On Needing Both Marx and Arendt
1989; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 17; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1177/0090591789017003004
ISSN1552-7476
Autores Tópico(s)Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy
ResumoKarl Marx and Hannah Arendt were two theorists concerned with the causes of modern misery. Both utilize a theory of alienation as an explanation for that misery. The Human Conditioni is the work in which Arendt most directly confronts what she regards as flaws in Marx's thinking. Although the book is generally regarded as Arendt's most important theoretical contribution, her theory of alienation is seldom taken seriously as central to her political thinking. Moreover, as a critique of Marxist theory the work is eccentric. Her contention that Marx, far from being a materialist, is overly subjectivistic seems perverse given Marx's reputation as a materialist critic of Hegelian idealism and has perhaps prevented her book from being taken seriously as a criticism of Marxist theory. In this article, Arendt's criticism of Marx and her own theory of alienation will be examined seriously. I do not believe that the theories of Marx and Arendt are as incompatible as they appear on the surface. Rather, each theorist may be used to demonstrate both the limitations and the strengths of the other. The image with which Arendt opens The Human Conidition is of the recent, and to Arendt unfathomable, desire to flee the planet itself: an incomprehensible celebration of the capacity to leave the earth in a space capsule. The question that troubles her is, What has become so inhospitable about the world that humankind should desire to escape its home?' Arendt believes that we ourselves have allowed the world to become inhospitable, nearly uninhabitable. It no longer feels like home and our response is to run,
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