The picture Arendt paints of mass society with its inherent conformism and behavioral science's use of statistical analysis which tends to reduce people to data points looks pretty bleak. The importance of human connection seems to get completely lost, and the technological advancement which continues to grant us access to ever-growing amounts and variety of data only exacerbates the problem. I think this is particularly troubling when viewed in light of the multi-generational Harvard study pointing to rich relationships with other people as the primary indicator of happiness.
I remember watching that Ted talk about the 70 year long study you must be mentioning following lives of a numerous men from different walks of life. The presenter's conclusion was that to have a good life you have to have enough high quality relationships with other people. People with high quality personal relationships tend to be healthier and more satisfied with their lives. His recommendation for a life well lived was to cultivate close relationships with family and friends. I could be wrong but I think he got the causation wrong. A happy and healthy person is pleasant to be around, hence such person will be much more likely to be surrounded by people who want to be around him/her as it feels good to be around someone who is cheerful and optimistic that is, they get pleasure from such company. On the other hand, people who are depressed, anxious and are in bad health (that would further exacerbate their mental health issues), are not fun to be around. These people would bring you down by their misery. As a result, people with neuroticism and poor health tend to be lonely that further affects their emotional well being.
We are born with a certain personality type. While it is possible for the personality to change some overtime via some life experiences or, perhaps, through therapy, dramatic changes are not that common. For the most part, you have to live with the personality you were given and that will affect you your whole life. If you are born outgoing, cheerful and with good health, you will have plenty of people who would be eager to enjoy your company on a regular basis. If you are born prone to depression and anxiety and, on top of that, in poor health, most people will try to stay away from you as your misery would make them feel pity, which is pain derived from someone's misfortune. If you cause pain to someone in this way, it is only natural for them to try to eliminate the source of their pain from their lives, that is you.
I'm sure its true that people more naturally inclined to be pleasant and good-natured have an easier time building relationships, but that doesn't mean that quality relationships don't also contribute to overall happiness/well-being of a person. Seems like there might be a bit of a feedback loop going on, which implies it could be jumpstarted from either side.
I also don't think that a relationship built on a person just being fun to be around is the type of "quality" relationship that is important. That feels more like the transactional type of friendship Aristotle discusses in the Nicomachean Ethic, which isn't as robust. Granted if you make friends more easily you have a better statistical chance of forming more high quality relationships, but that still doesn't mean they don't increase your happiness/well-being once formed.
Would be interesting to see the Harvard data re-examined controlling for personality type.
Agreed. I was thinking about chicken or the egg here. Someone with a pleasant personality will be more likely to have friends vs someone who has many friends is going to be happier, which in turn will attract more friends as people crave spending time with someone who brings them up instead of down. .
I suspect that there are people who do in fact radically change and that practically instantaneously. Eric Hoffer's book, "True Believer" outlines the process.
Agreed. Some people do face so called "transformative events" in their lives that could change them profoundly - a near death experience, an unexpected loss of a loved one, a mystical experience, a birth of a child with significant disability just to name a few. But even in those cases I feel that most people keep their God given personality for the most part. Perhaps, parts of it will be buried into the Freudian subconscious, at least for some time, but it will keep surfacing every now and again in various ways.
I appreciate your concrete examples of "things we could do together" but no longer do, such as gathering to hear (and tell) stories, make music together, host community feasts. These examples help as Arendt's writing remains so drastically abstract I've struggled gaining a clear concept of her implications. Also, your examples explain why the rare instances of such moments, as you listed, feel so significant. Why do we love hoisting our glasses at a concert and singing choruses together? Why is an open-mic poetry reading simultaneously so damn awkward and electric? Why do students shy from speaking more readily in class? Though hard-wired into our relational human nature, such instances of public performance--of public self-revelation--are so dauntingly rare we secretly desire and loathe them. Advance thanks for any further posts on this chapter you may offer. It's been a doozy.
Another term that I think would be worth explicit definition is Arendt's use of intimacy as a concept distinct from privacy, where privacy seems to reflect a tangible state of affairs in the world, and intimacy seems less anchored to concrete concepts such as place, and reflects something more abstracted...
There are some things that are said that I agree with especially some of the criticisms of Marx but there are other times when it feels very of it’s time i.e. post ww2 and western e.g. “Society equalises under all circumstances and the victory of equality in the modern world…”
I’m finding some of the general throw away remarks hard to get past e.g. “Life in the barbarian empires of Asia” and the emphasis on Greco-Roman and Christian lore on one hand I understand and find enlightening but on the other feels quite narrow by modern standards.
“This chapter’s exploration of the public and private realms resonates deeply with those of us who have experienced isolationism firsthand. It’s common knowledge among individuals who have grappled with the tension between their own beliefs and the expectations of those around them. The erosion of the public realm and the rise of the social realm can be seen in our own lives, where we often prioritize private interests over communal connections.
yes and it's even scarier because the social realm is beginning to destroy our private realm -- as in the people who have to post their kiss on social media or it isn't real.
“Through many ages before us – but now not any more – men entered the public realm because they wanted something of their own or something they had in common with others to be more permanent than their earthly lives. (Thus, the curse of slavery consisted not only in being deprived of freedom and of visibility, but also in the fear of these obscure people themselves “that from being obscure they should pass away leaving no trace that they have existed.”) There is perhaps no clearer testimony to the loss of the public realm in the modern age than the almost complete loss of authentic concern with immortality, a loss somewhat overshadowed by the simultaneous loss of the metaphysical concern with eternity.” (p. 55)
I found this section on the loss of a metaphysical concern with eternity being connected to the loss of the public realm fascinating. It reminded me of the teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes:
“19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” (Eccl 3:19-21 NIV)
One of the several reasons why the Teacher in Ecclesiastes finds life to be meaningless and a chasing after wind is our mortality. To him (at least on my reading of the book) we can “eat, drink and be merry” whenever possible as a consolation but we can’t have much more than that. In the New Testament, this problem isn’t refuted in the sense that it advocates for meaningfulness despite temporality instead it agrees with the Teacher’s logic but disagrees with his assumption that death is the end and that God will not restore creation to meaningfulness. See Matthew 6:19-21, and particularly Romans 8:18-21. All that to say it’s no surprise that a “loss of concern with immortality” would result in a loss of concern with deeds that would leave a lasting imprint on the world and therefore a receding of the public realm. The ancient Greeks and Romans could preserve their name through the gloriousness of their deeds in the public sphere, the Christians detested this sort of glory-seeking but had hope in the future and thought themselves to be remembered by God if by no one else which provided motivation to do good deeds. If we live in a society that, like the Christians, basically detests glory-seeking, but also has no hope in the life to come it makes sense that fewer people would find public life worth pursuing.
I’m struggling to understand the connection that Arendt makes between life in the public realm and Christian “goodness” so I'm not really sure if the point I am making there works with the flow of her argument.
Your comment echos points on the meaning of life in general. How does one live in the age when God is dead, at least for many people preoccupied with science ( Nietzsche)? The answer for many is you have to create your own meaning. Sisyphus somehow needs to figure out how to make rolling the rock up the hill meaningful since this is the only thing he has got to do ( Camus). For some, public realm, where one can be seen and appreciated, would be the path. For others, it could be having children as this is a sure way to leave something (or rather someone) behind as a lasting legacy. Because Arendt chose the former path, she views it as very important, obviously, although this is not the case for everyone. Those of us who have kids, know very well how much they fill our lives with meaning. One could certainly do both to the extent one finds manageable. There is something appalling, at least to me, when someone is so preoccupied with importality, that he/she seeks ways to participate in it by leaving something behind, be it kids or ideas or deeds. I feel that all of the above should be a consequence of one's love towards children, family, neighbors. Desire.for importality should not be an end in itself. If it is, everything else becomes a means to an end that is bound to lead to some bad things.
Jared’s comment was so probing and good. A couple of other things I noted in this chapter.
Arendt’s comment on Rousseau woke me up to the great things we owe to him for protecting our intimacy from the conformist salons where other artists huddled. Worth a chapter of its own.
A seems to say that it is the massive scale of modern social unitis that prevents real historical action from even happening. Once humans are statistical units all is lost. This seems to be true eg of EU with its lack of innovation but what about India and Africa? Or the Middle East? These all seem to bristle with a sort of chaotic energy. Will this be lost over time?
I see! I sent it out as a post, but I also put it in the chat for subscribers. I’ll see if there’s some problem with this content being delivered to others.
Good points. Based on what Arendt is saying the book, the ancient Greeks would have seen the modern uber-wealthy focused on accumulation as slavish and not truly free. However, she also notes once wealth became considered capital, which exists primarily to generate more capital, it did gain some permanence as a process (as opposed to merely something to be consumed). Since creating things of permanence was seen as excellence in the public realm of the free, I wonder if the process of capital accumulation would have been seen any differently than mere slavish accumulation of wealth.
The picture Arendt paints of mass society with its inherent conformism and behavioral science's use of statistical analysis which tends to reduce people to data points looks pretty bleak. The importance of human connection seems to get completely lost, and the technological advancement which continues to grant us access to ever-growing amounts and variety of data only exacerbates the problem. I think this is particularly troubling when viewed in light of the multi-generational Harvard study pointing to rich relationships with other people as the primary indicator of happiness.
I remember watching that Ted talk about the 70 year long study you must be mentioning following lives of a numerous men from different walks of life. The presenter's conclusion was that to have a good life you have to have enough high quality relationships with other people. People with high quality personal relationships tend to be healthier and more satisfied with their lives. His recommendation for a life well lived was to cultivate close relationships with family and friends. I could be wrong but I think he got the causation wrong. A happy and healthy person is pleasant to be around, hence such person will be much more likely to be surrounded by people who want to be around him/her as it feels good to be around someone who is cheerful and optimistic that is, they get pleasure from such company. On the other hand, people who are depressed, anxious and are in bad health (that would further exacerbate their mental health issues), are not fun to be around. These people would bring you down by their misery. As a result, people with neuroticism and poor health tend to be lonely that further affects their emotional well being.
We are born with a certain personality type. While it is possible for the personality to change some overtime via some life experiences or, perhaps, through therapy, dramatic changes are not that common. For the most part, you have to live with the personality you were given and that will affect you your whole life. If you are born outgoing, cheerful and with good health, you will have plenty of people who would be eager to enjoy your company on a regular basis. If you are born prone to depression and anxiety and, on top of that, in poor health, most people will try to stay away from you as your misery would make them feel pity, which is pain derived from someone's misfortune. If you cause pain to someone in this way, it is only natural for them to try to eliminate the source of their pain from their lives, that is you.
I'm sure its true that people more naturally inclined to be pleasant and good-natured have an easier time building relationships, but that doesn't mean that quality relationships don't also contribute to overall happiness/well-being of a person. Seems like there might be a bit of a feedback loop going on, which implies it could be jumpstarted from either side.
I also don't think that a relationship built on a person just being fun to be around is the type of "quality" relationship that is important. That feels more like the transactional type of friendship Aristotle discusses in the Nicomachean Ethic, which isn't as robust. Granted if you make friends more easily you have a better statistical chance of forming more high quality relationships, but that still doesn't mean they don't increase your happiness/well-being once formed.
Would be interesting to see the Harvard data re-examined controlling for personality type.
Agreed. I was thinking about chicken or the egg here. Someone with a pleasant personality will be more likely to have friends vs someone who has many friends is going to be happier, which in turn will attract more friends as people crave spending time with someone who brings them up instead of down. .
I suspect that there are people who do in fact radically change and that practically instantaneously. Eric Hoffer's book, "True Believer" outlines the process.
Agreed. Some people do face so called "transformative events" in their lives that could change them profoundly - a near death experience, an unexpected loss of a loved one, a mystical experience, a birth of a child with significant disability just to name a few. But even in those cases I feel that most people keep their God given personality for the most part. Perhaps, parts of it will be buried into the Freudian subconscious, at least for some time, but it will keep surfacing every now and again in various ways.
I appreciate your concrete examples of "things we could do together" but no longer do, such as gathering to hear (and tell) stories, make music together, host community feasts. These examples help as Arendt's writing remains so drastically abstract I've struggled gaining a clear concept of her implications. Also, your examples explain why the rare instances of such moments, as you listed, feel so significant. Why do we love hoisting our glasses at a concert and singing choruses together? Why is an open-mic poetry reading simultaneously so damn awkward and electric? Why do students shy from speaking more readily in class? Though hard-wired into our relational human nature, such instances of public performance--of public self-revelation--are so dauntingly rare we secretly desire and loathe them. Advance thanks for any further posts on this chapter you may offer. It's been a doozy.
Another term that I think would be worth explicit definition is Arendt's use of intimacy as a concept distinct from privacy, where privacy seems to reflect a tangible state of affairs in the world, and intimacy seems less anchored to concrete concepts such as place, and reflects something more abstracted...
There are some things that are said that I agree with especially some of the criticisms of Marx but there are other times when it feels very of it’s time i.e. post ww2 and western e.g. “Society equalises under all circumstances and the victory of equality in the modern world…”
I’m finding some of the general throw away remarks hard to get past e.g. “Life in the barbarian empires of Asia” and the emphasis on Greco-Roman and Christian lore on one hand I understand and find enlightening but on the other feels quite narrow by modern standards.
Is anyone feeling similarly?
Yes parts of it feel dated. I think her picture of labor being exhausted or whatever would change if she considered India--- or Africa... or Brazil.
“This chapter’s exploration of the public and private realms resonates deeply with those of us who have experienced isolationism firsthand. It’s common knowledge among individuals who have grappled with the tension between their own beliefs and the expectations of those around them. The erosion of the public realm and the rise of the social realm can be seen in our own lives, where we often prioritize private interests over communal connections.
yes and it's even scarier because the social realm is beginning to destroy our private realm -- as in the people who have to post their kiss on social media or it isn't real.
“Through many ages before us – but now not any more – men entered the public realm because they wanted something of their own or something they had in common with others to be more permanent than their earthly lives. (Thus, the curse of slavery consisted not only in being deprived of freedom and of visibility, but also in the fear of these obscure people themselves “that from being obscure they should pass away leaving no trace that they have existed.”) There is perhaps no clearer testimony to the loss of the public realm in the modern age than the almost complete loss of authentic concern with immortality, a loss somewhat overshadowed by the simultaneous loss of the metaphysical concern with eternity.” (p. 55)
I found this section on the loss of a metaphysical concern with eternity being connected to the loss of the public realm fascinating. It reminded me of the teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes:
“19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” (Eccl 3:19-21 NIV)
One of the several reasons why the Teacher in Ecclesiastes finds life to be meaningless and a chasing after wind is our mortality. To him (at least on my reading of the book) we can “eat, drink and be merry” whenever possible as a consolation but we can’t have much more than that. In the New Testament, this problem isn’t refuted in the sense that it advocates for meaningfulness despite temporality instead it agrees with the Teacher’s logic but disagrees with his assumption that death is the end and that God will not restore creation to meaningfulness. See Matthew 6:19-21, and particularly Romans 8:18-21. All that to say it’s no surprise that a “loss of concern with immortality” would result in a loss of concern with deeds that would leave a lasting imprint on the world and therefore a receding of the public realm. The ancient Greeks and Romans could preserve their name through the gloriousness of their deeds in the public sphere, the Christians detested this sort of glory-seeking but had hope in the future and thought themselves to be remembered by God if by no one else which provided motivation to do good deeds. If we live in a society that, like the Christians, basically detests glory-seeking, but also has no hope in the life to come it makes sense that fewer people would find public life worth pursuing.
I’m struggling to understand the connection that Arendt makes between life in the public realm and Christian “goodness” so I'm not really sure if the point I am making there works with the flow of her argument.
Your comment echos points on the meaning of life in general. How does one live in the age when God is dead, at least for many people preoccupied with science ( Nietzsche)? The answer for many is you have to create your own meaning. Sisyphus somehow needs to figure out how to make rolling the rock up the hill meaningful since this is the only thing he has got to do ( Camus). For some, public realm, where one can be seen and appreciated, would be the path. For others, it could be having children as this is a sure way to leave something (or rather someone) behind as a lasting legacy. Because Arendt chose the former path, she views it as very important, obviously, although this is not the case for everyone. Those of us who have kids, know very well how much they fill our lives with meaning. One could certainly do both to the extent one finds manageable. There is something appalling, at least to me, when someone is so preoccupied with importality, that he/she seeks ways to participate in it by leaving something behind, be it kids or ideas or deeds. I feel that all of the above should be a consequence of one's love towards children, family, neighbors. Desire.for importality should not be an end in itself. If it is, everything else becomes a means to an end that is bound to lead to some bad things.
Jared’s comment was so probing and good. A couple of other things I noted in this chapter.
Arendt’s comment on Rousseau woke me up to the great things we owe to him for protecting our intimacy from the conformist salons where other artists huddled. Worth a chapter of its own.
A seems to say that it is the massive scale of modern social unitis that prevents real historical action from even happening. Once humans are statistical units all is lost. This seems to be true eg of EU with its lack of innovation but what about India and Africa? Or the Middle East? These all seem to bristle with a sort of chaotic energy. Will this be lost over time?
I’d like to join the zoom calls beginning today and am a subscriber but don’t believe I’ve received the link. Can someone please share?
The Zoom calls only happen once per month. They are on the schedule. I send the link to paid subscribers that day.
Thanks. I’ve looked through my email and the app chat function and don’t seem to have received the link on that day.
I see! I sent it out as a post, but I also put it in the chat for subscribers. I’ll see if there’s some problem with this content being delivered to others.
it would be good to know the time the call happens. Jared
Thanks!
Good points. Based on what Arendt is saying the book, the ancient Greeks would have seen the modern uber-wealthy focused on accumulation as slavish and not truly free. However, she also notes once wealth became considered capital, which exists primarily to generate more capital, it did gain some permanence as a process (as opposed to merely something to be consumed). Since creating things of permanence was seen as excellence in the public realm of the free, I wonder if the process of capital accumulation would have been seen any differently than mere slavish accumulation of wealth.
I thought she was also trying to distinguish "real property", i.e. physical space in the world from "wealth", fungible, tradable assets.