Chapter II. The Public and The Private Realms.

No human life, not even a hermit, is possible with out a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

But, only ACTION cannot be imagined with out a society of others.  Action is dependent on the constant presence of others.

Here we find Arendt again pointing out the importance of speech (or, really, language) in it's connection to action. See page 26, especially the difference between action and violence as stated on top of p. 27.  The key to take away from this section is that powerful action rests on the communication of equals, not the forceful imposition of violence.

{5} Public vs. Private, the polis and the household.

The realm of the public was:
-    The space of appearance: it was where one went to s and be seen, and I think Arendt is using a fairly performative analogy here -- remember that through action people distinguish themselves 'the sayers of great things, the doers of great deeds.'

- The space of Freedom.  The private life is a life of necessity, where the needs of biological existence are met, only in the freely joined world of equals, which is what Arendt refers to as the political, can we have true freedom. [keep this in mind as you read Leifer too].
 

"To be free meant both not to be subject to the necessity of life or to the command of another _AND_ not to be in command oneself.  It meant neither to rule nor to be ruled. [p.32]

"Equality, ..., far from being connected with justice, ..., was the very essence of freedom: To be free meant to be free from the inequality present in rulership and to move in a sphere where neither rule nor being ruled existed." [p 33]

in the modern world the social and the political flow into one another.

- The public space is where individuality can be seen, thought the recognition of equals of one's accomplishments.

The Private Realm:
 The private realm is the realm of necessity.  According to Arendt, there is no room for human action here, because there is no freedom here. (i.e., I think we could read Arendt in such a way as to say that where there IS space for equality, there might also be room for action).

This is a world of violence and inequality, which for Arendt, by definition means that there cannot be equality, freedom, or action.

{6} the rise of the social.

The social realm is the blurred together political and private that characterizes the modern age.  Speech is now banished to the private realm, and labor into the public.

The rise of modern society, due in large part to the increase in population, brought with it an increase in the public organization of private matters (read here also in the light of Durkheim's restitutive laws).

The modern conception of privacy is now an escape from BOTH the political and the household.  Its an escape fromsociation itself.

She claims that modern technical organization, epitomized by bureaucracy, extinguishes the public space of intention: one can't DO anything that isn't prescribed by the organizational tree.

Politics, which should be rule by equals, has become rule by rules -- by bureaucracy, by no one.

Current society forces sameness, subjugation to rules.

see pages 40 - 43.

Be sure you can explain the quote on page 47, "The social realm, where the life process has established its own ...."

be sure you understand the role of excellence in Arendtian thought.

{7} The public realm: The common. [THIS IS A KEY SECTION]

The Common: two aspects,
(1) That everything appears in the public can be seen and heard by everybody else.  Only through publicity can reality be known.  Understand the quote on p. 50 starting with 'The presence of others..."

(2) Signifies the world itself, insofar as it is common to all of us, it is what simultaneously brings us together and separates us.  This is the world of common things/stories.

"What makes mass society so difficult to bear is not the number of persons involved, but the fact that the world between them has lost its power to gather them together, to relate and to separate them." [p.53].

The common world must transcend the life-span of one individual.

How does diversity play a role in Arendt's view of the common world?

p.55-58 is key to understanding this section.

section 9 points out the need to have both a private and a public realm, a life entirely lived in public becomes shallow, a life without any public is animal.