ruminations on arendt: five takes
TRANSCRIPT
0
Ruminations on Arendt: Five Takes
Stephen A. Jones
11 July 2021
1
FOREWORD
This collection of loosely-connected pieces is the product of seeking to engage with ideas and
arguments put forth by Hannah Arendt that I found especially stimulating and provocative. The
items appearing here were whittled down from a much larger initial list of possibilities. The aim
of the project was not to achieve mastery of what Arendt is saying or to contribute to Arendtian
scholarship but to try to understand enough of what she is saying to affirm or appropriate it,
consider how to springboard from it, and to imagine possible applications of it. The project may
turn out to be a “creative misreading” of Arendt at best, but it might still be useful.
The tone varies among the five takes, from serious to less serious and from accepting to
defensive to downright whimsical, and none of the takes is developed to the nth degree. The first
three consider the world as portrayed by Arendt, the value of a sense of ‘wonder’ in her account,
and some attributes of the polis as she describes it. The fourth is a proposal to revive vita
contemplativa along Arendtian lines. The final take is an out-and-out fantasy centered on an
imagined corporation, WORLDMAKERS.ORG : The Start-up with Ambitions!™, that is seeking
employees to fulfil its mission. This piece reflects an effort to come to terms with Arendt’s
typology of animal laborans, homo faber, and the ideal person of thought, speech, and action.
The main sources for the project were The Human Condition (1998), The Promise of
Politics (2005) and Essays in Understanding 1930-1954 (1994), which formed the agenda of the
Hannah Arendt Virtual Reading Group in 2020-2021. Also consulted was The Life of the Mind
(1978). Page references to the texts are not included because a fully footnoted document with so
many lines flagged would quickly become tedious. However, the exact references can be supplied
upon request.
*****
CONTENTS
I The Word According to Arendt 2
II The Wonder of It All 5
III Meet Me in Arendtopolis! 7
IV Vita Contemplativa Redux 9
V WORLDMAKERS.ORG : The Start-up with Ambitions!™ 12
2
I
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ARENDT
Why Is the World So Valuable?
For Hannah Arendt, the world is born out of human activity—the vibrant panoply of fabricated
things, the humanly cultivated land, the body politic, and so on. It is the arena for exercising human
capacities and newness, and the forum for politics and the vita activa. It is both “given” to us
(through history) and “created” by us (through action in the present). It comes into being between
people and celebrates their plurality, becoming larger and richer with “the more peoples … who
stand in some particular relationship with one another.” The world “endures beyond” the
generations; it is the only thing that can bestow “a measure of permanence and durability” on
human life. Yet it is fragile: it can be destroyed by an annihilating war that erases “the in-between,”
the “space” between people that cannot instantaneously be reconstituted, because it is not a
manufactured product but is birthed out of “action and speech created by human relationships.”
Overall, the world as Arendt paints it is an attractive place—indeed, the only place—for
humans to be. That’s why it is so precious and ought to command our total commitment and
allegiance. I agree with her premise that without the world humanity would be lost and that, as
Robert Frost put it, it’s “the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better”
(“Birches”). That said, the discussion below centers on what actually follows from Arendt’s
conception of the world and what difficulties arise in her account.
Comments and Concerns
1. The public realm, a core part of the world, certifies what will be taken as “real.” Anything
seeking entry there must be “transformed, deprivatized and deindividualized” if it is going to be
allowed in. This means that private experience is forbidden a priori. For instance, great bodily
pain wins no recognition: it is “so subjective and removed from the world of men and things that
it cannot assume an appearance at all.” This standpoint, which Arendt both reports and seems to
endorse, may underlie her adamant refusal to permit love, a totally private and personal matter
according to her rubric, to play any role in the marketplace of ideas or political action. She regards
all “loves” (except for amor mundi, interestingly) as essentially inward and intimate, only good
for pairing off individuals to become couples. This leads to her misidentifying or mischaracterizing
other forms of love, such as compassion, care, and fellow feeling as mere sentimentality or perhaps
inferior expressions of eros and romance, and hence ruling them out. I suggest this banishment
deprives the world of something it greatly needs and imposes cruel and unusual punishment on it.
2. Arendt is worried that love in its overwhelmingness, its all-consumingness, weakens and
blurs crucial distinctions, gauzing over sharp outlines. Because love breaks down barriers (think
of Romeo and Juliet and their respective warring households) and disrespects boundaries, that
means it doesn’t see persons as individuals and fails to uphold their distinctiveness. These features
are non-negotiable. If that’s what love does, then the political realm is right to ban love from
entering in. But that’s not all that love can do. Love, understood as agape, not as eros, is precisely
3
what does recognize the dignity and distinctiveness of people and sees them as autonomous
persons with unique potentials and capacities. In fact, it may be the only attitude that can do this.
So, love must be ruled in, not out.
3. Arendt pays a lot of attention to the Christian stance towards the world, a matter of lifelong
interest for the represent writer. Unfortunately, her account is deficient for two reasons: (1) there
never was, nor is there today, one dominant stance; rather, there are competing stances; (2) the
world-rejecting monastic stance she focuses on is only one of them. Granted, the New Testament
can admonish Christians, “Do not love the world, or the things in the world” but it also asserts that
the Christian God so loved the world that he went to extraordinary lengths to save it, and that Jesus
called his followers to “go into all the world” to share the good news. Clearly, there was at least
some creative tension from the very outset. Yet Arendt concentrates on just one stance, taking the
monastic movement and other withdrawal practices to be paradigmatic for Christianity’s
relationship to the world. The reality was, and is, bigger and more complex than that, and more
amenable to her own view than she realizes.
4. Additionally, Arendt claims that Christianity retreated to the private realm after the
Reformation, withdrawing even more from the world and the public realm, and thus forfeited
exerting influence there. If this were true, it would have deprived the world of a vital source of
energy, ideas for reform, and innovative actions for the common good. But it was not in fact true.
Centuries after the Reformation, to offer one example, John Wesley could claim the whole world
was his “parish” and act on that basis. Generations of social justice activists operating on a
Christian foundation since then say and act the same. The world for them is front and center, and
they act in it, concretely. Some are even known to have given up their lives for it. (Note that I am
only trying to restore a balance to Arendt’s picture, and not ignoring or excusing the horrific moral
blotches, mistakes, errors, and crimes that also mark church history.)
5. It is true that early Christian believers identified themselves as members of a body or a
family. They made a “totally new, religiously defined, public space, which, although public, was
not political,” Arendt observes. They could not be “political” in her strict terms, since she rules
out family and kinship ties, both literal and non-literal, from politics. It is also true that they did
believe that the world would last. Paradoxically, that did not impair many of them from
energetically spreading a message of hope across the known world and ministering to the sick,
lost, and alienated. Of course, some did retreat, waiting for an apocalypse that stubbornly refused
to arrive on time. Others pushed forward, even into politics, seeking to be the salt that would give
the world its needed savor. Arendt’s picture again needs rebalancing.
6. Arendt is not entirely wrong about one element in early Christianity: “the contrast between
what one wanted to show the world by allowing it to appear in public and what could exist only in
seclusion and therefore had to remain hidden.” However, she overstresses Matthew 6:1 (about
practising piety in secret) and overlooks other sayings of Jesus, not about personal piety, that thrust
followers headlong into the world and did not sanction hiding in the clefts of the rocks, fleeing to
the catacombs, or proceeding into the desert. Given Arendt’s understanding of the polis and the
4
public square as the venue for the fame, recognition, ego satisfaction, and whiff of immortality
that free men allegedly seek to the exclusion of everything else, it is not surprising that she can’t
picture people who possess an “other-worldly” orientation and try to live out self-denying virtues,
as playing a meaningful role there.
7. The “bond of charity” that Christians proclaimed and sought to spread was discovered to
be “incapable of founding a public realm of its own,” and that discovery fed into a “principle of
worldlessness.” If this principle is the antithesis of its opposite—world-full-ness, perhaps?—I
must agree. But the early Christians did not generally abandon the world. However, they did
certainly turn their backs on loving it as an object of desire, which makes the world just another
idol, another false god, of which there were already plenty. Nevertheless, they could fully “love
the world” but not as object of desire.
Tentative Acceptance
In light of the above comments and concerns, which I trust are not so much skeptical as critical, I
can tentatively accept Arendt’s concepts of the world and even amor mundi if they:
• prove not to be idolatrous,
• recognize that much in the world is neither lovely nor lovable in the sense of desirable,
• invest love with connotations of agape, not eros,
• clarify what amor mundi precisely calls for, and
• are prepared for unrequited love (Help! I love the world, but it doesn’t love me back!)
It’s an interim acceptance because questions remain. How should Arendt’s followers today
practice amor mundi? While “Amor Mundi” is a succinct, pithy slogan, slogans are simplifications,
notoriously unsubtle and necessarily un-nuanced for the sake of impact—on a t-shirt, for instance.
What is it, really, to act out of “love of the world”? What sort of love are we talking about? What
exactly about the world should be loved, and why? What can make the world difficult to love? I
continue to ponder these and related questions.1
*****
1 I realized late in the process of working on this piece that Arendt’s profound discussion of love and the
world in Love and Saint Augustine would be a useful lens, perhaps even a required one, for accurately
assessing her conception of the world. Her interpretation of Augustine’s comments on certain New
Testament passages could be particularly instructive. Based on a quick scan of the book, I saw that her
understanding of amor mundi, for instance, is much more nuanced than I had expected, that she may have
made the distinctions I’m trying to draw, and that her final settled view, if it could be ascertained, may well
encompass and reflect subtleties and insights that she developed over the decades. Or, it might totally veer
away from them. However that may be, rather than abandon or overhaul what I’d started, I decided to press
on.
5
II
THE WONDER OF IT ALL
Introduction
Arendt accepts and extols the notion that that philosophy, according to the ancients, begins and
ends in a sense of wonder (Greek: thaumadzein). She cites these classical passages:
Socrates, in Plato’s Theaetetus 155d: “This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher.“
Aristotle, Metaphysics 982b: “For it is owing to their wonder that men both now and at first began
to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little
and stated difficulties about the greater matters…. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks
himself ignorant….” Socrates, in Plato’s Seventh Letter 340c: The philosopher follows “a path of
enchantment [for seeking truth and reality], which he must at once strain every nerve to follow, or
die in the attempt”; 341d: “… there is no way of putting it into words like other studies.”
The philosopher is called to “marvel and be struck by wonder, to endure” and to raise
ultimate questions about being, man, and life. Not to give answers, because words are not adequate
(see above). The philosopher is always ready to endure “the pathos of wonder” and is thus fitted
for avoiding “the dogmatism of mere opinion holders.” He expresses wonder “at that which is as
it is.” This is something he shares with non-philosophers, since it is “one of the most general
characteristics of the human condition.”
Many people, I imagine, will find much of this congenial. There is a naturalness to wonder,
an aura of the primordial, something pre-philosophical and pre-scientific but not sub-philosophical
or sub-scientific, although these are common cynical cavils. However, while wonder,
thaumadzein, may be a common starting point for many thinkers, it can take very different paths.
(Perhaps it isn’t the same thing from the outset even if called by the same name.) For philosophers
and scientists, it can the path of puzzle-wrestling and intellectual engagement, essentially problem-
solving by recourse to the means provided by their respective fields. For religious thinkers (taking
“religious” very broadly), wonder reveals what is to be savored and meditated on. But it can also
open the door to mysticism, occult entities, and unprovable fantasies. This is not a pleasing
prospect for most philosophers—and certainly not for Arendt.
With this stage setting in place, I was curious to see how Arendt’s understanding of wonder
and mystery might compare with the views of other thinkers, especially Abraham Joshua Heschel
(1907-1972) and some biblical writers. This led to the reflections below.
Another Voice
“To become aware of the ineffable,” says Heschel, “is to part company with words,” adding, in an
echo of the ancients, that “the tangent to the curve of human experience lies beyond the limits of
language.” Awe, he further asserts, “is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that
things not only are what they are but stand… for something supreme….” He argues for recognizing
“the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.” All humans ought to
respond to “the inconceivable surprise” of living. For Heschel that’s achieved by prayer, generally
6
not an option for many philosophers or presumably for Arendt as well. But all might agree at least
with Heschel’s starting point: “How strange we are in the world and how presumptuous our
doings!”
It is obvious that Arendt does not grant “living” anything like the status that Heschel does.
In discussing animal laborans, for example, she appears to regard the biological life cycle and
quotidien living as an unfortunate necessity that must be maintained only because it’s the platform
for real existence—political and public life, the sphere of men of thought, speech, and action—to
flourish. And unlike Heschel, she is more interested in the possibility of immortality accruing to
men acting in the public square than their response to “the inconceivable surprise of living.”
Based on these observations, I soon decided, for the time being at least, not to seek grounds
for rapprochement between Heschel and Arendt. Only tangentially and not very helpfully can their
views be made to hold together.
Further Considerations
1. As for explicit biblical exhortations to feel and express wonder, there are fewer than I
would have guessed. In the “Old” Testament, the basic Hebrew terms are mopheth and maphli,
both presumably derived from pala: to be distinguished, extraordinary, wonderful. The noun pele
means “wonderful thing.” As yet, I haven’t discovered whether the Septuagint, the Greek
translation of the Hebrew scriptures, translates these terms by some form of thaumadzein.
Certainly the sentiment of wonder is present even where the exact word isn’t, as in Psalm 145:5:
“On the glorious splendor of your majesty / and on your wondrous works, I / will mediate.” In the
“New” Testament, thaumadzein appears eight times, but not in exhortations to feel awe at the
cosmos or life itself. But what are Jesus’ healing stories about, if not celebrations of life and, we
may suppose, a concomitant restoration of wonder? More investigation is needed.
2. In The Human Condition, Arendt reports that the sense of wonder has been replaced in
modernity by Cartesian doubt. Even if we agree, her stating the truth so flatly is a real jaw-dropper.
More than that, it’s absolutely explosive! Replacing a time-honored attitude or orientation of the
human being that appears to be inherently life-enhancing, possibly even transcendent, and positive
(“good for the soul,” some might say) with an orientation that is essentially intellectual, technical,
and potentially negative, is revolutionary—and not in a good way. What’s an appropriate analogy
here? Swapping a birthright for a mess of pottage?
3. In another place Arendt argues that philosophers today “must make the plurality of man
[the ‘grandeur and misery’ of human affairs]” the object of their thaumadzein if they want “to
arrive at a true political philosophy.” At first I thought she was calling for a wholesale transfer of
wonder from creation, life, and the universe over into the chaotic arena of tawdry political matters
and the down-and-dirty of partisan posturing, so I pronounced her imperative outrageous, even
absurd. Who could possibly find delight in, or express wonder at, politics? Wouldn’t that be a far
cry from expressing wonder at the universe, the object of thaumadzein that ancient philosophers
and scientists, Heschel, and untold others have cherished through the ages? However, I had
carelessly skipped over “the plurality of men.” That’s the actual target for the new, redirected
7
thaumadzein, namely the wonderfully diverse array of human beings, with their manifold
capacities, their creativity, and their penchant for “natality.” If this target is hit, presumably a better
politics will follow. However, I can grant this only with great reservation. While our “plurality”
may carry more pleasing connotations than “politics,” as an object of wonder it’s still not
equivalent to “the starry heavens above” and “the moral life within.”
With these considerations, I will set aside this brief study of wonder with the hope of returning to
it in future.
*****
III
MEET ME IN ARENDTOPOLIS!
Introduction
Arendt finds the ancient Greek polis immensely appealing—it was “the highest form of communal
life and thus something specifically human”—and, if I understand her argument, wants to
instantiate a form of it in the modern world. Now, suppose we were to take up the challenge and
try to set up an “Arendtopolis,” what might we want to consider? What concerns might we have?
A few tentative answers follow.
Relationships and Reservations
1. Although Arendt contends that the polis offers a “permanent space,” she strongly implies
that the spirit of polis is ultimately not tied to location: “Wherever you go,” she says, quoting a
famous but unnamed source, “you will be a polis.” If so, then the seed or secret of Arendtopolis is
portable; it abides in the hearts and minds of those blessed with the impulse. They carry it with
them and can plant it where they believe it will take root and grow. There is no predetermined
space where it will fit nor a particular time, as the polis, while it originated long ago at a particular
historical moment, has the potential to appear—to be born anew—in any place and at any time.
Wherever and whenever people desire to come together to achieve flourishing and are free to do
so, there a polis can arise. This freedom from time and space constraints is a great boon for planners
working at the Arendtopolis drawing board.
2. Arendt contends that interactions between members of the ancient polis were based on their
relationships. Whatever these relationships exactly comprised, on her account they could not have
been based on biological family ties, kin relationships, emotional bonds, or any form of what she
calls “natural association” or “social companionship.” For her, all such ties harbor inbuilt,
ineradicable biases and will corrupt the dispassionate purity of the public square. On this basis,
our projected Arendtopolis will need to be actively destructive of “all organized units resting on
8
kinship.” However, Arendt’s austere restrictions beg the questions of what’s “natural” and why
bias is assumed to be the only characteristic of “association” and “companionship.” Indeed, life in
a civil society, or even in an uncivilized one—any kind of satisfying human life—depends on,
expresses, and celebrates “natural association” and flows with emotion throughout. If that
connection is dismissed as just another form of “kinship,” something fundamental has gone wrong.
My point is that this linkage is real: it comes into being when people connect in whatever myriad
ways they may choose, respond to each other with interest and care, and find fellowship, pleasure,
purpose, and meaning in doing so. It’s a base line of affective reality that planners must not ignore
in setting up Arendtopolis, which will have no chance to survive if it ignores or rejects key
elements of the human condition as it is actually lived.
3. Suppose the affective element were to be ruled out of Arendtopolis, what would be left?
Austere, abstract gatherings where only disembodied and depersonalized thought and speech rule?
This is not immediately attractive. What Arendt is seeking for the polis is a kind of purity
uncontaminated by emotion. As already suggested, this eliminates a whole zone of ordinary,
human, non-family, non-kin relationships that are inherent in meaningful lived experience. Absent
connections that smack of these relationships and the accompanying emotional bonds, the
Arendtopolitans’ activities and relationships will be doomed to be only bloodless, transactional, or
even contractual, not unlike the market exchanges that homo faber is limited to, even if
theoretically pitched at a “higher” level, that is, not swapping tangible products but bargaining
with ideas and arguments.
4. If we follow Arendt’s reasoning, Arendtopolitans will want to be “together in speech and
action.” What weight should be put on “together”? Is it just the fact of physical presence that will
count, or will something deeper be needed, something that will motivate them to put real effort out
and infuse their enterprise with sense of urgency? What does “together” guarantee or generate? If
natural association, family, kinship, and social companionship are ruled out (see point 3), what
kind of togetherness should be in view? Arendt herself praised Tocqueville’s laudatory account of
New England town meetings; maybe there are clues there that Arendtopolis planners could gather
and consider adapting.
5. Further, what does being “together in speech and action” entail? How do speech and action
derive from or express togetherness? If, say, incommensurate viewpoints and goals are expressed
by actors in the public square, what then? How elastic and tolerant is their togetherness? Ideally,
in Arendtopolis “men in their freedom” will “interact with one another without compulsion, force,
and rule over one another, as equals among equals…speaking with and persuading each other.”
They will be perfect peers, never exercising coercion to make their case, and convincing each other
solely by strength of argument. Does this presuppose that their rhetorical skills or their social
standing and influence will be equally distributed? The Arendtian scenario is so idealistic, even
innocent (angelic?), that it verges on the implausible. Clearly, serious planners must possess a
realistic and robust understanding of issues of power and avoid deluding themselves. As well, they
must recognize that abuses generated in the public square will call for remedies. Arendt would
probably agree and say, Yes, they certainly do. What’s needed is more speech! This echoes a
position taken in debates over hate speech, namely that the only way to combat it is to get more
9
speech out there, as the truth will eventually rise to the top, like cream. However, planners must
be convinced.
6. A final point. Arendt claims that the “grandeur” of human speech in Greek poetry/epics
was transferred to the polis, where great speech and heroic deeds could be celebrated, remembered,
and not forgotten. The polis gave these words and actions as much permanence and immortality
as they could ever hope to acquire. Such a marvelous transfer may have been true of the ancient
polis, but can it be made true of Arendtopolis as well? Arendt also speaks of the “inherent
greatness” of political activity in the polis. Planners can be forgiven for asking for convincing
empirical evidence of that quality in politics today! Given that both grandeur of speech and
greatness in politics are hard if not impossible to discover or even envision now, what could
planners do to create conditions for their appearance in the new polis?
Conclusion?
Much thought and hard work will be needed for responding to the challenge of bringing about a
viable Arendtopolis. If we want to be planners, we will need to steer clear of illusions and pitfalls,
and we will be wise to consult Arendt as an always stimulating resource but not as a rigid template.
I hope we will find it worth the effort, because if we succeed, we and our fellow Arendtopolitans
will truly look forward to saying “Meet me in Arendtopolis!” It will be a good place—the only
place—for us all to be.
*****
IV
VITA CONTEMPLATIVA REDUX?
Introduction
As will soon become obvious, this fourth take is more thought experiment than argument. What is
proposed here, a revival of vita contemplativa modeled on what I call Hannah Arendt’s “style” of
thinking, may turn out to be nothing more than an ill-considered attempt to arbitrarily re-align
nomenclature or just an exercise in rebranding. But that’s yet to be determined. For orientation I
will start with what Arendt says about traditional vita contemplativa, although I must assemble it
from remarks scattered across various texts and make inferences (guesses?) from those remarks.
This is because her focus is almost exclusively on vita activa, which she expounds at length, and
she mentions vita contemplativa mainly in passing, for contrast, and not at length.
Let us suppose that we feel something is missing in what passes for political and social
thought nowadays and decide, for lack of any obvious alternatives, that we could try to resuscitate
the old idea of “contemplation” as a way to provide the depth we are seeking, or at least to give it
10
a name. For the sake of argument we could call it “Vita Contemplativa Redux” (hereafter “VC
Redux”). We will insist that VC Redux, whatever else it may be, take a shape appropriate to our
time and space and not be a slavish throwback to previous understandings of contemplation. Given
this stipulation, what might we nevertheless retain from traditional vita contemplativa as described
by Arendt for possible incorporation into the new model? One basic guideline would surely be to
preserve what we believe are essential and timeless features of the traditional concept but slough
off ephemeral and time-bound accretions. With that in mind, I offer a few points for consideration
plus suggestions (underlined) as to their potential. The First Thoughts are based on Arendt’s
comments on traditional vita contemplativa, the Second Thoughts reflect my understanding of her
“style” of thinking.
First Thoughts
1. Arendt informs us that traditional vita contemplativa was born out of Aristotle’s notion of
bios theoretikos, roughly “the life of the mind,” which was distinct from and superior to bios
politikos, basic biological life. For the ancients only theorein possessed “a dignity of its own.”
Centuries later in the medieval period, vita contemplativa was relegated to the religious sphere,
where it “lost all significance for action.” Still later it degenerated into expressing mere “pious
banalities.” Finally, with the advent of modernity, it was effectively exiled. Let’s retain theorein
in something like its original form, not these later debasements, for VC Redux.
2. According to Arendt, in its heyday contemplation and the life that accompanied it was
believed to yield truth. Hence “every kind of activity, even the processes of mere thought, must
culminate in the absolute quiet of contemplation.” After all, theoria was a portal into “the
experience of the eternal.” The beauty and truth of the cosmos, its eternity, “discloses itself …
only when all human movements and activities are at perfect rest.” Reverential quiet was thus
enjoined upon all. Motionlessness, even speechlessness, characterized the contemplative who was
“enraptured” with “the miracle of Being.” We must incorporate the quest for truth in VC Redux.
It’s an essential. While we may respect motionlessness and speechlessness as perfectly human
responses to what’s ultimately real, we don’t need to see them as essential or enjoin them upon on
anyone.
3. Arendt explains that Plato’s craftsman, whose work could only poorly imitate and fall far
short of the perfection of the eternal, the realm of the Idea and the Form (eidos), could not join the
ranks of the contemplatives. As distinct from the craftsman or homo faber, the true
contemplative—identified at that time as the philosopher—gladly transcended the “activity of
making.” We must keep the notion of seeking the eternal, which we will likely want to re-define
as “reality.” And if the new VC Redux contemplative wants to make tangible physical objects as
well as cerebral intellectual arguments, we don’t need to object or pretend that the activity of
making is contemptible.
4. Arendt contends that contemplation at the hands of the medieval church manifested
passivity, which helped detach thought from action. The ideal for Christian thinking was identified
with a receptive meditation on the divine, defining contemplation a “blessed state of the soul.”
11
There is absolutely no need to saddle VC Redux with either a passivity requirement or a particular
doctrine of the soul, or to require that it direct itself toward fuzzy speculations.
5. In the modern era, contemplation was “discovered to be a human faculty.” It was brought
down to earth from the spurious heights it had occupied for many preceding centuries, in the
process deposing the former contemplatives and their way of life. However, the ascending phalanx
of scientists and technologists, the descendants and new instantiations of homo faber, did not
actually jettison contemplation but rather reimagined and repurposed it. They retained the urge to
contemplate—how could they do otherwise, if it arises from an active human faculty?—but
redirected it to patterns they themselves constructed, not to those formerly regarded as properties
of the cosmos, and to processes they themselves created to generate knowledge. Permanence was
not their key concern, nor was truth. We can accept a “human faculty” as the driver of
contemplation in VC Redux, as well as the notion of attending to patterns and processes. But we
will disqualify narcissistic fascination with anything that we ourselves construct or impose on
reality. VC Redux must commit to distinguish, at all times and in all places, between those
constructions and what is “real.” Admittedly, history suggests this will not be easy!
Second Thoughts
1. Arendt might be horrified at the very suggestion, but I contend that she is already practising
a form of VC Redux. Her analytical, fulsome, and passionate probings—the elements of her style
of thinking, as I call it—are obviously not an instance of the kind of thinking that’s needed for vita
activa, which I believe she regards as the repository of the highest, or at least most dominant, sort
of thought known to modernity. Her work is pitched one level higher. But that would seem to
render it an outlier to her own taxonomy, effectively making it homeless on her own terms. So,
where can it go? I will suggest VC Redux, of course!
2. Moreover, Arendt’s arguments are not “political” in an ordinary, clichéd sense but rather
embody a unique, rich blend of cultural, historical, anthropological, academic, and philosophical
considerations that go far beyond the uninspired political arguments commonly on offer today.
Her observations, analyses, and critiques cannot be boiled down for delivery in the political arena,
nor are they calls for particular action. She is not personally “out there” in the public square, duking
it out with opponents like a candidate for election. Nor is she performing like homo faber,
producing means-end “thinking” for the sake of fabricating a product for the market. Rather, what
she is doing exemplifies VC Redux.
3. In addition, while Arendt explores and critiques many intellectual models, even whole
Weltanschauungen, she does not exalt them as she believes modern rationalists do. As a courtesy,
we might say they “contemplate” their models and other self-made constructions, fascinated by
the power they possess and devoting themselves to them. But that’s a far cry from the practices of
traditional contemplation. What Arendt approves and demonstrates is not this low-budget form of
contemplation but a rigorous exploration of the meaning of any and all fabrications in order to
ascertain what they say about reality. This type of meta-thinking puts her firmly in the VC Redux
column.
12
4. Leaving the history of full-blown vita contemplativa aside for a moment, I suggest that
Arendt’s thinking is “contemplative” in a contemporary, ordinary language sense that is not
irrelevant to the present discussion. When we say that we are contemplating something—say, a
course of action, an object of art, a friend’s behavior—what do we mean? In the simplest terms,
we are trying to push aside the veil of appearances and seek the truth, even as did the grand
contemplatives and ordinary people through the ages. Although Arendt can be found to say that
truth is not her aim but meaning is, there is not a significant enough difference between the two to
derail VC Redux. In her practice she was seeking truth, admittedly not in a way that comports well
with either the practices of modern science and technology or the orientation and techniques of
mainstream philosophy. This type of probing—and going against the grain—should be a core
characteristic of VC Redux.
5. Obviously, Arendt’s thinking is not marked by mystic visions or any other throwbacks to
discredited notions of contemplation. For her, mystical visions would be so much brush to be
cleared away, “demythologized” as Rudolf Bultmann famously argued in another context.
Retaining what is essential—in this case, the demythologized—is exactly what VC Redux
demands. No effort will be expended on going down ancient rabbit holes or chasing fantastical
snarks. The mandate is to seek a form of contemplation suitable to the modern age.
Conclusion
What this thought experiment has sought to do is support the proposal, which I restate here as
aiming to (1) name Arendt’s style of thinking “vita contemplativa redux” and (2) apply the “vita
contemplativa redux” name to all such thinking, that is, deep and comprehensive thinking that
embodies the traits emerging from the above considerations. The point is to make VC Redux the
home for thinking that transcends the superficial, culturally dominant means-end calculations
mistakenly labeled “thinking” today. VC Redux both innovates and preserves: it is a new way to
categorize a crucial style of thought and equally a retrieval, restoration, and revitalization of an
honorable concept. The proposal takes its impetus from Arendt and regards her to a great degree
as its pioneer and champion. But, as Nietzsche said somewhere, it’s a poor student who doesn’t
outstrip his teacher. We must not simply imitate Arendt or any other true contemplatives, past or
present, but create our own path.
*****
___________________________________________________
V
WORLDMAKERS.ORG : The Start-up with Ambitions!™
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: JOB APPLICANT PROFILES
WORLDMAKERS.ORG : The Start-up with Ambitions!™ has recently conducted interviews for several positions in its new head office. Selected candidates were invited to digest the
13
organization’s operating manual, The Human Condition, before watching a 15-minute video outlining the organization’s activities, achievements, and future plans and offering a brief biography of its renowned founder, known within its ranks simply as “HA.” Candidates then met individually with an interviewing team from WORLDMAKERS.ORG/Human Resources.
Each candidate was asked the same five questions so that consistent and comparable Profiles could be created. The interview transcripts appear in summary form below, together with a Rating of each candidate (except for the first candidate, as will be explained), based on four core criteria: THINKING, SPEECH, ACTION, and WORLDLINESS™.
Note: While the candidates did succeed in securing the respective positions, the interviewers were not completely satisfied with either the candidates or the process itself. They sensed there was something flawed in the enterprise, perhaps even in its basic rationale. See the Appendix and the additional Profile.
*****
CANDIDATE 1: Al Laboranski Job Classification: General duties
Department: TBA, Unassigned
HUMAN RESOURCES: What can you offer WORLDMAKERS.ORG?
Al: Basically, hard work, or as I prefer to call it, labor. A good day’s work, every day. Whatever
task you have, I’m your man. I will mix in my labor with your materials for consumption by
consumers all across the globe. In fact, I’m an avid consumer myself. Lots of stuff in my house!
Always eager to keep the cycle going, you know, like a natural or biological process—like life
itself. I’m really pro-life, so to speak. At the end of the day, you’ll have got your money’s worth,
and I’ll feel the sense of bliss that comes from putting my shoulder to the proverbial wheel. Can’t
beat that. Hard labor never killed anybody.
HUMAN RESOURCES: What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses?
Al: Strengths: I’m very versatile and adaptable. Whether it’s a job in the field, literally, or in an
industrial machine environment, or in an office building with thousands of other employees, I can
do it. In fact, that’s exactly what I want to do. Almost as if I’m predestined! I’ll enjoy serving as
an instrument to carry out the purposes of WORLDMAKERS.ORG : The Start-up with
Ambitions!™ And I’ll enjoy leaving the heavy-duty thinking about the organization’s specific aims
and strategies to somebody else higher up. That’s way beyond my pay grade.
Weaknesses: I’m not aware of any. Should I be?
HUMAN RESOURCES: What are your goals, what would you like to get out of this
position?
Al: Survival! A decent salary! I mean a way to ensure I can look after my family and keep things
going, that sort of thing. This is what everybody does, or should do, isn’t it? And being happy,
having work buddies, of course.
14
HUMAN RESOURCES: Work/life balance is important. What do you like to do, off-hours?
Al: Get away from my labor—much as I like it, don’t get me wrong!—so I can enjoy the fruits of
it. I like being out in nature, for instance, mainly with the other folks who make up what I
affectionately call “my herd.” The gang from work that I expect I’ll come to know at
WORLDMAKERS.ORG, for instance. You know, where everybody’s the same, nobody puts on
airs, that kind of thing. I expect we’ll have the same or pretty similar values, we’ll probably like
the same things. It’s great. We’ll go out together socially and “eat and drink in company” as
someone has said. Say, … maybe you’d like to join us? It’ll be fun.
HUMAN RESOURCES: WORLDMAKERS.ORG operates extensively in the public realm.
How do you feel about engaging in the public square?
Al: Isn’t that what I’m already doing? By socializing, as I said before? If you mean something
else—like dabbling in politics or running for office, I don’t know anything about that. Maybe I’ll
vote from time to time but that’s the limit. I leave serious political stuff to other folks. All that
yakety-yak! I shy away from politics, that’s for sure. I just want to live. But maybe your other
candidates might have something more to say about that.
HUMAN RESOURCES: That completes the interview, Al. Thanks for your time. We’ll be
in touch.
Al: Oh no, I must thank YOU! And, hey, let’s have that beer once I get the job!
WORLDMAKERS.ORG RATING: NOTE: This candidate is rated only for ENERGY: A. None of the
standard categories (Thinking, Speech, Action) can meaningfully apply, as should be obvious from
the summary above.
*****
CANDIDATE 2: Fabio Masteri Job Classification: Resource/Support
Department: Science and Technology
HUMAN RESOURCES: What can you offer WORLDMAKERS.ORG?
Fabio: As Ben Franklin might describe me, I’m a toolmaker through and though. Whatever your
organization or indeed nature itself provides as material I can shape into something worthwhile.
You can take “toolmaking” literally—as the devices and technology I create on a workbench or in
a lab—or metaphorically and less tangibly as the models and patterns and schemas I can make to
cover what is the case and, more important, what ought to be the case. I can take something
inherently worthless and make it valuable and marketable. All by means of craftsmanship.
15
Means-and-ends thinking is my specialty, as well as process. That is, I can provide the
means to achieve whatever ends are set by WORLDMAKERS.ORG executives, anything that
contributes to productivity and utility.
Not only that. I can help everyone up and down the line in the organization, from head
honchos to hourly laborers. I can give them the tools they need, from lofty conceptual schemes
right down or up to “mute robots.” People like me possess not just ingenuity but what we among
ourselves jokingly call “a terrible freedom”: we can create, and we can destroy. So much power!
Some people even say we relish our role as destroyers of nature, and claim we even think we are
lords and masters of the whole earth! I wouldn’t go that far myself.
I’m sure that of all the kinds of staff you need, you can’t go wrong with me. That is, if you
want WORLDMAKERS.ORG to produce objects, products, things that are going to be durable
and not tossed into the dustbin of consumables. And not just durable but even permanent, with any
luck.
HUMAN RESOURCES: What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses?
Fabio: Strengths: I am happiest working on my projects independently. In fact, I prefer that. I need
to be able to utlilize my skills and apply my mastery of things in my own space. When my projects
are ready I take them to the marketplace and display them and conduct whatever business has to
be looked after. And get the hell out if I have to!
Weaknesses: Not sure this is a weakness, but I don’t like it when “social” types—the hoi
polloi—interfere with my activity. That is, when onlookers want to barge in on my routines and
processes and pretend they have a share in them as if they’re equal partners. I feel that they are
undermining me and my competence and my hard-won understanding of what is truly excellent. I
really don’t like to get involved in arguments with such people. They just don’t get it. I admit I
have no great skills in handling different personalities and perspectives.
HUMAN RESOURCES: What are your goals, what would you like to get out of this position?
Fabio: Oh, wow! I guess a sense of contributing to the world by fabricating good products, even
leaving something significant behind, something that transcends daily life and mere existence,
maybe has permanence. That’s as much as anyone can hope for, right? I’m happy to perform what
I think is an important service to humanity, even if some might call it “utilitarian.” Really, is there
anything beyond utility? If there is, I don’t see it. What is WORLDMAKERS.ORG for, after all?
At the same time I do appreciate what these days is called the “precarity” of all our human efforts.
HUMAN RESOURCES: Work/life balance is important. What do you like to do, off-hours?
Fabio: Keep up in my field, mainly. I like to study the latest technological and scientific
developments, check out new theories, models, paradigms—all that sort of thing. Planning how to
use these items and new knowledge in general to advantage. I’m an inveterate fabricator.
16
HUMAN RESOURCES: WORLDMAKERS.ORG operates in the public realm. How do you
feel about engaging in the public square?
Fabio: As I said, I don’t enjoy debating with people, wasting time on that sort of thing. I’ll go to
the marketplace to transact business, exchange products and so on, but that’s as far onto the public
stage and into the wider world as I need to be. If you mean do I want to play a role in politics, I’ll
say no.
It’s not that I’m anti-political or anything like that, just un-political. I put my energy and
efforts totally into my craft, end of story. Politics itself and endless political discussions that don’t
get anywhere are for somebody else, perhaps one of your other candidates.
HUMAN RESOURCES: That completes the interview, Fabio. Thanks for your time. We’ll
be in touch.
Fabio: Thank you. I must run, gotta set up for a Zoom productivity meeting!
WORLDMAKERS.ORG RATING: Thinking C, Speech B, Action B, WORLDLINESS™ B
*****
CANDIDATE 3: Max Weltmann Job Classification: Executive
Department: Thought, Speech, Action
HUMAN RESOURCES: What can you offer WORLDMAKERS.ORG?
Max: In both WORLDMAKERS.ORG’s internal and external activities I would stress,
enthusiastically and tirelessly, how we are all bound together with each other, how despite our
obvious plurality and diversity, our interests are actually “inter”-ests that can flourish only through
our inter-action and mutual engagement. Together we can create the world we want. Not that we
won’t face conflict; that’s part of the deal, and an important part.
I believe my perspective and experience give me exactly the kind of “worldliness” that
WORLDMAKERS.ORG is seeking in its own ranks and in the wider community. One of my
messages to colleagues and staff will be simply “Stop and Think,” as I believe that quality
thinking—thinking beyond merely fitting means to ends, calculating consequences etc.—is what’s
missing in today’s technologized environment. It’s impoverishing the world.
As the founder of your organization pointed out, we need to “think beyond the limitations
of knowledge, to do more with this ability than use it as an instrument for knowing and doing.” In
our politics and in society more broadly, we need to transcend so-called common-sense reasoning
and what computing or mere calculating can deliver.
In some moods, I confess, I feel that real thinking is often ruled out of order today because
it doesn’t produce immediate results. But I still maintain we always need to take a longer view. If
we really want to create a coherent and meaningful world with any durability, we have to undertake
rigorous imagining and thinking. Straight utilitarian “reasoning” as we have come to know it won’t
cut it.
17
HUMAN RESOURCES: What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses?
Max: Strengths: I have a great capacity for what your founder called “natality,” for beginning
something new. I don’t think anything is predetermined or subject to fate or necessity. The field
for action is wide open, and we’re free to create the world we want! Personally I’m not afraid to
risk putting myself and WORLDMAKERS.ORG out there in the zone of what has been called
“merciless exposure.” At the same time I know that realizing our goals will take shape in contact
with other agents trying to realize theirs. That’s fine, even if I might occasionally be out-argued
by fellow actors. The thrust and parry of debate doesn’t faze me. We’ll get there, not to worry.
Weaknesses: It’s not simply that I savor plurality and the “polis” more than anyone else, I
actually need them. They’re my life breath! I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if there
weren’t a public realm to match wits in, talk in, act in, find my real self in. I’m not someone who
could retreat into making things in a workshop or tilling the soil or some such. Not for me, though
okay for somebody else. Maybe I’m suffering from a form of dependency, but that’s not for me to
say.
HUMAN RESOURCES: What are your goals, what would you like to get out of this position?
Max: If I have goals, they’ll be totally bound up with my commitment to
WORLDMAKERS.ORG, and they’ll be intrinsic to the thinking and the speaking and the acting
that I’ve described. They’ll be self-sustaining, self-fulfilling, reciprocal … yet, I hope, not self-
aggrandizing!
HUMAN RESOURCES: Work/life balance is important. What do you like to do, off-hours?
Max: Think! I mean that in all seriousness. I like to think about possibilities for the world—what
will contribute to safeguarding life in the broadest sense—and envision how to argue for them and
actually achieve them. I never tire of imagining what can be done when human beings despite their
diversity and plurality recognize their commonalities!
HUMAN RESOURCES: WORLDMAKERS.ORG operates in the public realm. How do you
feel about engaging in the public square?
Max: As you’ve undoubtedly gathered from what I’ve been saying, I will thrive in the public
square and in whatever political situations or implications follow from that. Some people might
see politics today as only a mechanical function or a necessary evil, but I don’t. I take a much more
positive view, like that of the ancients who extoled the Greek polis.
I’m eager to tell the WORLDMAKERS.ORG story and to bring people onside with it. All
without coercing them, of course. I’ll cherish participating and acting with my fellow men, learning
their perspectives—immersing myself in plurality, in other words—and celebrating the myriad
relationships we have now and will cultivate for the future.
After all, it’s in the public square where we come together in speech and action, that great
deeds—worldmaking deeds—will be remembered, and that’s where I will pledge to take
WORLDMAKERS.ORG.
18
HUMAN RESOURCES: That completes the interview, Max. Thanks for your time. We’ll
be in touch.
Max: Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to hearing from you.
WORLDMAKERS.ORG RATING: Thinking A, Speech A, Action A, WORLDLINESS™ A+
*****
APPENDIX
C O N F I D E N T I A L Colleagues, the process of interviewing these candidates strongly suggests to us that there may be something wrong with our categories, perhaps even with the basic typology that we’re using. The following outlines the key concerns of the WORLDMAKERS.ORG / Human Resources interviewing team.
• We have begun to wonder if the three-element typology of the human being we standardly employ—unbeknownst to job applicants—namely animal laborans, homo faber, and Man of Action (short for Thought, Speech, and Action), is really adequate as a conceptual framework for what WORLDMAKERS.ORG has in mind. We worry that this typology fails to capture what is necessary for achieving our corporate vision. As well, it doesn’t seem to align with the richness of the team’s own lived experience. The three types, even if we concede that they are only archetypes, symbols, idealizations, or rhetorical conveniences and not natural kinds, empirical entities, or ontological categories, certainly don’t exhaust our personal understandings of human beings. To be honest, we are not perfectly sure why the founder even developed this typology.
• On the one hand, the typology tends to exaggerate the power of politics, assumes an implausible level of trust and innocence among actors in the public square, and perhaps more importantly, leaves no room for persons like Al Laboranski and to a lesser extent, Fabio Masteri, to play a significant role at the heart of the world-making enterprise. Only Max Weltmann can qualify as a leader in the present structure. What exactly is to become of Al and Fabio?
• On the other hand, the typology excludes (militates against?) some virtues and orientations that could contribute to our organization’s mission. We have in view here the potential value of actions in the public square that are performed on the basis of love. That is, on a foundation of care and fellow feeling and delight in the common good. We stress that this is NOT to be confused with mushy sentimentality, romantic eros, or biological kinship. Even Max Weltmann falls short in this regard, as he never indicated anything other than the mere fact of interacting with others as a source of spiritual
19
energy. And he was disturbingly silent about the possibility of modeling compassion and charity, of actively “reaching out,” virtues that have often motivated people to advance human flourishing and indeed to conduct “worldmaking,” the very raison d être of WORLDMAKERS.ORG!
• Overall, we have come to regard the typology as too limited and rigid. One way to rescue and realign it might be to add a fourth type to the mix! If we could do that, perhaps it would take us beyond the limitations of the present triad and its assumed completeness and implicit normativity.
• Thankfully and, we must say, fortuitously, the Human Resources team finds itself in a position to offer another candidate for consideration whose characteristics may be in line with the direction WORLDMAKERS.ORG should go in both its self-conception and its hiring practices. This unexpected opportunity could serve as a catalyst for totally overhauling the existing typology. The candidate may even be an instance of, or model for, that extra type we have suggested. We’re not sure. Just among ourselves we’ve nicknamed him “the fourth man in the fire,” a biblical moniker that appealed to one of us. (For a latinate label parallel to animal laborans or homo faber, we might suggest vir sagax or homo quaestitor, but we’re not confident enough of our facility in that language.) Please see the profile that follows.
*****
CANDIDATE 4: Daniel Hochma
Job classification: Executive
Department: Strategic Planning?
HUMAN RESOURCES: What can you offer WORLDMAKERS.ORG?
Daniel: Although the WORLDMAKERS.ORG literature I’ve studied contends that love “by
reason of its passion, destroys the in-between which relates us to and separates us from others”
and concludes that this alleged destruction precludes its employment in serious world-making, I
beg to differ. I want to stand that idea on its head.
Indeed, I am convinced that the organization can achieve its goals only if its thinking,
speaking, and acting are suffused with love. I don’t mean love in the sense of a subjective, warm,
misty or fuzzy feeling that immediately dissipates once the going gets tough, but in the sense of a
deep understanding of “the human condition,” if I can appropriate that term, and an active attitude
of care for all persons and their rights and their potentials, and for the world at large. In fact, this
is the only way I can make sense of the founder’s intriguing notion of amor mundi. Where the
founder seems to see love as essentially eros, I see it as agape and philia, even if not exactly in the
way these terms have often been interpreted. But I won’t belabor that here!
20
If hired, I will seek to show how this can work both within the organization and outside it.
To be clear, it is not passion that is the defining feature of the love I have in mind but a robust
commitment to advance the well-being of “the other,” however that may be defined. This is not
pie in the sky. If anything is pie in the sky, it’s Marxism, whose utopian fantasies I take it
WORLDMAKERS.ORG rejects.
What our pluralistic world needs is not more intellectual virtue or lofty thinking, with its
studied disdain of emotion and fear of it, or even a thinking that tries to stretch beyond instrumental
means-end calculations, but more virtue of character, as social commentators are starting to realize.
We’ve suffered plenty of lack of character in recent times.
HUMAN RESOURCES: What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses?
Daniel: As you may gather, I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with some of the
assumptions of WORLDMAKERS.ORG, if I have understood them correctly. I suppose these will
come out as “strengths” or “weaknesses” from the organization’s perspective. So be it.
Strengths: I share the organization’s skepticism about may aspects of modernity, including
the value of the social sciences and theories and models of human behavior, and the founder’s
contentions that some human actions explode the standard moral categories and render them
useless. I am not fazed by this discovery. I also concur with the founder’s claims about the darkness
of the human heart. It’s absolutely imperative not to have illusions! I’ll add that I don’t worry
about the results of acting with love (including forgiveness) being unpredictable. That’s an
attribute of all human action.
Weaknesses: I do not actually view “the world” solely as man’s creation, which I realize
puts me at odds with the organization and its founder. But this does not mean that I shirk from
engagement with it. Far from it! It’s that I don’t put too much weight on the “solely.” A world that
is solely our own creation can hardly offer transcendence. We would just be looking at ourselves
in the mirror ad infinitum, ad nauseam. But I’ll leave that as an open question rather than trot out
any sort of religious or philosophical dogma to support my view. I believe that I and
WORLDMAKERS.ORG can ultimately agree on what is achievable and what is not, what has true
permanence, what is only sham, pretense, and a thing of the moment.
HUMAN RESOURCES: What are your goals, what would you like to get out of this position?
Daniel: Simply put, I want to extend the reach of love and justice, and assure greater human
flourishing—and even a transformation of the world.
HUMAN RESOURCES: Work/life balance is important. What do you like to do, off-hours?
Daniel: Conceive of new ways to achieve the aims I’ve noted and to try to practice them in my
daily life! This was what I was doing before I applied for the position with
WORLDMAKERS.ORG and will continue to do whether I’m hired or not. It’s my life, as I make
no essential discrimination between my “off” hours and my “on” hours. It’s like a calling, you
might say.
21
HUMAN RESOURCES: WORLDMAKERS.ORG operates in the public realm. How do you
feel about engaging in the public square?
Daniel: I believe I’ve already indicated how I feel about this. But to reiterate, I’ll just say that I
will enter it with total commitment and energy, and lead the organization’s agents in doing the
same. We will all find our true freedom there. I reject the idea that love is “the most powerful of
all antipolitical human forces.” Rather, it is the only thing that can make sense of politics and the
public realm.
HUMAN RESOURCES: That completes the interview, Daniel. We’ll be in touch.
Daniel: I must thank you, and I wish you well in your good work.
WORLDMAKERS.ORG RATING*: Thinking A+?, Speech A?, Action A?, WORLDLINESS™ ?
*Note: The team found this candidate impressive but very hard to evaluate or rate, and thus recommend that a new interview protocol be designed, not only for this candidate but any others who may follow in his train.
Respectfully submitted by WORLDMAKERS.ORG/Human Resources.
11 July 2021
WORLDMAKERS.ORG : The Start-up with Ambitions!™
______________________________________________________________________________