehood is questioned, and people stop caring. We face these tendencies today. Arendt wouldn't make facile comparisons to totalitarian regimes, but the similarities between today's lying/image-making and techniques perfected by totalitarianism are frightening and a warning. **Plurality, Politics, and the Spark of Public Freedom** At the end of "Truth and Politics," Arendt felt she had focused so much on lying that she failed to mention the "greatness and the dignity" of politics. She had described it like a battlefield of interests, focused on profit and power, implying it only exists to handle life's necessities. Arendt certainly understood the reality of lying, deception, and violence in politics. She wasn't naive ("Politics," she said, "is not a nursery"). She analyzed totalitarianism's unprecedented nature but also wanted to recover the dignity of politics. Today, with so much cynicism about politicians, it's easy to despair. Arendt didn't offer political blueprints, but she believed, like Shakespeare's pearl-diver, that one can find valuable insights ("pearls and corals") in history's fragments to illuminate what politics was and could be. Her positive idea of politics offers a critical lens to judge today's shortcomings. This is another key reason to read her now. Many think her positive view of politics starts in _The Human Condition_, drawing on idealized ancient models. Critics say this makes her irrelevant today. But Bernstein argues this is mistaken. Arendt's thinking started not with the Greeks or Romans, but her own experience. We saw this in her discussions of statelessness, the right to have rights, and the calamity of losing a polity. Her defense of a Jewish homeland as a place where rights are guaranteed, advocating for local councils, shows the beginnings of her positive view. Most significantly, grappling with the horrors of totalitarianism and its goal of destroying human individuality and plurality is what oriented her search for the meaning of politics. Philosopher Claude Lefort illuminates this: Arendt's analysis of totalitarianism shaped her political theory by _inverting_ the image of totalitarianism. She sought not a "model" but references to politics in "privileged moments" where its features are clearest, like the American and French Revolutions, or the council movements in Russia (1917) and Hungary (1956). Lefort captures Arendt's spirit – recovering the dignity of politics by finding these moments of clarity. She approached ancient Greece, Rome, and modern revolutions in this spirit. Bernstein wants to explore the web of concepts Arendt weaves to show the dignity of politics: action, plurality, natality, speech, appearance, public space, public freedom, power (as empowerment), persuasion, and political judgment. Arendt uses these concepts in specific ways. In _The Human Condition_, she analyzes _Vita Activa_ (the active life), contrasting it with the contemplative life. Within _Vita Activa_, she distinguishes labor (for survival), work (creating a durable world), and action. Action, in her unique sense, happens directly _between_ humans without intermediaries and corresponds to the human condition of _plurality_. Plurality – that we are distinct individuals with different perspectives – is the essential condition for political life. While her labor/work distinction is debatable, action is central to her politics. Action corresponds to plurality because each of us has a unique perspective. We show who we are through speech and action. Action is the capacity to _begin_ something new. This capacity is inherent in everyone. Action is also grounded in _natality_ – the new beginning inherent in birth, which manifests through our capacity to begin something new through acting. Birth gives us the potential for a "second birth" through action. We don't act alone; we act _in concert_ with others, revealing our distinct selves. One of her most original ideas is _public spaces_. These aren't natural but created by humans. They are where we act, speak, form/test opinions, and debate. Politics, strictly speaking, arises _between_ human beings. She saw an affinity between politics and performing arts: like performers needing an audience and a space, acting humans need others to appear before and a publicly organized space. Arendt drew on the Greek concept of _isonomy_ – political equality – to explain politics. Traditional politics asks who rules whom and its legitimacy. Arendt saw politics more radically as a form of _no rule_. Political equality is essential; we debate and act among peers. Individuals aren't born equal. Isonomy in the Greek polis created equality, not because people were born equal, but because they _weren't_ and needed the polis and its laws (_nomos_) to _make_ them equal through citizenship. In the Greek polis, freedom existed only among political equals. Freedom, in this view, is manifest in certain activities and requires others to see, judge, and remember them. A free life needed the presence of others; freedom itself needed a space like the agora or polis where people could gather. By exploring isonomy and freedom in the Greek polis, Arendt highlighted an essential feature of genuine politics' dignity. She was fleshing out the "right to have rights" – the need for a community and public spaces where individuals can act, deliberate, and be judged. This network of concepts (action, natality, plurality, public spaces) sets the stage for understanding tangible, worldly _public freedom_. In "What is Freedom?", Arendt distinguished philosophical freedom (inner free will) from political public freedom. Public freedom existed in Greece before ideas of free will emerged, and philosophical struggles with free will began when public freedom declined. For Arendt, the purpose (_raison d'être_) of politics is freedom, experienced through action in the political realm. Without a guaranteed public realm, freedom lacks a space to appear. To clarify public freedom, she drew on both Greek isonomy and the Enlightenment philosophes. For them, public freedom wasn't an internal escape or choosing between alternatives. It existed _only in public_, a tangible, worldly reality created by humans to be enjoyed. It was the human-made public space where freedom appeared and became visible. Like the pearl-diver, Arendt sought to recover this worldly, tangible public freedom – the kind totalitarianism aimed to destroy. This was seen in the US Founding Fathers' debates and in every manifestation of the revolutionary spirit, like the 1956 Budapest uprising. Public freedom is a positive worldly achievement arising when diverse people act and debate publicly, sharing opinions and persuading each other. Arendt also distinguished public freedom from _liberation_, which is liberation _from_ something (poverty, oppression). This distinction is vital today, where liberation and freedom are often confused. Bernstein uses the example of the 2003 Iraq invasion justified by promises of freedom after Saddam Hussein's overthrow. This was a disastrous illusion. Liberation from oppressors is necessary for freedom, but not sufficient. Overthrowing tyrants doesn't automatically bring positive public freedom – a bitter lesson repeated throughout history, and relevant in today's conflicts. Another reason this distinction matters: many liberal thinkers identify freedom with negative liberty (minimizing state coercion) and are suspicious of positive public freedom, fearing it leads to oppression. But Arendt's concept of public freedom stands _against_ authoritarianism and domination. She developed it _as an answer_ to these things. We can deepen our understanding by looking at Arendt's view of power, contrasted with violence. C. Wright Mills and Max Weber saw politics as a struggle for power where violence is ultimate. This view sees power as rule over others, command and obedience. Totalitarian regimes pushed this to extremes. But Arendt criticized this prevailing idea; power and violence are not only distinct but _antithetical_. Where true politics (persuasion) reigns, violence is absent; where violence reigns, it destroys power. Power, for Arendt, is the ability to act _in concert_. It's never an individual property but belongs to a group and exists only as long as the group stays together. Someone "in power" is empowered by the group to act for them; their power vanishes if the group disperses. Power originates "potestas in populo" – in the people or group. Acting in concert makes power possible. Unlike strength (individual), power is a group attribute. Like isonomy, power is an attribute of the political community, not individuals. Crucially, group power exists _only_ as long as the group acts together. Leaders don't rule over the group; they are empowered _by_ them, and that power can be withdrawn. Arendt's concept of power is horizontal, not hierarchical. It emerges when diverse individuals act together as political equals. Power comes into being when people join for action and disappears when they disperse. Combining, covenanting, and promising keep power in existence. When people maintain the power created by acting together, they are engaged in foundation, building a stable structure for their combined power. Given this, it's clear why power and violence are antithetical. Violence is anti-political, using tools to destroy power. It can achieve obedience, but never power. Regimes losing power resort to violence. But power can also overwhelm violence. Examples like Gandhi, the American civil rights movement, and anti-communist movements in Eastern Europe show the effectiveness of nonviolent power. While real-world politics mixes violence and power, Arendt stressed the political importance of distinguishing them to capture the essence of empowerment and public freedom. To complete her rich description of politics' dignity, Arendt highlighted the role of persuasion and judgment. Action and speech are closely linked; the political form of speech is persuasion, seeking to convince others in a shared world. Persuasion involves free debate, argument among peers, and exercising judgment. In "The Crisis of Culture," she provocatively claimed Kant's analysis of aesthetic judgment in the _Critique of Judgment_ contains his unwritten political philosophy. She meant Kant's discussion of reflective judgments, thinking about particulars without applying a universal rule. Judgment requires discrimination and discerning the distinctiveness of a situation. It demands an "enlarged mentality" using imagination to think from others' perspectives. The judging person can only "woo the consent of everyone else," hoping for agreement. This "wooing" mirrors the Greek concept of _peithein_ – convincing and persuading speech, seen as the political form of talking together, as it excluded physical violence. Kant based judgment on taste, which Arendt saw not as private feeling but based on a _sensus communis_ – a sense that fits us into human community. Arendt saw judgment as a distinct mode of thinking – not subjective or purely rational, but dealing with particulars. It's essential for politics. Political judgment rests on potential agreement with others. Thinking through judgment isn't a solitary dialogue but an anticipated communication with others one hopes to agree with. Its validity comes from this potential agreement. Judgment requires freeing oneself from private idiosyncrasies, which are valid privately but not in the public realm. This "enlarged way of thinking" transcends individual limits but needs the presence of others "in whose place" one must think and whose perspectives one must consider. Bernstein summarizes Arendt's understanding of politics' dignity by showing how action, plurality, natality, speech, public spaces, isonomy, public freedom, power, opinion, persuasion, and judgment are interwoven. She knew her definition of politics differed from the common understanding today. She felt the "atrophy of the political realm" was a clear modern tendency. So, how is her analysis relevant now?. **The American Revolution and the Enduring Revolutionary Spirit** Bernstein explores Arendt's relevance by looking at her analysis of the American Revolution in _On Revolution_, which she saw as a key example of politics in action. Modern revolution, emerging in the 18th century, is distinct from rebellion. Rebellion seeks liberation from oppressors; revolution involves both liberation and _freedom_ – Arendt's public, tangible freedom. Rebellion's goal is liberation, but revolution's is the _foundation of freedom_. Both the American and French Revolutions started this way, but Arendt argued the French Revolution was overwhelmed by the "social question" (mass poverty), leading to violence and the Terror. While poverty and slavery existed in America, it wasn't the same scale as in France. Unlike the French, who lacked experience with self-government under absolute monarchy, Americans had a long tradition of it, going back to the Mayflower Compact. Initially, the colonists wanted to restore their rights as Englishmen, not start a revolution. But their acts of liberation threw them into public life, where they began creating "that space of appearances where freedom can unfold its charms and become a visible, tangible reality". The war of liberation isn't the core of the revolution for Arendt; it's the _awareness_ the Founders gained of creating something entirely new – a new republic. This "revolutionary spirit" fueled a flurry of constitution-making right after declaring independence. Arendt emphasizes constitution-making as the truly revolutionary element, not just the war. "Constitution" means both the act of constituting and the resulting laws. She stresses the _act_ – where debate, deliberation, and sharing opinions happen, where public freedom manifests. She endorses Thomas Paine's definition: "A constitution is not the act of government but of a people constituting a government". Public freedom appeared when colonies wrote state constitutions and when the federal Constitution was debated and ratified. The Founders intensely debated separation and balance of powers. Their objective wasn't just to limit power, but to _create new power_ – empowerment of a federal government, balanced by the Bill of Rights limiting abuse. This combination was the unique achievement of the American Revolution. This sketch exemplifies Arendt's view of politics' dignity. The Founders acted in concert to create a new polity, empowering a new government. They created new public spaces and found joy in public freedom, calling it "public happiness". Despite sharp differences, they treated each other as political equals, debated vigorously, and compromised. Violence was part of the war, but not the revolutionary act of creating the republic. The American Revolution is one of those "privileged moments" where the meaning and dignity of politics are clear. Arendt celebrated this success but was highly critical of what followed. There was a failure to remember and understand the revolutionary spirit and give it a lasting political institution. No space was preserved for exercising the qualities that founded the republic. A "deep perplexity" remained: how could the principle of public freedom be limited to the founders' generation?. How could institutions preserve the public freedom and happiness they cherished?. Thomas Jefferson deeply struggled with this, seeing that only representatives, not the people themselves, got to engage in the activities of freedom ("expressing, discussing, and deciding"). Late in life, Jefferson proposed local "ward republics" where people could directly exercise public freedom, like the old town meetings. He feared that without active "elementary republics," the spirit of public freedom would die. Jefferson knew these wards were about saving the revolutionary spirit _through_ the republic. He recalled how the "little republics" energized the revolution and how New England townships shook the government with their energy. He expected wards to let citizens continue acting on their own and participate in public business daily. Bernstein sees Arendt speaking through Jefferson here, not just about the American Revolution, but the spontaneous "revolutionary spirit" seen since the 18th century. These revolutions created "islands of freedom". Each time, councils spontaneously emerged from the people themselves, only to be quickly destroyed, often by "professional revolutionaries". She saw this spirit in the French Resistance, where participants spontaneously created a public realm to conduct crucial affairs "in deed and word". She was moved by the Resistance poet René Char's aphorism, "Our inheritance was left to us by no testament," interpreting it as referring to the "lost treasure" of tangible freedom experienced in the Resistance. Despite her warnings about totalitarian tendencies, Arendt believed the history of revolutions told the deepest story of the modern age – a tale of an "age-old treasure" appearing abruptly and mysteriously disappearing. She wanted to recover this "lost treasure," not just as memory, but as a real possibility rooted in our capacity for new beginnings – our natality and capacity to act. Her most vivid description of the revolutionary spirit is her essay on the 1956 Budapest uprising. Though crushed, it showed the exhilarating experience of people acting together to create public freedom. Spontaneous revolutionary and workers' councils emerged – the same kind of organization appearing whenever people are briefly allowed to follow their own political impulses without imposed government or party programs. In Hungary, councils emerged from existing groups – neighborhoods, fighters, writers, students, workers. The formation of a council turned simple togetherness into a political institution. While Arendt praised the council system, Bernstein feels she never fully solved Jefferson's problem of finding a stable institution for this revolutionary spirit. Councils spontaneously appeared but were quickly destroyed. Yet, she captured something vital about their spirit that remains relevant. She articulated the deep desire many feel today: "We want to participate, we want to debate, we want our voices heard in public, and we want to have a possibility to determine the political course of our country". The ballot booth is too small; parties are unsuitable; but sitting together, debating, hearing others – that's where rational opinion forms. Arendt expressed what was fundamental to her and should be for us: the desire to participate and shape political life. She sought to recover the revolutionary spirit where public freedom is real. She was keenly aware of tendencies undermining politics today, but she never gave up belief in the revolutionary spirit bursting forth. She saw it in Budapest and the early US Civil Rights movement. Bernstein thinks she would have seen it in the movements that overthrew communism in the 1980s, which began with small groups debating, and whose leaders were inspired by Arendt. What makes Arendt so relevant is her combination of dire warnings about dangerous tendencies (like those crystallizing in totalitarianism) _and_ her deep conviction in people's possibility to act together, exercise public freedom, and change history. **Personal and Political Responsibility: Bearing the Burden** Responsibility, in many forms, runs through Arendt's work and life. She took responsibility by actively opposing Nazis after fleeing Germany. She argued Jews should take responsibility by forming an army. She felt responsible to dissent from Zionist ideology when it ignored critical issues. After the war, she criticized Germany's reluctance to prosecute former Nazis, arguing against collective guilt which obscures individual responsibility. "Where all are guilty, nobody in the last analysis can be judged," she said. The Eichmann trial raised further responsibility questions. Arendt rejected excuses like "following orders" or being a "cog". She also corrected the idea that Eichmann alone was responsible for the Final Solution. In a legal trial, an individual is judged for their criminal deeds. The judges in Eichmann's trial recognized that responsibility can _increase_ the further one is from the physical act of killing. The deepest theme of responsibility, incredibly relevant today, is the need to take responsibility for our _political lives_. Arendt rejected appeals to historical necessity. Because of our natality and capacity for action, we can always _begin_ something new. She avoided both reckless optimism and despair. She saw belief in inevitable progress and belief in inevitable doom as equally superstitious. She was unflinching about the darkness of our times – the lying, deception, blurred reality. She warned about dangerous tendencies that still haunt us and urged us not to give in to despair or cynicism. Her exploration of politics' dignity was an act of retrieval, a reminder of a real possibility rooted in our human capacity to initiate new beginnings. She wanted to keep alive the revolutionary spirit, the spontaneous creation of spaces of tangible public freedom. She knew her view of politics differed from the common one, recognizing the forces that suppress genuine political engagement. But she urged us to resist opting out of politics, seeing it as complicity with the worst. Arendt's lifelong project was to understand and comprehend, facing both the darkness and the sources of illumination honestly. As she wrote in _The Origins_, comprehension isn't about denying outrage or explaining away the unprecedented. It means consciously bearing the burden of our century, neither denying nor meekly submitting to it. Comprehension is an "unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of reality – whatever it may be". Bernstein concludes that Arendt's task is now ours: to bear the burden of our times and resist indifference or cynicism. She urged us to take responsibility for our political destinies, reminding us of our capacity to act in concert, initiate, and strive to make freedom a worldly reality. "Beginning," she said, "is the supreme capacity of man: politically it is identical with man’s freedom". And that, in a nutshell (or perhaps a rather large one!), is a detailed look at why, according to Richard J. Bernstein, Hannah Arendt is an essential read for navigating the complexities and dangers of our world today, while also remembering the possibilities for dignity of factual truth and opinion and the danger of image-making replacing reality. How do you see these dynamics playing out in media, social media, or political discourse today? - Reflect on Arendt's concept of power as "acting in concert" rather than ruling over others. Can you think of examples of this kind of power emerging in contemporary movements or communities? How does it contrast with the power structures we often see? - Arend short-lived and difficult to institutionalize sustainably? - Bernstein suggests we can "think with Arendt against Arendt" to find resources for confronting racism. What might that process look like when engaging with challenging or problematic ideas from thinkers you admire?