Hannah Arendt's Political Theology of Democratic Life

Abstract

In this essay, I explore Hannah Arendt's suggestion that we conceptualize human power and freedom polytheistically if our aim is to understand the challenges and requirements of democratic self-governance. Although it is not clear that politics must always be understood through theological grammars, if it is to be, polytheism affirms that there may be multiple sources of value and of right, offering both a metaphysical counterpart to value pluralism and a vision of how to create political practices and institutions that mirror and honor both the equality and distinction of human beings.     

Hannah Arendt's Mythology: The Political Nature of History and Its Tales of Antiheroes

Current scholarship has focused on analyzing how Arendt's storytelling corresponds to her political arguments. In following up this discussion, I offer a closer examination of the unusual myth Arendt uses to explain the condition of the modern age, a myth she refers to as the “political nature of history.” I employ literary terms along with the standard vocabulary of political theory in shaping this reading of Arendt. Following Robert C. Pirro, I also consider Arendt's story as a tragedy, but in the broadest sense, that of a collision of two goods, freedom and security. By describing Arendt's thought in this manner, I hope to reveal another way in which Arendt represents the call to action that she believes so crucial to humanity, as a summons to we flawed antiheroes through the device of a heroic myth.     

War and Revolution: Friedrich Engels as a Military and Political Thinker

This article explores the link between political and military strategy and tactics in the work of Friedrich Engels. Though widely praised for his understanding of military affairs, Engels’ interlocutors have tended to be dismissive of his political works. By exploring his politics through the lens of his military writings this article challenges the view that Engels was a mechanical materialist and political fatalist thinker. It argues that his military writings cannot be understood apart from his political works, and that, whatever the historical limitations of the specific conclusions to which he came, his method in these writings illuminate his profound grasp of the relationship between strategy and tactics at both the military and political levels.     

博物馆的政治传播功能释读

博物馆作为一种大众媒介,是意识形态国家机器展示政治意图、传播政治信息的文化教育机构,是维系和支撑权力运作的空间载体。从政治传播的视角来看,博物馆以藏品为基础,通过内容设计、陈列展示、构建有效的政治符号等"再生产—解码"的方式来展示政治意图,当观众与现代语境下的展品价值发生接触时,展品就完成了政治文化信息的更新发展,从过去时变成现在进行时,成为观众学习的介质,从而实现政治传播的政治意义。     

Judging appearances: The continuing legacy of Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Politics. Edited by Craig Calhoun and John McGowan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), viii + 362 pp. $54.95 cloth $21.95 paper.

Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss: German Emigrés and American Political Thought after World War II. Edited by Peter Graf Kielmansegg, Horst Mewes, and Elisabeth Glaser‐Schmidt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), x + 208 pp. $49.95/£35.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.

Hannah Arendt: Twenty Years Later. Edited by Larry May and Jerome Kohn (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), viii + 384 pp. $40.00 cloth, $17.50 paper.     

Atavistic Novelty: Questioning Hannah Arendt’s Understanding of Totalitarianism

ABSTRACT

This article offers a critique of Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of totalitarianism as formulated in her magnum opus—The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). It argues that, to comprehend totalitarianism, Arendt forged a heterodox method of historical analysis. Employing that method, she conceived totalitarianism as a form of transcendence of historical context. In doing so, however, she ignored crucial historical contexts that were in fact related to the history of totalitarianism. Subverting her interpretation of totalitarianism as transcendence, these elided contexts erupted inadvertently and repeatedly into her analysis—revealing that totalitarianism was solidly embedded in them. The Origins of Totalitarianism thus exhibits a conceptual contradiction that confuses its attempt to understand totalitarianism.     

从政治沟通的视角看彭德怀事件

彭德怀事件是建国后中共党内政治沟通不正常的一个典型个案.1959年庐山会议期间彭德怀上书毛泽东,是对党内政治沟通不正常的反应.而毛泽东批彭实际上是对政治沟通"一言堂"格局的维护.庐山批彭导致党内政治沟通严重恶化.彭德怀事件表明,执政党如果不注意充分发展党内民主和人民民主,促进政治沟通的正常进行,后果将是极其严重的.     

拉斯基的美国政治体制变革观

拉斯基的美国政治体制变革观,对于整个资本主义制度从私人垄断阶段过渡到国家垄断阶段的变革具有深刻的启迪意义,也从一个重要的侧面和较为适合的角度,反映出了处于思想成熟时期的拉斯基主张和一贯倡导的民主社会主义理论的丰富内涵。     

黎萨尔与菲律宾现代政治变革模式的形成

何塞.黎萨尔被认为是菲律宾"国家和个人生活的基石"。在有关黎萨尔的研究中,黎萨尔与菲律宾政治变革的途径,即经由"改革"还是"革命"来达致国家的独立、获取全民的"福利",是争论不休的一个关键问题。从黎萨尔的著作来看,黎萨尔倾向于经由菲律宾政治精英在殖民政府内部对现有不合理的旧制度进行一场彻底的、激进的"好改革"来实现菲律宾的独立和民主。如果这一条道路走不通,那么,"暴力革命"将是最后的手段。黎萨尔所强调的"精英化的好改革"的政治思想,经由美国殖民政府的渲染,最终构成为菲律宾现代政治变革的基本模式——旧框架内的和平革命。     

A Resource Model of Computer-Mediated Political Life

Using Current Population Survey data, this paper examines the extent to which a person's resources impact his or her ability to participate in computer-mediated political life. Resources such as universal literacy, background capacities, skills, and training clarify the well-documented but poorly conceptualized gap in technology access between "haves" and "have nots." Telecommunications policy does not address seriously the resources one brings to the table beyond perfunctory attention to what is affordable. Until resource disparities are examined more closely by policymakers, the divide in access to the computer-mediated political public sphere likely will continue to expand.     

Church, Space and Conflict: Religious Co-Existence and Political Communication in Seventeenth-Century Switzerland

This article sets out to explore how a local quarrel in theGrafschaft of Baden, a bi-confessional Swiss county, occasionedby efforts to install a separate font for Protestant parishioners,activated larger constitutional and confessional tensions betweenthe Catholic and Protestant cantons of the Swiss Confederation.The article reconstructs the lengthy political negotiationscaused by the rearrangement of church space since the Landfriedenof 1531: this treaty had enshrined bi-confessionalism in theSwiss Confederation and had established the duties and rightsof both confessions, although to the disadvantage of the ReformedProtestants. It had also transformed the consecrated space ofthe church into a stage for political action by the cantons.From 1531 onwards, changes in religious belief and observancewere subject to the will of the supreme governing authority.The article shows that local conflicts over the arrangementand furnishing of certain church spaces can give us fascinatinginsights into political practice, the establishment of socialorder and the handling of denominational differences withinthe Swiss Confederation. It attempts to contribute to our understandingof early modern political history by using concepts from culturalhistory and communication theory in which politics is closelylinked to social and confessional processes generating meaningand order.     

An Experiment in Political Communication: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform

The British Columbian Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform comprised a representative group of 160 randomly selected voters who were empowered to review the Province's electoral system and to decide if change was needed. It first met in January 2004 and issued its final report in December of that year. The Assembly has since been hailed as a democratic invention and attracted worldwide interest as a remarkable experiment in deliberative democracy. Its Terms of Reference required that it consult British Columbians. It did so via a series of public hearings held across the Province, and by establishing a website to publicise its purpose and to obtain public input. Hence, the Citizens' Assembly provides a case study or natural experiment that permits the comparative assessment of two very different forms of political communication – one traditional and the other a form of ‘e-consultation’, relying on newer information and communications technology. Based on published sources, as well as interviews with former members of the Assembly, this paper investigates the public input the Assembly obtained, and considers whether ‘e-consultation’– as is often claimed – does allow citizens to genuinely contribute to the making of public policy.     

第二次郑州会议前后的政治沟通探析

第二次郑州会议前后,为做好人民公社体制的调整工作,在与中央领导层达成共识的基础上,毛泽东对地方领导人进行了耐心细致地说服工作,同时要求将第二次郑州会议的精神一竿子捅到底。在中央与地方的信息传递与交流过程中,不仅在一定程度上发扬了民主,而且地方还对人民公社体制的弊端提出了若干建设性意见。在这次政治沟通中,虽然没有道出农民包产到户的心声,但它对于统一全党思想、整顿人民公社初期的混乱局面起到了积极作用。