Thinking and Transcendence

12-29-2014

“[W]henever I transcend the limits of my own life span and begin to reflect on this past, judging it, and this future, forming projects of the will, thinking ceases to be a politically marginal activity. And such reflections will inevitably arise in political emergencies.”

---Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (Thinking)

There have been several new studies on and discussions about Adolf Eichmann lately. In them, Arendt’s name is frequently mentioned for fairly obvious reasons. Her remarks on Eichmann’s “thoughtlessness,” including her “banality of evil” and its relevance in assessing modern day atrocities, have forewarned against the consequences of totalitarianism for more than a half-century now. But some scholars, including Bettina Stangneth in her new book Eichmann Before Jerusalem, are challenging Arendt’s ideas. This gives us an opportunity to look back on Arendt’s theories and reevaluate their logic ourselves.

[caption id="attachment_15091" align="alignleft" width="300"] Hannah Arendt's The Life of the Mind (Source: Goodreads)[/caption]

In her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt states several times that the “thoughtlessness” of Eichmann rests in is his “inability to think—from the standpoint of somebody else.” As a result, we can understand “banality of evil” to mean an evil deed committed by persons who are unable to think. But by calling him “thoughtless” and “banal,” does Arendt lighten Eichmann’s evilness? Or does she try to warn us of this new kind of evil? It has been overlooked in the past, but Arendt left for us an answer to that question in her Life of the Mind.

In the book’s introduction, Arendt reveals that it was her encounter with Eichmann that first motivated her to write the book. Finding Eichmann as “thoughtless,” she was led to reflect on the question “What is thinking?” and to speculate whether a relationship exists between thinking and the ability to tell right from wrong. This latter interest she addresses in the “two-in-one” chapter on thinking and conscience. As part of the chapter, Arendt asks a series of questions. Where does conscience come from? How are thinking and conscience related? On what basis can we claim that thinking is the foundation of morality?

Arendt takes a lead from Socrates in formulating her answer. While discussing with Callicles the question of “What is justice?,” Socrates comes up with the following proposition: “It would be better for me that my lyre or a chorus I directed should be out of tune and loud with discord, and that multitudes of men should disagree with me, rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself and contradict me.” For Arendt, his proposition crystallizes the essence of thinking activity, that is, a harmonious relation with one’s self.

[caption id="attachment_15092" align="aligncenter" width="550"] Plato's Gorgias (Source: Counter-Currents Radio)[/caption]

In thinking, I think with myself. The “with” suggests the split of the “I” in thinking as if one were to engage in an internal dialogue “with” oneself. Without this split, thinking is impossible. Another name for this type of thinking is reflection. I examine myself in my thought; I am an examiner and an examinee at the same time. Both as a thinking subject and as the subject of my thoughts, I am in harmony with myself, per Socrates’ thoughts above. The important point here is that when I examine myself in my thoughts, I examine myself partially from the viewpoint of “others.”

At first, Arendt’s claim may sound strange. Why does reflection require me to see myself from the viewpoint of others? This is so because a significant part of life consists of interacting with others, people who see some sides of me of which I am not aware. They are my fellows, and my public identity resides with them. Therefore, in order to reflect on myself, I must consider others’ viewpoints if I am to explore the totality of who I am. This is what Arendt means by ability to “think from the standpoint of someone else.”

[caption id="attachment_15093" align="alignright" width="300"] Christian moral conscience (Source: RevLady)[/caption]

It is only in this sense that Arendt says that “conscience is a by-product” of thinking. When Arendt called that Eichmann was “thoughtless,” she found the traditional understanding of thinking was not sufficient to address morality. In Judeo-Christian tradition, a predominant force which has helped shape the moral values of western civilization, conscience has been understood as the light shared by the Creator. After the Enlightenment, western civilization began to place one universal reason as the source of morality and of humans’ ability think. It presupposes that if one can think rationally, she has the potential make moral judgments.

However, Eichmann changes all of that. To measure Eichmann’s evilness, Arendt must reconsider the understanding of human rationality and conscience, both in religious tradition and in the newer tradition since the Enlightenment. Eichmann was after all the master planner of the complicated transformation of Jews all over Europe, and by no means was he irrational or stupid. (He explained Kant’s moral precept to defend his innocence, after all.)

[caption id="attachment_15094" align="alignleft" width="300"] Cultural pluralism (Source: PaTimes)[/caption]

The idiosyncrasy of Arendt’s thought is that she lays thinking, judgment, and action on the same ground: the world of appearances. This is because she recognizes that human plurality—the fact that not one individual but a world of individuals live on this planet—is the essential condition for human existence. Her account of thinking is derived from and echoes this human plurality, leading us to realize that there are multiple viewpoints in the world which we share with others.

As a result, conscience is the by-product of thinking since Arendt recognizes it as the accountability of one’s action, which lies in appearing to others. Conscience asks us to judge ourselves if we are in harmony with other members of the world. Such relations among action, conscience, and thinking mark what is thinking for Arendt. Both the enduring action (conscience) and examining such action (reflection) require remembrance, and it is the world with human plurality that offers the basis for memory. In this sense, memory (the world) is the condition of responsibility, for no one can take account of her act if she doesn’t remember her act. Insofar as morality is concerned as the foundation of law, the abilities to think, judge, and remember are the fundamental conditions by which the law measures whether a defendant has capability of taking responsibility for her act as a moral agent. By bridging thinking (mind) and the world, Arendt finds our moral foundation. It is her implicit response to those who challenge her claim that Eichmann was “thoughtless.” Eichmann in fact lacked the worldliness.

From witnessing Eichmann, Arendt observes that thinking acquires political significance when we think beyond our own limitations, which include our place of habitation, social/ economic status, ethnicity, gender, and educational levels, among others. To think politically does not mean to adopt certain political ideas or to subscribe to a particular political party’s view of the world. Rather it means we must go beyond our fixed perspective to think and examine things from the perspectives of others. It also means to take into account of the context of how others see things. In light of incidents such as Ferguson, it would appear that we should recognize the importance of thinking politically now more than ever.

(Featured Image: "Reflection"; Source: Community Publishing)