The Dearing Dialogue

I’m in grad school now and with that is the responsibility of organizing my readings in a coherent and concise fashion for easy access and a quick grasp of the author’s main ideas and arguments.  So each of the books I read (about 5-10) a week will require a short synopsis which I can refer back to towards the final exam.  As well, this will help when research for my thesis starts.  I’ve also created a database to catalogue the books I read and have added hyperlinks to their respective synopsis.  So, here is my first, and many more to follow… 

The Human Condition is an analysis of society through the organizing principle of labor and society’s evolving concept of work as technology freed man from the burdens of necessity.  Arendt opens with the Greek idea of the polis, in which free citizens were liberated from the burden of necessity (labor) and thus permitted to freely operate in a political system of equals.  Arendt further analyzes the condition of slaves, comparing their treatment to animals.  She concludes that the state of slavery is a biological desire by men with power to free themselves from the “burden of biological life”, to create a cycle of consumption that takes the place of the production process[1].  The effect of such a program is to place the burdens of life onto another segment of society.  In the end, mankind is faced with the evolving desire to create ever greater technology that will lift the load of life away, but this ultimately threatens the polis with the creation of dangerous technology (nuclear weapons).

Arendt’s arguments are carefully referenced and analyzed with historical examples. She examines the Greek polis as a relationship between free and non-free (slaves and non-citizens) individuals, that was also a “spatial construct”[2], void of justice and run by oligarchs with an interest in keeping the state of affairs fixed.  She adds that societies are often guided by path dependence, often setting processes in motion without knowing the consequences that lie ahead.  This dependence can be seen in the institution of slavery in the Greek polis, as in societies prior to and following.  As Arendt explains, not only are slaves deprived of their liberty, likewise, the oligarchs and “intellectuals” are bounded to the demands of the polis – providing resources, defending in battle, and holding a monopoly on violence.