Between Past and Future

by Hannah Arendt

Arendt’s penetrating observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute a major contribution to political philosophy. In this book she describes the perplexing crises which modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill once more the vital essence of these concepts.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, History, Essays, Theory, Sociology

298 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Hannah Arendt (1906 – 1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, The Human Condition, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age. At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes of her last major philosophical work, The Life of the Mind, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging).

Reviews

[Mark Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Preface:] Arendt introduces her rationale for the title using a parable from Kafka, a brilliant thought-problem in which "he" has two antagonists; one, the origin, pushes from behind and the other blocks the road ahead.

[1. Tradition and the Modern Age:] Arendt reviews in triptych form three 19th Century Writers who have sealed off the philosophical traditions started by Plato and his Allegory of the Cave: Kierkegaard, Marx, and Nietszche. She profiles the contributions each made--each quite independent of the others--in establishing new traditions of doubt, alienation, and utopia/dystopia.

[2: The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern:] Is History linear or cyclical? Whose facts will get selected for the narrative? Classic Arendt essay (written while she was writing The Human Condition, so the resemblance exists) in which she guides through ancient and modern histories only to have the final two pages rise up and slay.

From Herodotus and Thucydides, Arendt culls out the focus of the eternal return in the Greek world where immortality in great deeds was the focus of the histories; St. Augustine shifted the focus to linear, direct path, emphasizing historical narratives that helped the faithful find the narrow path. But when Arendt arrives at the Moderns, starting with Hobbes and Kant and Hegel, then Marx, she has plenty to write about, mostly eviscerating Marx.

Ultimately, she lands the reader back where she began, noting that historians can find any pattern in the details and they will still be right. But since humans act without ever knowing what will be the consequences of their acts, reading History to find predictions, even a sense of what to expect is fruitless. Better to read it for what it is and judge in the now, in the moment between past and future.

[3: What Is Authority?] Arendt's first step is to re-title this essay to 'What Was Authority?' since the three pillars of authority (religion, tradition, and authority) have deteriorated away to dust on a broken column. Most of the space in this essay she devotes to exploring how Plato and the Romans developed authority (not tyranny, not totalitarianism). My biggest revelation came near the end in which she explains that the Christian Church's doctrine of the afterlife has been adapted from the last book of Plato's Republic; in that chapter, Plato uses the Er-Myth as a means to control those citizens to act with goodness who were not persuaded from his teachings. Fascinating.


[4: What Is Freedom?] More distortion than clarification, the philosophers have given us, Arendt claims. Since the Greeks and the Romans had limited views of freedom (freedom as it allows for one to contribute to the polis or to the city), the Christians were the first to stress individual freedom. But Arendt stresses mostly in her essay how the will acts in free action; that is, how freedom is meaningless unless acted upon. To sum, we are only as free as our last actions.


[5: Crisis in Education:] Beginning with the premise that if one wishes to influence change in current culture, one must begin with education, Arendt outlines the importance of shunning assorted packages for reform and political charges using the students as shills for genuine learning. In some respects, this essay is conservative but, only in the sense of Postman's book, Teaching as a Conserving Activity. Ultimately, she is radical (neither liberal or conservative) in calling for education that is constantly renewing itself because natural depletion--old ideas die out and new ideas come along--so relax and get used to change.

[6: The Crisis in Culture:] Its Social and Political Significance} I appreciate how Arendt delineates between art and kitsch: "Mass society...wants not culture but entertainment, and the wares offered by the entertainment industry are indeed consumed by society just like any other consumer goods." She continues that the entertainment industry has its own metabolism, one that feeds on its subjects by devouring them. That's a harsh criticism for most of what pop culture offers but it is worth noting. Arendt argues that the permanence of humanities lies it their ability to reflect beauty.

It causes me to ask myself? Am I reading this book [whatever book at hand] in order to or for the sake of. If it is the former, Arendt saves a seat for me in the philistine section; if it is the latter, she may let me contemplate Beauty with her in the Humanities section.

[7: Truth and Politics:] Written in the same year that Arendt published Eichmann in Jerusalem, this essay shows me that she took the high road in all the criticism she received. In the final pages, she references how Homer exalted the Greeks and the Trojans, Achilles and Hector, and thereby raised the standard for epic literature in portraying both sides of the contest; in reporting and in public truth-telling (politics?), this is the first examples of how to show courage, regardless of the contestant.

She writes that deceit can tear a hole in the fabric of factuality; that to the code needs to be to tell the truth though the whole world may perish ("Fiat veritas, et pereat mundus"); that lies, like reasoning for the individual, gathers momentum when heard in the herd (see Federalist Papers, #49); and "factual truth informs political thought just as rational truth informs philosophical speculation."

First rule is never to lie to yourself. The rest is history.

[8: The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man:] I found consistent themes in this essay that appeared in the final section ("The Vita Activa and the Modern Age") in The Human Condition, mainly her reference to Kafka's quote--"Man found the Archimedean point but he used it against himself; it seems that he was permitted to find it only under this condition"). Even though the publication date on this essay is from the 60s, it remains relevant today since we still reach into space, into the genome and into robotic fabrications. All of these scientific explorations are changing us, Arendt notes. To be cognizant of this process and know that the lever may shift the earth such that our world may implode or explode, that we may get lost in the immensity of the universe in the name of human curiosity requires that avoid living with fantasy of some utopia or that we avoid the past abuses in our history but that we live in the middle, between past and future.

[Joseph Sverker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am simply impressed by Arendt. I don't her so much to be critical as to simply get immersed in her thinking and this book is almost written a little for that purpose. It is not at all a book where she revels in her own brilliance but it is a book where she is testing her thinking which is suppose to encourage the reader's own thoughts and it certainly does so for me. The writing can be somewhat dense at times and much knowledge is assumed and also some issues, like that of education is quite specific for the time of writing. But for all that even that piece of writing on education has much to say to a reader today, even though I'm even a Swedish reader and not an American (it deals with the American crisis in education as she sees it).

Many of the essays take the differences between Greek and Roman culture as a starting point and one certainly learn much about how different the mind set actually were. Being a theologian I also much appreciated Arendt's use of Augustine which feels interesting, relevant and fresh despite its age and being written by a political theorist. Her interpretation of how he introduced the dualism of the will into philosophy is very insightful and brings out, to my mind, a very obvious omission in the ethical theories of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, namely that they assumed that if a person knows what is right that person will also act on it. But we all know that that is true (and they probably knew it too). What Augustine did with the help of Paul was to give a theoretical framework with how to deal with that difficulty, namely to split the will against itself. Arendt then goes on to show that we in a modern period so easily think of freedom in these Augustniian terms, but, as far as I understand her, she wants to show that there are other valid concepts of freedom, namely the political kind, that a human is free to act. That essay On Freedom is absolutely brilliant and so is the essay On Authority which I think many who are acquainted with Foucault should read. Arendt makes a distinction between power and authority which would be interesting to see if it holds water in a poststructuralist, postcolonial context. She also argues that one can not only judge an event, or occurance, simply by what functions it has. One must also see to what it is in itself, so for example she states that atheism is not a religion, even if it might share many of the same functions. They are different in themselves. This I found very refreshing, although I have found myself arguing that atheism is a religion.

This and many more points are almost unnervingly contemporary and what this book shows is that Hannah Arendt must have been one of the essential minds in the last century.

[haetmonger · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty great read, i must say. it's mostly stuff that has been covered elsewhere in her work, but this one covers different facets of her theory in 30- to 50-page-long essays, so i'd agree that it's probably her most approachable book.

as with most of her work, a lot of this book takes the form of a tour through the philosophical history of an idea (e.g. will, authority, freedom), with arendt providing commentary, almost like she's scribbling notes in the margins of philosophical history, indicating where she thinks philosophers went wrong, where they got it right, etc. her interpretation of that history is often really original, if occasionally rather strained.

5 stars. important political theorists aren't supposed to be this fun to read.

[Sebastian Štros · Rating 4 out of 5]

I forgot I finished this book.

It was great. I love Hannah Arendt (if I were alive in her time, I would definitely ask her out on a date, but that's beside the point, she clearly was a genius) and this is a rather approachable book given the topics and her complexity of thought.

I especially liked her essay on consumer culture (and mass culture in general) written while in USA a country which accepted and embraced her.

I guess I love about her thought her impossibility to be categorised. Piercely sees through the emptiness, stupidity of American consumerism yet she calls not for 'aesthetic socialism'. She sees the outdatedness of conservatives, yet she is nostalgic after values lost by modernity. She hates on valueless liberal modernity, yet her even more intense hate on fascism and communism leaves wondering whether she actually was not a liberal herself. Like many artists who want to be edgy incomprehensible by us mortals she too claims "I cannot be reduced to any -ism". But actually she is right perhaps liberal, capitalist democracy allowed her work to flourish, but she is not praising it or being delusional about it.

There are two or three bad things about this book. Firstly, it often raises more questions than it answers. Secondly, Arendt assumes classical education of Greek and Latin and assumes that everybody who do not know the untranslated words from these two languages (more Greek than Latin) were just lazy with their homework. I forgot the third thing

[maï-ly · Rating 4 out of 5]

lu en français mais je préfère cette couverture 😘

[Sajjad thaier · Rating 3 out of 5]

"فإن النظر من أجل الرؤية فقط هو أكثر الأعمال حرية."

يقول كافكا أن “على الكتاب أن يكون الفأس التي تكسر البحر المتجمد فينا” حسناً. هذا الكتاب لا يقوم بذلك. لكن يمكن اعتبار هذا الكتاب شيء أقرب للتلويح بالفأس في الهواء تحضيراً لتلك الضربة التي ستكسر الجليد.

"حقاً إن الخبز والسيرك شيئان متلازمان, فكلاهما ضروري للحياة, لحفظها وإنعاشها,"

فهذه المجموعة من المقالات المحفزة للفكر بطريقة مبالغ بها بعض شيء أن أمكن قول ذلك. على الرغم من المتع والمادة الفكرية الدسمة التي تقدمها أرندت في هذا الكتاب والتي شوهتها الترجمة الثقيلة لعبد الرحمن بشناق فقد أحسست أنه سيكون من الأفضل لو قرأت هذا الكتاب بعد سنتين أو ثلاث بعد أن ينمى فكري أكثر واقرأ أكثر في ميدان الفكر السياسي.

"ولم تكن مصيبة دعي الثقافة المتثقف المتعلم أنه قرأ الأدب القديم, بل إنه قرأة لغرض أناني هو البلوغ بنفسه إلى الكمال؛ ومن دون أن يفطن إلى أن أفلاطون وشكسبير قد ينبئانه بأشياء أهم من تربية نفسه, بل المصيبة أنه هرب إلى منطقة من (الشعر الخالص) لكي ينأى بالواقع عن حياته -مستبعداً أموراً (غير مثيرة) كقحط (البطاطا) مثلاً- أو لينظر إليها من خلال حجاب من (العذوبة والنور)."

أن لحنة أرندت فكر فريد وتمتاز بقدرتها المذهلة على ترتيب العديد ��ن الأفكار المبعثرة في نتيجة أو محصلة واحدة. لذلك ستحتاج في الكثير من الأحيان لقراءة مقالاتها مرة ثانية ففي القراءة الأولى قد لا تجد الكثير من الترابط في كلامها لكن بمجرد وصولك للنهاية ستعرف عما كان يد��ر كل ذلك.

"ويمكننا أن نعتبر من القواعد العامة في هذا القرن أن أي شيء ممكن في بلد ما قد يصبح ممكناً كذلك في أي بلد آخر تقريباً في المستقبل غير البعيد."

في النهاية هذا ليس كتاب جوهري على الجميع قراءته لكنه يبقى كتاب ممتع يساعد على تشحيم عقولنا في هذا الزمن الذي يسبب الصدأ.

"ونذكر منها على سبيل المثال كلمة توماس بين حين أكد (أنه يكفي الإنسان لكي يصبح حراً أن يريد الحرية)."

"لما كان الملوك يخافون احتمال قيام الثورة فرأوا أن الشعب لا ينبغي أن يسمح له بفقدان دينه, لأن (كل من يهجر إلهه فسينتهي به الحال إلى هجران سلطاته الأرضية أيضاً) كما قال هاينة."

"أن العصر الحديث باغترابه المتزايد عن العالم قد أوصلنا إلى وضع لا يجد إنسان فيه أنَّى ذهب سوى نفسه."

"فبدأ العصر الحديث حين وجه الإنسان بمساعدة التلسكوب, عينه الجسدية نحو الكون الذي ظل يتأمله زمناً طويلاً, ناظراً بعيني العقل, منصتاً بأذني القلب ومسترشداً بنور الفكر الباطني, فتعلم أن حواسه لم تهيأ للكون, وأن خبرته اليومية بدلاً من أن تكون نموذجاً لتلقي الحقيقة وتحصيل المعرفة, كانت مصدراً دائماً للخطأ والخداع."

"فإن الفناء بحدوثه في كون كل ما فيه أبدي, قد أصبح الصفة المميزة لوجود الإنسان."

"العنف هو بمثابة القابلة لكل مجتمع قديم يتمخض عن مجتمع جديد."

[Whisper19 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, Hannah Arendt is still perfect.
And her essay on the crisis in education could have been written in 2025. Prophetic.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because it was referenced by historians Timothy Snyder and Tony Judt in "Thinking the 20th Century." Hannah Arendt's name was familiar to me before as a 20th century thinker, but I had never read anything written by her.

Snyder also referenced Arendt in "On Tyranny" in regard to her views on tyranny, authority and freedom. For me, the word "authority" usually carries a negative connotation, i.e. the person or body who has power over you. For Arendt, it seems that authority is not necessarily some person and not necessarily something negative. In the third essay in this collection, she writes about authority as being a part of the Roman trinity (authority, tradition, and religion), and authority differs from a fleeting power because it has its roots somewhere in the past. The foundation was central to Roman thought, according to Arendt, and once something was founded, that meant that it would remain for all future generations, who would look back to it as an authority. Similarly, those who served in the Roman Senate were considered to be authorities by virtue of the age of their institution. The point that she makes by introducing the Romans is that ultimately, authoritarian governments are still bound by laws, whereas tyrannical governments rule at the whims of the tyrant.

There are many other interesting observances made throughout these essays and it's clear that not only did Arendt have a very sharp mind and was extremely well-read, but also she is able to write with a precision that does not cloud meaning or interpretation. If I could change one thing about this book, I would transliterate all of the Greek words and provide more detailed notes to explain the meaning of these words and phrases. Hopefully the editors of a future edition will take this into consideration.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eclectic and thought provoking set of essays from one of the most profound thinkers of the twentieth century. Ranging over such topics and freedom, authority, education and justice, Arndt explores the relationship between the past and the present and shows that the understanding of the present depends on an understanding of the past. Worth re-reading.

[Mchelle Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arent is brilliant and a badass woman with amazing style. She's iconic.

[xza.rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

« Fiat justitia, et pereat mundus »

[annalcoholic · Rating 2 out of 5]

heu, je peux plus

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

starts beef with philosophical thought since socrates, but has a fresh and interesting view on what freedom is (spoiler it is a verb, not a state of being)

[Ari]

Non vous ne rêvez pas, je l’ai bien fini (ou il m’a fini je sais pas trop)

[Chedy R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

عبر هذه المجموعة من الكتابات التأويلية النقدية تحاول حنة آرندت مساعدة القارئ على كيفية التفكير في فترة الكتابة، أي القرن العشرين. الفصل الذي يتناول مفهوم التاريخ شديد النقد للماركسية و فيه كثير الإحالات على الوضعية الأمريكية (وهذا من كلاسيكيات حنة آرندت). الفصل الثاني حول ماهية السلطة ممتاز، ومبني على الثالوث الروماني كإطار للتحليل: السلطة، الدين و التقليد. خلاصة الجزء الرابع في أخطاء الأنسنيين عند محاولة البقاء داخل المنظومة الغربية دون دين و لا سلطة مدعاة للتفكير

الفصل المسائل لأزمة الثقافة يجيب على سبب عدم وجود مفهوم الأنسنة أو الثقافة لدى الحضارة الإغريقية و ظهورها في التقليد الروماني، وهو أهم فصل في الكتاب من حيث القدرة النأويلية و لهذا سمي به الكتاب. الفصل المتعلق بالسياسة و الحقيقة هو الأكثر "إلتزاما" بمعنى أنه الأكثر سياسية و فيه مسائلة لوجود واقع مستقل بذاته عن الرأي ة التأويل، ويتخلله نقد لاذع للإتحاد السوفياتي (عبر محو تروتسكي من الذاكرة الرسمية، في أقصى التزوير السياسي للحقيقة). آخر فصل يتعرض لتأثير غزو الفضاء على أبعاد الإنسان، وهو جد قصير للوغول في الموضوع

لم إذا الحديث عن أزمة الثقافة؟ الجواب هو أن كل جيل جديد كان يعيد اكتشاف الفكر عبر التقليد، لكن العصر الحديث فتت التقاليد، فكيف نفكر إذا؟ جواب حنة آرندت النهائي قد يظهر بديهيا، فهي تنصح بعدم محاولة رتق الرابط مع التقليد، بل بالتمرن على التفكير

[Dany · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism – an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established. In other words, the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth vs. falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed. And for this trouble there is no remedy. It is but the other side of the disturbing contingency of all factual reality. Since everything that has actually happened in the realm of human affairs could just as well have been otherwise, the possibilities for lying are boundless, and this boundlessness makes for self-defeat. Only the occasional liar will find it possible to stick to a particular falsehood with unwavering consistency; those who adjust images and stories to ever-changing circumstances will find themselves floating on the wide-open horizon of potentiality, drifting from one possibility to the next, unable to hold on to any one of their own fabrications."

[Clark Maddux · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first time reading Arendt. I was quite taken with her essay on tradition and the impossibility of recovering the past, though as is often the case with mid-century continental writers, she seems to possess a superficial understanding of pragmatism.

[k.merlin Wizard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arendt's critique of Marx's "concept of history" is well worth checking out in this collection of essays.

[Ketab Dozd · Rating 2 out of 5]

باورم نمیشه بالاخره تونستم تمومش کنم. متاسفانه اونقد کتاب برام خسته‌کننده بود که حس میکردم قبل از تموم کردنش میمیرم.

[Samuel Kalergis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algunas veces leer filosofía es como leer poesía – algo que no estoy en lugar de decir porque no leo un poema desde el colegio. Este es el caso de leer a Arendt. Su tradición fenomenológica, griega y romana adorna sus definiciones – y esconde (creo yo) su conservadurismo. Esto se observa en estas dos ideas:

Educación de niños: "These newcomers, moreover, are not finished but in a state of becoming. Thus, the child, the subject of education, has for the educator a double aspect: he is new in a world that is strange to him and he is in the process of becoming, he is a new human being and he is a becoming human being"

Juicio o gusto (taste) como base de asociación (política): "In what concerns my associations with men and things, I refuse to be coerced even by truth, even by beauty"

Otra semejanza con la poesía, es que al terminar de leer soy un poco más feliz al saber que se acabó.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't picked up Arendt since a college class where the professor apologetically referred to her as a political philosopher for lack of a better term. It's true her thought is hard to sum up and I was reminded how awkwardly that term fits her while reading these essays. I've occasionally seen her referred to as a humanist thinker which I like much better.

Either way, what's not to like here? Arendt was a first class mind. In these essays, she's drawing connections between antiquity and the present age to understand the crises of our politics and the conceptual superstructures that support it. One thing that did stand out to me since my last reading was how indebted she was to Heidegger in her understanding of history. I'd almost recommend beginner Heidegger enthusiasts read these essays to catch a glimpse of the Master's thinking in plain English.

[Kendrick Frankel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this collection of essays (lit. "exercises") has been an intellectual journey, at times overpowering but overall more satisfying and elucidating than frustrating. It felt like I imagine one must feel panning in a fast-moving river replete with gold flakes and nuggets wherein you sometimes can't see where you're stepping and almost everything you step on is slippery: you come away with a lot but also see much more go right by you — and more than a couple of times you stumble or fall and drop your pan with all its contents.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arendt is one of the greats, maybe The Greatest regarding philosophy of freedom and society. This deserved a more careful reading than I gave it.

“Freedom of opinion is a farce unless factual information is guaranteed and the facts themselves are not in dispute. In other words, factual truth informs political thought just as rational truth informs philosophical speculation.”

[Amélie Lapointe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un incontournable parmi les essais de pensée politique. À lire absolument.

[karin kim]

---- čteno z povinnosti do školy ----

Tohle na mě bylo moc mooooc složité. Všechny zvukové elementy mě při čtení snadno rozptylovaly a pak jsem nějaké odstavce musela číst znovu. 🙈 Ted to nějak zformulovat do referátu. 🤔😶

[Maria da Rocha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arendt’s essay on “truth and politics” is truly one everyone should read

[Liz Yohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eat your vegetables. Do your homework. Call your mother. Clean your room. Read this book.

[Garrett Mullet]

Truly, Hannah Arendt had a dizzying intellect.

[Alec Ramak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elk essay is raak. Grootste Kantiaan van de 20e eeuw.