ipl-logo

Hannah Arendt Public Opinion

1654 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Hannah arendt the social meaning human condition

Victoria Kussman
Professor Daniel Howell
FIRST UG-429—001
30 September 2017
Politically Ineffective: Hannah Arendt’s Opinion of the Public Sphere in Eichmann in Jerusalem, through the Lens of Jürgen Habermas’s The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article
According to Jürgen Habermas’s The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article, the public sphere is a metaphorical space in which a large body of people can freely exchange ideas. Its purpose is to “[mediate] between society and state,” with many of the opinions the public expresses—through media such as newspapers and television—taken into account and acted upon by the state. In Habermas’s view, the public sphere administers the state by channeling the force of reason, or operationalizing rationality: …show more content…

Arendt writes that the German translations at the trial are “sheer comedy, frequently incomprehensible.” One could, of course, blame “the old prejudice against German Jews” for this atrocity, but Arendt argues that the fault lies with “the even older and still very powerful ‘Vitamin P,’ as the Israelis call protection in government circles and the bureaucracy” (Arendt 3). In order to understand how these remarks of Arendt’s demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the public sphere, one must again consider Habermas’s The Public Sphere. In Habermas’s view, the public sphere can be split into two sections, the literary public sphere and the political public sphere. In the literary public sphere, “public discussion deals with objects connected to the activity of the state.” In the political public sphere, policymakers and public officials create, finalize, and exercise laws, laws that are based on contributions made by the public in the literary public sphere. A court of law is a key component of the domain of the political public sphere (Habermas 49-50). In the case of Eichmann’s trial, private interests have interfered with the language of the law, and thus with the functioning of the political public sphere. More specifically, “the exercise of political control” is, in this instance, no longer “effectively [subordinate] to the democratic demand that information be accessible to the public” (Habermas 49). Translation jobs intentionally have been assigned to individuals who are unable to perform them well, resulting in a distortion of the statements of the prosecution; hence, Eichmann and his counsel, who are members of the public, have been made unaware of the exact information presented in the

Show More
Related
598 Words | 3 Pages

“Homeland is something one becomes aware of only through its loss, Gunter Grass.” In Peter Gay’s memoir, My German Question, he articulates what it was like living in Germany with the presence of the Nazis or in his own experience the lack there of. Peter lived in a family that didn’t directly practice Judaism and most German families didn’t perceive them as Jews until the Nazis defined what a Jew was to the public. The persecution of other Jewish families in Germany where far worse than what Peter experienced growing up. There was a major contrast between how Gay’s family was treated and how other Jews who actively practiced the religion in Germany were treated which played a contributing factor for why the family stayed so long before they left.

Read More
467 Words | 2 Pages

Mark Bakers novel the “Fiftieth Gate” conducts the collaboration of collective knowledge and personal accounts. This text effectively articulates and challenges the need for change in facts with the addition of personal accounts in order to educate the audience about the events of the holocaust. Baker’s deliberate utilisation of numerous perspectives within the text, different recollections and philosophies display the importance of both accounts and recollection in relation to the understanding of events. Reminiscently Baker’s specific inclusion of the italicised transcript “I use to play there on the hills with the sleighs.. That’s where they gathered the Jews..

Read More
167 Words | 1 Pages

This article teaches others the importance and significance of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, founded by Rabbi Marvin Hier in 1977. When the Memorial was first established it was supported by 380,000 members. The Memorial played an important part in investigating into the Prosecution of Nazi Collaborators around the world and persuading other countries such as Canada, Australia and Great Britain to continue to investigate to search for escaped criminals, in order to go through prosecution for their actions that happened many years ago. To reach out to even more people, documentaries, interviews, books, publications and exhibits are also there for further interest, including the Oscar award winner for the best documentary, Genocide. The memorials

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

Roosevelt and the Holocaust and Robert N. Rosen. Rosen is a lawyer who is an M.A. in history from Harvard. The purpose of this book is to undertake the task of defending Franklin D. Roosevelt, his direction to the Jewish community against charges of irrelevance to, and moral complicity in the German Holocaust. The values in Rosen’s work is that he also presents a convincing legal argument and organizes his evidence truthfully, while arguing vigorously. He delivers an unqualified judgement: far from being indifferent.

Read More
849 Words | 4 Pages

In Night, Elie Wiesel survives an attempted genocide many have heard of but few truly known, the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel doesn’t know how he survived saying, “I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself,” (p. vii). However, he knows his survival and testimony has placed him as a, “witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory,” (p. viii). What follows is a summary of Elie’s auto-biography Night that seeks to answer whether or not it is effective as a witness of the Holocaust; a comparison of the power of one voice versus statistics; and an inquiry as to what extent this account of individuals struggling to survive impacts

Read More
450 Words | 2 Pages

The first dehumanizing act the Nazis perpetrate on the Jews is removing the normality from their everyday life. In Spring 1941, “German Army vehicles made their appearance” (Wiesel 9) on the streets of Sighet, yet the Jews showed no anguish. However, the harmony is short-lived; “the race toward death had begun” (Wiesel 10). The Nazis enforce rules that strip the Jews of their humanity: “jews were prohibited from

Read More
1199 Words | 5 Pages

This book was published in 2000 from Princeton Publication and republished in 2011 with a new preface. Mary L. Dudziak, the author of the book, is a legal history professor at Emory University. Most of her work sets American

Read More
816 Words | 4 Pages

In his speech, The Perils of Indifference, Elie Wiesel suggests that during the years of what was to become World War II, before America finally became involved in the conflict, that the people in power at that time knew about the plight of the Jewish people. “And now we knew, we learned, we discovered that the Pentagon knew, the State Department knew.” (Wiesel, 1999) Wiesel speaks of the deaths of millions of innocent victims at the hands of Adolf Hitler. They were, as Wiesel says earlier in the speech, “bystanders” (Wiesel, 1999) and were doing nothing to intervene.

Read More
1010 Words | 5 Pages

Introduction Throughout World War 2 Germany was living and thriving in a sea of repression. Hitler and his followers blamed the Jewish for many things that had gone wrong during World War 1 and the germans believed that the Jewish needed to be punished for that. Nazi’ started forcing the Jewish out of their houses, stealing their valuables, transporting them in overpacked transport cars, relocating them to concentration camps, and it is at those concentration camps where they were starved, beaten, and destroyed. Before all of these actions were able to happened Hitler’s SS officers had to be trained to repress the Jewish and it is from that point of view that you should “read” my documents. In Elie Wiesel’s book “Night” we were told that the reason that the Jewish did not fight back was because they could not believe that human beings could do such things and that is why I chose to write my documents from the view of a SS officer who is completing his training and learning how to treat the Jewish.

Read More
770 Words | 4 Pages

In addition, maltreatment of Jews in Germany was encouraged, praised, and considered necessary for the country to attain its lost power. King’s ability to reinforce his argument in a refined manner with factual evidence becomes the key stone to building his

Read More
518 Words | 3 Pages

The Jews, still clueless as ever, question why they are being sent away. “Who knows, they may be sending us away for our own good. The front is getting closer; we shall soon hear the guns. And then surely the civilian population will be evacuated…this kind of talk that nobody believed helped pass the time” (21). The Jews continue to underestimate the rising power of evil, producing false hope.

Read More
1592 Words | 7 Pages

Trust No Fox on his Green Heath, And No Jew on his Oath, written by Elvira Bauer, is a short children’s book that was published in 1936 as a propaganda tool to promote the antisemitic ideas of the Nazi party in Germany. Firstly, this essay will explore the purpose of Bauer’s piece as a propagandist tool and how it is being used to promote the image of the Inferior Jew, the superior Aryan, and the Nazi state. Secondly, I will examine the antisemitic elements that are used by Bauer to present the Jew. Finally, I will examine the psychological influence that works of this nature had on German children when it was used as an educational tool.

Read More
616 Words | 3 Pages

In the story, Joyce Carol Oates introduces the main character, Connie, by giving the reader contextual information on her life. Connie was the typical rebel teenager. She lied to her parents, snuck off with the boys, went out late at night, was mischievous, and had a dysfunctional relationship with her family. The story motivated the production of the film, “Smooth Talk”. Both of these pieces had the same crucial ideas, varied in the family relations, information concerning Arnold Friend and his obsession of Connie, and resolutions to the ambiguous ending.

Read More
1471 Words | 6 Pages

Many Germans, during WWII had started to take on the ideology of Hitler – that Jewish citizens in Germany were the cause of their poverty and misfortune. Of course, many knew that this was merely a form of scapegoating, and although they disagreed with the majority of Germany’s citizens, many would not speak up for fear of isolation (Boone,

Read More
860 Words | 4 Pages

After reading Professor Randy Barnett’s piece, you truly have to question whether his original intent was to offer a simple review, or to denounce the credibility of H. Uviller and William Merkel. Randy Barnett’s underlying tone becomes immediately apparent to any engaged reader as he exposes the blatant opinion-filled diatribe hidden under the guise of a historical, educational book. Out of the gate, tongue in cheek, Barnett alludes to the idea of the original author’s misrepresentation of who they were and the sources they’ve collected. He portrays Uviller and Merkel, two scholars from Duke University, as confused amateur authors with little substance. If nothing else, Professor Barnett looks to discredit or possibly even scold Uviller and Merkel for trying to push

Read More

More about Hannah Arendt Public Opinion

Related Topics

Open Document