Hannah Arendt citáty
Hannah Arendt
Datum narození: 14. říjen 1906
Datum úmrtí: 4. prosinec 1975
Další jména: Hannah Arendtová
Hannah Arendtová byla myslitelka a publicistka německo-židovského původu. Odmítala být označována za filosofku, rovněž pojem politická filosofie se jí nelíbil, upřednostňovala spíše termín „politická teorie“.
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americký novinářCitáty Hannah Arendt
„Cílem totalitní výchovy nikdy nebylo vštěpovat přesvědčení, ale zničit schopnost si nějaké utvořit.“
— Hannah Arendt
Source: ARENDTOVÁ, Hannah. Původ totalitarismu I-III. 1. vydání. Praha: OIKOYMENH, 1996. 679 s. ISBN 80-86005-13-5. s. 631
„The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man.“
— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Context: The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man. Yet to turn our backs on the destructive forces of the century is of little avail.
The trouble is that our period has so strangely intertwined the good with the bad that without the imperialists' "expansion for expansion's sake," the world might never have become one; without the bourgeoisie's political device of "power for power's sake," the extent of human strength might never have been discovered; without the fictitious world of totalitarian movements, in which with unparalleled clarity the essential uncertainties of our time have been spelled out, we might have been driven to our doom without ever becoming aware of what has been happening.
And if it is true that in the final stages of totalitarianism an absolute evil appears (absolute because it can no longer be deduced from humanly comprehensible motives), it is also true that without it we might never have known the truly radical nature of Evil.
Preface to the first edition, written in the summer of 1950.
„The concentration camps, by making death itself anonymous (making it impossible to find out whether a prisoner is dead or alive), robbed death of its meaning as the end of a fulfilled life.“
— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Context: The concentration camps, by making death itself anonymous (making it impossible to find out whether a prisoner is dead or alive), robbed death of its meaning as the end of a fulfilled life. In a sense they took away the individual’s own death, proving that henceforth nothing belonged to him and he belonged to no one. His death merely set a seal on the fact that he had never existed.
Part 3, Ch. 12, § 3.
„The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.“
— Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind
The Life of the Mind (1978), "Thinking".
„For the lesson of such stories [of resistance to Nazi atrocities] is simple and within everybody's grasp. Politically speaking, it is that under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that "it could happen" in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.“
— Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Ch. XIV.
„Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups may not be a very pleasant spectacle, but it does not spring from human meanness alone.“
— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Context: Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups may not be a very pleasant spectacle, but it does not spring from human meanness alone. What makes men obey or tolerate real power and, on the other hand, hate people who have wealth without power, is the rational instinct that power has a certain function and is of some general use. Even exploitation and oppression still make society work and establish some kind of order. Only wealth without power or aloofness without a policy are felt to be parasitical, useless, revolting, because such conditions cut all the threads which tie men together. Wealth which does not exploit lacks even the relationship which exists between exploiter and exploited; aloofness without policy does not imply even the minimum concern of the oppressor for the oppressed.
Part 1, Ch. 1, § 1.
