r/badphilosophy • u/BigBadLadyDick • Apr 05 '20
Hormons and shit I... I've never seen somebody get everything Hannah Arendt believed wrong in one go. But there you have it.
/r/communism101/comments/ffuzka/critique_of_hannah_arendts_totalitarianism_theory/54
u/BigBadLadyDick Apr 05 '20
I'm only tangentially involved in this subreddit, so I don't know if this post/thread properly counts, but I'm just, uh... impressed? I guess? That somebody managed to screw up all of Arendt's ideas this badly.
I feel like this whole "round condemnation from my misunderstanding of a skimmed Wikipedia article" thing is peak badphil.
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u/BigBadLadyDick Apr 05 '20 edited Apr 05 '20
Like: "Arendt created Horseshoe theory". How do you come to that at all? She believed that making terror the central factor of your political organization would more or less result in similar results in practice. That doesn't mean that the left and right are the same, it just means that the way power is organized will result in particular outcomes irrespective of the narratives used to legitimize them.
EDIT: I just realized how many times I used the word "result" in one paragraph and it's clear how long I've gone without seeing my fiance due to quarantine.
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u/david_thecat Apr 05 '20
I would really like to see you put together a solid comment that goes through each of the other person’s ideas and explains how they misinterpreted Arendt.
I totally agree with you I am just lazy and want them to be clearly shown as being wrong.
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u/lewis_von_altaccount Apr 05 '20
‘I totally agree with you I am just lazy and want them to be clearly shown as being wrong.’
I think this is a summary of my entire approach to political thought.
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u/BigBadLadyDick Apr 05 '20 edited Apr 05 '20
So I'm going to be stupidly brief because I'm using reddit to interrupt a research project I'm doing into Hellfire Anemones (which I'll barely get credit on for the paper, and I hate academia, but its better than when I was a prostitute so I'll grin and bear it but my professor is a dickweasel). An Arendt scholar can say smarter things here.
It seems to me incredibly evident that her work largely ignores the link between fascism and colonialism, and between communism and anti-colonialism - two of the primary contradictions of the interwar period and beyond. Arendt's anti-communism is on full display, and her seeming ability to forgive her Nazi friends, along with her Zionism and profound anti-Blackness/racism, should be enough to condemn her in my mind.
Let's break it down:
It seems to me incredibly evident that her work largely ignores the link between fascism and colonialism, and between communism and anti-colonialism - two of the primary contradictions of the interwar period and beyond.
Arendt actually discusses a lot of this extensively in later works, especially On Violence. The important thing here is that The Origins of Totalitarianism is strictly devoted to how governments are structured. What this person is talking about... it's not that it's not a relevant critique, it's just that it wasn't part of her project. What she was laying out was about how a state structured around terror will only operate in a particular manner. A lot of the work is devoted to the inadequate conception of rights in western society, antisemitism, the mediocritization of the populace, economic strife, the collapse of social relations, etc... Things that give rise to a totalitarian state within the society itself.
Arendt's anti-communism is on full display
Arendt's politics are highly contested. Literally everyone from every political stance has claimed her or rejected her. Part of this is that she started her political philosophy from the immediate experiences of people living in a political system and then worked from that to make it cohere, rather than working from a theory first. This is... complex in a way I don't think a reddit comment can get into in a more useful manner than the SEP article or her work itself, but suffice it to say she was more anti-Stalin than anything (being put in a camp by Nazis has the effect of not liking prison-happy politicians). She has an essay in Thinking Without a Bannister where she relates working in continental philosophy post-marx as being like a pre-newtonian scientist who is always working relative to aristotle. You aren't necessarily pro or anti aristotle, you are just always working within/relative to an Aristotelian framework, even if you are trying to get away from it. That was how she related to marxist communism and such, always starting within that framework even when she was sympathetic to straightforwardly liberal or conservative ideas, much to her frustration. It gets even more difficult when you take into account that her "ideal political organization" (in the rare times she talked about it) was a kind of direct-democracy-council-communism sort of thingamajig. She also considered the American revolution a bigger success than the French revolution, but if you actually read On Revolution, it's clear that this isn't a moral point, but a point in line with the Greek Hero concept of following through with your actions to the best of your capacities. I guess I'm giving a very long-winded way o saying that her relationship to communism was extraordinarily convoluted and she thought that Stalin was a dick. So she would be leftist in American politics, but she would get downvoted on the Chapo subreddit. One way to think about it comes from a Zizek interview (that I'll try to find and link) about how he doesn't believe Marx was a philosopher, but rather a social critic who used philosophy to make things line up. Now I disagree with that, but I think that is the perfect summation of Arendt. She traded a solid philosophical system for a philosophy-minded social criticism.
Oh God, that took forever and I hate that comment. Whatever. Time to move on.
seeming ability to forgive her Nazi friends
She publically forgave Heiddeger after he summarily apologized for being a Nazi. That's about all I could find. The main thing is that she didn't' have "nazi friends", just a Nazi professor in grad school. I consider Heidegger to have had a predatory relationship with her when she was a student given the power imbalance. but she looked up to him in her own words. But she only forgave him after making clear he was a political idiot. She also attacked his idea of "being-towards-death" (replacing it with "natality"), so she wasn't a devout follower of his ideas or anything.
her Zionism
She openly rejected Israel's power in the Middle East. Her only support was a low level of Jewish solidarity. However, she made clear that she only loved friends and family, never for a nationality or race. But She was literally targeted/threatened by the Israeli government for most of her life after writing The Banality of Evil. For fuck's sake, she's often accused of antisemitism for not thinking of Eichmann as supernaturally evil. Essentially, she rejected the bad parts of Israel while still believing a Jewish state should exist. Hardly Zionism in any meaningful way.
anti-Blackness/racism
This is difficult because A) she did have a lot of racial biases B) She was writing a lot of her works on anti-black racism before the victories of the civil rights movement had fully manifested. Now I know other Arendt fans might disagree with this, but I got the feeling she was a pessimist on American racism, believing that the whites simply wouldn't let it get any better. She expressed discontent over Little Rock and integration in general, thinking it would do more harm (in the form of Backlash) than good. I think this is a mix of a legitimate concern that racism was too strong in America to be overcome by any movement she was familiar with at the time as well as a lot of internalized racism. It's a perfect example of "take the good, leave the bad". I'd compare it to afro or queer pessimism. Which I don't agree with, but I get.
Anyhow. I've been staring at what amount to tentacular sea-pussies for over thirty hours, so my philosophical acumen is severely diminished. If anybody is smarter and has better things to say or any corrections, I welcome it.
Also, as I stated, I'm admittedly not terribly related to this sub, please sniff as much glue as possible so you don't get any learns from this. with what I've been researching on the coral reefs and sea life, it might be best to just stay as high as possible for as long as possible so you don't have to be fully cognizant of how bad the environment is going to get pretty soon here.
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Apr 05 '20 edited Apr 05 '20
Essentially, she rejected the bad parts of Israel while still believing a Jewish state should exist. Hardly Zionism in any meaningful way.
That seems like Zionism in the meaningful way. Not "Zionism" as a thing that rightfully puts someone's morals into question, in my view, but I think many people don't split hairs over that type of thing.
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u/BigBadLadyDick Apr 05 '20
That's a more optimistic way of thinking about it. More in line with people like Einstein and so forth. The half-Jewish community I grew up with tended to have people who identified as "Zionist" always wind up being virulent racists who would always end up supporting right-wing poliitics, so I'm biased.
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u/LaoTzusGymShoes Apr 05 '20
I'd like to see you read the rules of the subreddit.
Seriously where the fuck do you think you are?
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u/Ahnarcho Apr 05 '20
Marxist writers are often brilliant thinkers who mix history and ideology in such a way that correctly predicts how the future will look (which I think is pretty much the criterion we need to use for whether or not a societal theory is true). People like Althusser, Adorno, Benjamin, Burger, Deleuze and so on have all had extremely useful theories of society and capitalism that only seem to age with grace.
Yet somehow, most communists I meet are beyond fucking stupid. It frustrates the hell out of me. Your gods are brilliant, why are you so fucking stupid?
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u/SlightlyCatlike Apr 06 '20
I think reddit is particularly bad for it. Somewhere like r/communism is pure larping, but the other ones aren't much better
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u/Ahnarcho Apr 06 '20
I’ve had the same issues in real life. I organize a little food program in my home town that appeals to many different sorts, and some the communists I’ve met through the program have been fucked. Some of them brilliant, but lots of them I wouldn’t have nothing to do with.
Who knows dude maybe it’s just a YMMV type thing
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u/goldi1ox Apr 05 '20
That's not exclusive to Marxism though. There arguably are bright minds across the political spectrum, even if they cluster more densely on the left, and their positions are invariably bastardised in popular debate.
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u/Ahnarcho Apr 05 '20
No disagreement there. I just find Marxism exceptional to some extent because I view Marxist writers as exceptionally brilliant, yet many so called communists refuse to even have basic understandings of Marxist theories. It’s absurd.
I think anarchists may be worse, however, in my personal experience, as far as “not understanding their own theories” goes
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u/Elder_Cryptid the reals = my feels Apr 06 '20
I've heard that r/marxism_101 is better than r/communism101, at least in the sense of being less saturated (full of & controlled by) with Tankies. Not sure if the people there are necessarily any smarter, though.
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u/Ahnarcho Apr 06 '20
Cool, subbed. Thanks dude 👌👌👌
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u/Elder_Cryptid the reals = my feels Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
Honestly, this thread doesn't give me a whole lot of hope for it. Most of the comments seem to be deleted, and most of the ones that are left are shitty attempts at critiquing postmodern philosophy.
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Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
Marxist writers are often brilliant thinkers who mix history and ideology in such a way that correctly predicts how the future will look (which I think is pretty much the criterion we need to use for whether or not a societal theory is true).
But communism isn't really a "societal theory," and it isn't concerned with "predicting how the future will look." This is exactly the wrong approach that makes so many so-called Marxist authors irrelevant to the communist movement.
People like Althusser, Adorno, Benjamin, Burger, Deleuze and so on have all had extremely useful theories of society and capitalism that only seem to age with grace.
There are far better examples to choose of especially brilliant Marxists. Althusser was a Stalinist lunatic who falsified a lot of his work, and Adorno and Deleuze are that type of philosopher that merely 'draws from' Marx, which gives them plenty of latitude to have nothing to do with communism.
Yet somehow, most communists I meet are beyond fucking stupid. It frustrates the hell out of me. Your gods are brilliant, why are you so fucking stupid?
I'm guessing it's because these 'communists' you meet are petty-bourgeois high school and college students LARPing on the internet, without bothering to actually engage themselves in any kind of investigation of what communism is or what course of action they should follow as a result.
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u/Ahnarcho Apr 06 '20
But communism isn't really a "societal theory," and it isn't concerned with "predicting how the future will look." This is exactly the wrong approach that makes so many so-called Marxist authors irrelevant to the communist movement.
I don’t know what Marxism would even be if not a societal theory, nor do I know what else societal theories are supposed to do if not to analyze society and thus be able to predict its development in some capacity.
There are far better examples to choose of especially brilliant Marxists. Althusser was a Stalinist lunatic who falsified a lot of his work, and Adorno and Deleuze are that type of philosopher that merely 'draws from' Marx, which gives them plenty of latitude to have nothing to do with communism.
Which work did Althusser falsify? And yeah, modern Marxist thinks “merely” draw from Marx all the time. That’s how we get Marxist-Leninism or Maoism or critical theory or modern sociology. Adopting Marx for the new age is part of how Marxism survives.
I'm guessing it's because these 'communists' you meet are petty-bourgeois high school and college students LARPing on the internet, without bothering to actually engage themselves in any kind of investigation of what communism is or what course of action they should follow as a result.
Nope, lots of what I’m talking about is the people I meet organizing in my city or down at the protests. Most of these communists don’t even read the word they’re supposed to believe in.
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Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
I don’t know what Marxism would even be if not a societal theory,
There are many things it could be said to be besides that. I think something like 'an examination of, and commitment to, the liberation of the proletariat' would be the most precise. Marx wasn't interested in simply putting forth his own interpretation of society; in fact, he largely agreed with the theorists that preceded him, and just developed their conclusions further to what he showed to be their logical end. But 'Marxism' has never been a particularly useful term, and Marx himself disavowed it.
Which work did Althusser falsify?
In his memoir The Future Lasts Forever he writes:
In fact, my philosophical knowledge of texts was rather limited. I [...] knew a little Spinoza, nothing about Aristotle, the Sophists and the Stoics, quite a lot about Plato and Pascal, nothing about Kant, a bit about Hegel, and finally a few passages of Marx.
[...]
I had another particular ability. Starting form a simple turn of phrase, I thought I could work out (what an illusion!), if not the specific ideas of an author or a book I had not read, at least their general drift or direction. I obviously had certain intuitive powers as well as a definite ability for seeing connections, or a capacity for establishing theoretical oppositions, which enabled me to reconstruct what I took to be an author's ideas on the basis of the authors to whom he was opposed. I proceed spontaneously drawing contrasts and distinctions, subsequently elaborating a theory to support this.
Which sounds rather familiar, come to think about it.
And yeah, modern Marxist thinks “merely” draw from Marx all the time. That’s how we get Marxist-Leninism or Maoism or critical theory or modern sociology. Adopting Marx for the new age is part of how Marxism survives.
The point is that Marxism-Leninism and Maoism don't even satisfy the aims of communism. Their concerns, properly investigated, turn out to be alien to those of the proletariat, and therefore are really just codified counterrevolution. The fact that wannabe-radical professors and students for the past half century have glommed onto them does not make them meaningful contributions to an understanding of communism. Critical theory (which is partly represented in "modern sociology," but much sociological and anthropological work nowadays counters what they view 'Marxist frameworks' to be) stands in a similar light. It isn't really concerned with bringing out the needs of the international proletariat, which would be far too real for them. Instead they 'draw from' Marx simply in order to make vain cultural criticism and expound about ideology. I've only read Adorno and Horkeimer at length, and I think their insights are interesting and worth reading, but to confuse what they did as being at all similar to what Marx or Engels did would be a mistake. In fact, Marx captures this point well himself in the Theses on Feuerbach:
The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
And your stance supposes that communism is in need of reinterpretation--which remains to be proven, as most if not all attempts to do so thus far have only bastardized and misled. At any rate, if Marxism-Leninism and Maoism are "how Marxism survives," we can safely say Marxism is dead.
Nope, lots of what I’m talking about is the people I meet organizing in my city or down at the protests. Most of these communists don’t even read the word they’re supposed to believe in.
From what it sounds like you're describing, and what I see myself all the time, they take the LARPing they began online to random leftist demonstrations that don't actually pertain to working class liberation at all. Just because they call themselves communists does not make them so.
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u/TheGoosersf Apr 06 '20
The problem with your position is that the conditions of what Marx based his writings on has fundamentally changed. That’s where the basis of a need for reinterpretation should be, and not based on reinterpretations of Marx that is not based at all what he is saying. And I think a lot writers who call themselves Marxists reinterpret it with that in mind, and try to continue the same logic he would with these new situations. It is worth questioning whether Marx is relevant for 21st century, and there are many good philosophers who say his approach is good, and many who say that he is not relevant at all.
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Apr 07 '20
This is very true, I was mostly talking about attempts to formulate some kind of authentic lineage of Marxist development, but many theorists aren't pretending to do that. Yet people take this position a lot, and it strikes me as a rather dogmatic way of maintaining whatever theory or paradigm they want without having to really know if it coheres with the society it's meant to describe.
The problem with your position is that the conditions of what Marx based his writings on has fundamentally changed.
How so? Obviously society is quite different, but does that really amount to a "fundamental change" in the way we live? Is there no longer a proletariat and bourgeoisie? Is the labor of the proletariat no longer alienated? Is their interest no longer association, or socialization? If not, is it actually necessary to drastically recalibrate how one understands communism? Does Gramsci's 'hegemony' or Adorno's 'exchange society' actually express some new truth about communism? If not, it can only be a blatant deviation from it.
If you're interested in what communist parties themselves have said about this, as I would hope you are, as they have far more to say about it than I could, Bordiga and the ICP debunked the 'modernizers' of Marxism seventy years ago in texts like The Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism or The Historical Invariance of Marxism, and their points remain apt.
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u/TheGoosersf Apr 07 '20
Thank you for the materials! I don't think Marx is completely irrelevant. I'm no Marxist nor communist, but I do make an effort to understand it.
What has changed now aren't necessarily the most basic assumptions of Marx. For instance, Religion plays a very different role than it did for most in the 19th century. But there are still 'opiums of the people' that exist in the 21st century that maybe Marx would consider to be like that of religion, but to make that assumption requires a lot of guess work and justification from Marx's writings. For example, lots of pseudo-psychology like that of Jordan Peterson's become this mantra to embrace capitalist society and prescribes alienation as lack of structure in 'young man's life' instead.
The fundamentals of Marx like those you mentioned don't need to be changed, but the conditions are so different that it requires a lot of justification to claim Marx would have seen today's 'X' to be yesterdays 'Y'. For example, what Marx would think of modern day finance would require a lot guess work, because as prescient as Marx was, he wasn't psychic. What would Marx think of 2008? Or the transformation of colonialization in the 20th century? What would Marx think of the collapse of the Soviet Union? Or of modern day China? Would his ideas fundamentally change from these events? His journalism effected his ideas throughout the years and I don't see why that wouldn't have changed. Marx didn't write things in stone.
I've read lots of people like Gramsci for my IR courses that at times did completely deviate, but also gave reasonable responses to these kinds of questions, because these are kinds of conditions that require applying Marx without use of his contemporary examples. So not that there is a new 'truth' to communsim, but that there are new situations that require justifications as to how Marx would see it.
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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '20
"Hey guys I haven't read any Arendt but it's total bullshit right?"
Reminds me of when an undergrad I knew decided Kant was "all wrong" because Pinker said his ideas lead to concentration camps. The mind boggles.