America’s Mergence of Personal and Public Realms in Arendt’s The Human Condition
America is a superpower, irrefutably the most dominant nation in the world. Underlining this supremacy, however, is the fact that America's society is facing several problems. Among these problems is what Hannah Arendt calls the emergence of society through the mergence of both the personal and public realms. This major problem has spawned numerous other problems, so has been chosen as the underlying cause for the tribulations of modern American society. Hannah Arendt, author of The Human Condition, has provided relevant analysis that applies to this major problem facing American society today.
Modern American society intertwines the personal and public realms of its citizens into one, called the social realm. It follows then that, while in public, one's personal life has a serious effect on their position in society. The most prominent measure of one's status is wealth. Many of the influential voices today are of wealthy citizens. It appears that although everyone is entitled to their own opinion,...
In The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt, the fundamental qualities of human behavior are described and analyzed. These qualities are first described by discussing the different entities present in the lives of Athenian Greeks. This partition of human life into separate units is supposed to be applied to modern American society as well, however, the structure of today's social order differs from that of ancient Greek. These disparities cause the analysis and ideas projected on the human condition to be contrasting as well.
The United States embargo of Cuba has its roots planted in 1960, 53 years ago, when “the United States Congress authorized President Eisenhower to cut off the yearly quota of sugar to be imported from Cuba under the Sugar act of 1948… by 95 percent” (Hass 1998, 37). This was done in response to a growing number of anti-American developments during the height of the cold war, including the “expropriation of United States-owned properties on the island… [and] the Soviet Union [agreeing] to purchase sugar from Cuba and to supply Cuba with crude oil” (Hass 1998, 37). Bad sentiments continued to pile up as Cuba imposed restrictions on the United States Embassy and especially when, after the United States “officially broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba, and travel by United States citizens to Cuba was forbidden ... Castro openly proclaimed his revolution to be ‘socialist’” (Hass 1998, 38). The day after this, the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, but it failed in its job to topple Castro (Hass 1998, 38). Left with no diplomatic options and a failed military attempt, the United States decided that the only way to end Castro’s socialist regime was to sever all ties, and from 1961 to 1996, a series of acts were passed prohibiting the majority of trade and interaction with Cuba. (Hass 1998, 38).
Paul Fussell wrote; Class a Guide through the American Status System in 1983. Fussell introduces interesting points that suggests how we, as Americans are viewed through social class. This book will have you contemplate about where you fall in line in terms of the social hierarchy system. As I read, the book I analyzed how our social status is revealed not only in terms of money, but other significant characteristics that define our habitas. As humans we are social beings, and we all make assumptions about the people around us or label them. Fussell argues that social class and social status can be defined in many ways. In fact, he enlists the nine American class structures that according to his opinion American society are comprised. He investigates
For millennia, there have been constant conflicts between the upper class and the lower class, characterized by the upper class’s sense of superiority towards those less economically prosperous. Mansfield, Gordimer, and Orwell describe these conflicts between the upper and lower classes to propose that completely transcending class prejudices is impossible and suggest that societal values have greater impact than individual values as they degrade both a person’s behavior and morality.
Common human attributes are normal to acquire, yet Americans seem to pick and choose how they want to acquire these traits, whether it’s excessively or minimally. In both readings, “Facing the Village” by Lenore Look and “A Fist in the Eye of God” by Barbara Kingsolver, the authors present many human attributes and the pros and cons of how Americans act. In “Facing the Village,” Lenore Look starts out being the typical, ignorant, greedy, arrogant, and unstable judge of how to trust someone American. After visiting China, where her parents’ home village is, she realizes how Americans, like herself, really are and how unsatisfied they really are in life. In “A Fist in the Eye of God,” Kingsolver also discusses how Americans want to change things and don’t appreciate the natural world the way it is. Human beings’ attitudes towards life and the people around them is the reason people are left feeling unsatisfied about their lives in contemporary America.
Arendt, Hannah. “What Is Freedom?” Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin Group, 2012. 142-69. Print.
6. Bloody Sunday: Bloody Sunday happened on January 22, 1905 when over 200,000 workers and their families arrived at the gates of the czar’s winter palace in St. Petersburg, demanding more freedom and better working condition. Soldiers fired on them, killing more than a thousand. This provoked strikes and violence across Russia that acted as a catalyst to the revolution. The pressure on the czar forced him to create a duma or Russian legislature (Beck et al.
In the Article “The Coddling of the American Mind” by George Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt were very specific examples of college students who were demanding protection from words and ideas they don't like, and seeking punishment to those who give even an accidental offense. When this becomes a problem for education and mental health on campus, many different problems become relevant in our generation of students then what the baby boomers and the Gen X generations had to deal with. The article was explaining how words, subjects, and ideas may affect students, along with these ideas were Microaggressions: small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence
Many social and political philosophers extensively study and attempt to identify the ways by which people make judgments. Prior to interpreting and further analyzing conclusions of judgment as noted by any significant philosopher, one must first obtain an understanding of the background and culture said philosopher was surrounded by. Our minds are malleable; opinions and values are most often shaped by societal norms, political structures, and retrospective assessment of past experiences. This paper will examine judgment as studied by Hannah Arendt while delving into the political afflictions that likely shaped her conclusions.
Social and economic class is something we as Americans like to push into the back of our minds. Sometimes recognizing our class either socially or economically can almost be crippling. When individuals recognize class, limitations and judgment confront us. Instead, we should know it is important to recognize our class, but not let it define and limit us. In the essay, “Class in America”, Gregory Mantsios, founder and director of the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education at the School of Professional Studies, brings to light the fact that Americans don’t talk about class and class mobility. He describes the classes in extremes, mainly focusing on the very sharp divide between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor. In contrast, George
The American upper class controls our governing bodies, our social institutions, our policy-making process, and everything else in between. Ask yourself: when has a poor black woman from inner-city Houston ever navigated the detours and roadblocks that pervade the journey up the American class system? Contrarily, what proportion of American legislators, lobbyists, and lawyers come from upper-middle and upper class families? One element absent from Domhoff’s book was a discussion on social capital. I believe that an acknowledgement of how networking amongst members of the upper class increases the social capital of American elites, and how such a consequence can prove critical in maintaining class parameters and ensuring they remain in place for generations to come. Cutting off communication opportunities between classes is quite possibly the greatest cause of classism in America. It is not that Domhoff neglected a discussion on social capital as his ideas more or less all consummate the idea; I just wish he would have incorporated a discussion of the term directly in his
In today’s society, when an individual talks about social class they refer to the car an individual drives, the amount of money they make or even the school they attend. In the time it takes an individual to read the sentence above, a person made a decision primarily based on their social class. Social class is one of the most pivotal forces that affect individuals in their daily lives. It is quite common for individuals to think that money is the main factor for the inequality of power instead it is the class one belongs to and one’s class position. To some degree, social class can influence behaviour and create competition within families. The way families perceive the dominant group as being more entitled to the
Some students have played violent video games to have fun with their friends or siblings while they are online and offline. Plus they play to try to release their stress, frustration, and pressure after having a hard time doing their homework or in class. Video game developers goal is to make fans happy when they are playing their games. Video games are meant to have feeling of adventure, enjoyment, and excitement. It is helping the player to play video games without harm. Video games also help players to...
In Hannah Arendt’s work, The Human Condition, Arendt addresses the active life or Vita Activa and how the three major human activities are incorporated into the public and private realms. The private realm, in which finances and basic needs are met, exists within the household. The Public Realm involves politics and interaction between individuals. All interaction within the public realm requires the individual to have attained freedom. As society continues to develop, however, and the Modern Age takes over the rise of the Social Realm disrupts the hierarchy of these three human activities. Arendt writes about how this disruption damages the natural order. Each of the three human activities has it’s own place in society and by disrupting the natural order this shift towards the Social Realm causes issues for mankind.
Social standing is a significant component of one’s identity, with society being split into several classifications to which people belong; those in the upper class hold the largest fortune within society, the middle class are the second wealthiest and the lower class is formed of those from the poorest and most disadvantaged backgrounds (BBC, 2013).