This chapter presents Hannah Arendt's conservatism as a unique approach that resists the reactionary tendencies of many conservative arguments. In this article, I redeploy Arendt's concept of authority to make sense of an important feature of Bolshevism, its strikingly "orthodox" charac-2. Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) is a philosopher and political thinker who is most famous for her writings on the genealogy of totalitarianism, her theory of political action, and her analysis of evil in the context of the Holocaust. Yet authority precludes the use of external means of coercion [and] where force is used, authority itself by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Hannah Arendt maintained that one has authority, when one commands obedience from others, not by exercising power over them, but because they recognize and respect one’s right to do so. By continuing to use this website, you consent to Columbia University's usage of cookies and similar technologies, in accordance with the Columbia University Website Cookie Notice. Her definition of power as the free action in concert of individuals within a community of equals, guaranteed by institutions, allows Ricœur to ground his reflection on the political dimension of recognition and justice. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin, 1977), pp. It first shows that Arendt's conception of authority shares a number of fundamental assumptions with the mainstream conservative view of authority. Hannah Arendt’s work is an important reference for Paul Ricœur. 91-92, 96-100. Hannah Arendt.1 As already seen throughout this research, there are no final and definitive conclusions to attain. 112 Copy quote When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse. 113, 59-66. Arendt believes that people should refer to authority in the past tense because she believes that true authority no longer exists. Arendt claimed that this lack of authority eroded the fundamental relation between teacher and student and the mutual trust necessary for safeguarding the social position of the teacher. Abstract. Assistant Professor of Foundations of Education, Brooklyn College of CUNY, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210‐2889. 92–93) specifies other important differences between power and authority: “Since authority always demands obedience, it is commonly mistaken for some form of power or violence. Arendt(1961, pp. Arendt emphasized that the activity of thinking is characterized by its sterility and has no end results. She states that it has “vanished from the world.” Ibid., pp. 3. She makes the distinctions: His primary areas of scholarship are philosophy of education, Hannah Arendt, and democratic education. Arendt writes that it is "a rather sad reflection on the present state of political science that our terminology does not distinguish among such key words as power, strength, force, authority, and, finally, violence – all of which refer to distinct, different phenomena and would hardly exist unless they did." January 24, 2017. HANNAH ARENDT ON AUTHORITY: CONSERVATISM IN EDUCATION RECONSIDERED. This website uses cookies as well as similar tools and technologies to understand visitors' experiences. Arendt’s first two essays consider modernity’s break with tradition, the second two treat central political concepts, authority and freedom, and the final four essays aim to apply the thinking examined in the first four to problems of her day—which are also problems of our day. 4. Thus, one cannot expect to find such thing as a theoretical and definitive solution to the problem of authority. Mordechai Gordon. "Hannah Arendt Explains How Propaganda Uses Lies to Erode All Truth & Morality: Insights from The Origins of Totalitarianism", www.openculture.com.