Amor Mundi 2/9/14

02-10-2014

Hannah Arendt considered calling her magnum opus Amor Mundi: Love of the World. Instead, she settled upon The Human Condition. What is most difficult, Arendt writes, is to love the world as it is, with all the evil and suffering in it. And yet she came to do just that. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection. Above all it means the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.

Every Sunday, The Hannah Arendt Center Amor Mundi Weekly Newsletter will offer our favorite essays and blog posts from around the web. These essays will help you comprehend the world. And learn to love it.

It Matters Who Wins

Simon Critchley at "The Stone" reminisces about Dr. Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" series and specifically the episode on Knowledge and Creativity. At one point in his essay Critchley inserts a video clip of the end of the episode, a clip that suddenly shifts the scene "to Auschwitz, where many members of Bronowski's family were murdered." We see Dr. Bronowski walking in Auschwitz. He says: "There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit. The assertion of dogma closes the mind and turns a nation, a civilization into a regiment of ghosts. Obedient ghosts. Or Tortured ghosts.  It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some 4 million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge with no test in reality, this is how men behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of Gods. Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known. We always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end the words were said by Oliver Cromwell, 'I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.'" It is a must read essay and must see clip. And you can read more about in Roger Berkowitz's Weekend Read.

Inside Camp X-Ray

In the wake of President Obama's yearly promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, South African writer Gillian Slovo suggests that, just as important as closing the base is acknowledging what happened inside: "There are two qualifications for being in Guantanamo: you have to be male, and you have to be Muslim. And once you've had the bad luck to be shipped there, you're stuck. Ordinary prisons in democratic societies work because of the cooperation of prisoners, most of whom, if they behave well, know they will eventually be freed. Not so in Guantanamo: there are the voiceless who, the American government has decided, do not deserve a trial. That's why, as Lord Steyn said, the American government made every effort to stop us from knowing what was happening there and that is why it is the responsibility of those who do have a voice in our world to let it be heard."

Woody Allen, Nihilist

In the midst of the debate concerning whether the allegations against Woody Allen should affect how his work is received and celebrated, Damon Linker discusses the philosophical nihilism underlying Allen's work and its moral implications. He points to the 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which a married man who murders his lover in order to prevent her from disclosing their affair not only gets away with the crime but manages to entirely overcome his guilt and find happiness. In a 2010 interview with Commonweal magazine that Linker quotes, Allen explained the existential meaninglessness that he wanted the film to depict: "[E]veryone goes to his grave in a meaningless way.... [O]ne can commit a crime, do unspeakable things, and get away with it, and some of them are plagued with all sorts of guilt for the rest of their lives and others aren't. There is no justice..." Nihilism threatens to bring about a world in which anything becomes possible and permissible because we no longer see human life as having meaning. And yet, nihilism, as Hannah Arendt saw, can also be central to the practice of thinking and acting that creates meaning. For more on Woody's nihilism, see Roger Berkowitz's Weekend Read.

Ambivalent About Love

In an interview, comics artist  expresses her ambivalence about love: "Well, love isn't an end in itself, no emotion is. Emotions are signposts directing you to actions, and the actions have varied consequences beyond the scope of the events that instigated them. I'm more interested in examining the state of being in love, of accommodating that feeling and attempting to legibly express it, than I am with mapping the initial process of a romantic attraction. If the lovers in my stories seem to struggle to connect with one another, it's because that's what being in love mainly entails, this ongoing mutual desperate groping for communion. I don't mean to argue that I think love isn't worthwhile! I think it absolutely is, but whether I think that or not, love and every other strong emotion will still be rampaging through the animal kingdom, kneecapping all attempts at independent decision-making, compelling us to conform our behavior to its purpose, which is mainly procreative. In fact the inevitability of it is reassuring. Pulling these things apart a little is beneficial, and I'd like to see it done more, but questioning a concept doesn't equate to rejecting it outright. I question it precisely because I believe in it so strongly."

Of Fear, Cowardice, and Courage

Linda Besner, striking an Arendtian note, wonders what it means that we have abandoned the idea of cowardice. One worry is that if we no longer speak of cowardice we may no longer be able to praise bravery. Besner suggests that contemporary definitions of bravery-facing down your own fears-are useful for self development, but not so much for living with others: "without a moral category of cowardice, are we really entitled to a category of bravery? The argument that Fear is Courage sounds unsettlingly Orwellian, and paves the way for the simple admission of fear to replace overcoming it. The emotional risks of facing one's feelings matter; but an inward-looking process focused on self-actualization is different from a sense of duty to the wider world. If cowardice consists in failing the collective, bravery may be said to inhere in taking personal risks for the greater good."

On Miracles, Agony, and Optimism

In the same special issues on "Generation" that elicited Carol Becker's reflections discussed last week, Jan Verwoert asks "why would Capital exploit the miraculous, if it was not for the fact that it is a source of infinite generative energy?" He writes, "Miracles happen always and everywhere. Art presents us with evidence of their occurrence daily, in the most mundane fashion: every little instant in which the mind clears, an intuition takes shape, you see what you couldn't see before, and what couldn't be resolved suddenly can be; in the spot where the writing got stuck the night before, words fall into place; the morning after, you meet someone by chance who opens a door and a project that seemed unrealizable yesterday goes through no problem; the fingers find their way across the key--or fretboard and a song is born; the painting that has been staring back at you for weeks or months now, half complete yet incompletable because it's evident that it lacks something but is impossible to see what-well, that canvas suddenly opens up, and within the shortest amount of time things shift into perspective and the work is done. This is a miracle. It cannot be achieved, or caused by any known means (drugs don't work). It occurs."

Featured Events

Matthew Shepard: The Murder and the Myth - A Discussion with Stephen Jiminez

Tuesday, February 11, 2014, 7:00 pm

Olin 102, Bard College