Amanda Holmes on Arendt and politics: politics vs. domination
“Public Freedom and Urban Space: In Defense of Arendt’s Public Realm”
political place versus place
politics is always a performance, a human activity, every human has capacity to take part
dilemma of space
inclusive, bottom up political action contra instrumental systems of domination
public space as a possible problem for this argument: but it finds its own resolution in what creates the problem
politics takes place in world of appearance and has no reality outside of that; performativity
revealing of unique identities in a shared world; in this world we find Arendt’s conception of freedom
natality and distinction; each individual is unique and distinct, capable of beginning something new
natality is “the essential category of political thought” — the newcomer possesses the capacity to begin something new by virtue of being born
individuals do this when they perform politics
word and deed performed. the acting of freedom
the normative line is that freedom can only exist outside of politics, politics as guarantee of private freedom
if we only mean domination and control why would we want it
freedom is public for Arendt: freedom is the meaning of politics
collective housekeeping; the social sphere isn’t properly political but concerned with matters tied to the preservation of biological life
the public realm is where there is a shared world; this is what makes freedom possible
who someone is vs what someone is: “what” corresponds to role in social sphere; “Who” is revealed in political performance
i’m free to create who i am; performance is revelatory
the actor is only possible if the doer is a speaker of words: free because it’s a revelation of “who” not “what”
“what” doesn’t require speech at all; you could just have a uniform
fundamentally inclusive; freedom is inclusive because it’s a human capacity; unique individuals who are capable of revealing themselves as a who and not as a what
natality
dilemma: public space
Arendt compares politics to arts: need for public space of performance
corresponds to an actually existing space
dependence on space of performance
the room will not hold all; what is the access to this space? how can we claim that the space itself is inclusive?
In Honor of Lucian: always political boundaries that delimit the space of a political community
does it count when I speak politically in my apartment? others are excluded by not being enrolled in a class or coming to this conference
“freedom ... is possible only among equals”; but I have to be admitted to the space: how about if the objects are already admitted by default
I see how it becomes an epistemological problem: who counts as admissible and what counts as public space
her phone goes off...announcing an intruder into the public space
Sans Culottes who distinguished themselves in public
table metaphor: human artifice connects and distinguishes; a number of people gathered might see the table vanish; table enables the political
[me: so does a cellphone intrude or perform politics? recognizing that distinction in all of its ambiguity
it’s not clear cut: there will be cellphones ringing in public; use of cellphones in Cairo]
related but unrelated by any tangible thing: so the appearance of global warming disrupts this...
the labor movement created actual political space
when they appeared in public and engagement in speech it became a political space
suburban space: you could live entirely in the private realm; urban environment = more public spaces
grocery stores have a different mode of being with others; not dependent on focusing on others but dependent on wanting to buy stuff
different from waiting for a bus or spending time in a public park
but stops aren’t in themselves political spaces
James Manos, response
conversion that is quite radical: it leads us to a radically inclusive politics
the motor of the paper is to use space to talk about differentiation between private and social
problem of space seems that the concept of space limits the notion of political freedom; an actually existing limited space
then politics are defined by limits: which are exclusionary
what is at stake is the very existence of public freedom itself
it’s a very cool dilemma
to mischaracterize the political; rather than conceiving of space as already existing, Holmes argues that political space is only potential, emerging only after the fact
only emerging through the spontaneity of action
you can resolve the dilemma if we come to think of the space as always potentially there in the space of appearance
polyphonic cacophany
which phenomenological account of appearance is informing Arendt’s view of space here?
not Hegel; not Heidegger; maybe Kant (the conditions would have to surpass the mechanistic nature of determinative judgment)
reflective judgment and the play involved politicized
ytet the free play of imagination would still be predicated on the idea that the free play can’t give us the object: it only tells us about ourselves
if we want to delineate then the private is beyond the limits of freedom, social is beyond freedom and action alone; in terms of appearance itself
private and social is like the in-itself for Kant
the private as the in-itself; we have an exclusion from appearance itself, from meaning
not a problem of Holmes but haunts Arendt
discussion of role of slavery in American revolution; US rev. made the private the sphere of political action; the freedom was achieved by an ivory tower into which the fearful specter of human misery never penetrated
the absence of misery was deceptive--slavery was present everywhere
the goodness of the poor white man’s country depended on black labor and misery
slavery has obscurity “even blacker than the obscurity of poverty”; excluded so that America could phenomenologically appear
is it racism? is it because all beginnings are violent? Arendt can’t decide what to do with it
the social question was non-existent and compassion wasn’t there
can you ever render the appearance of the exclusion that founds it; took a long time for black people to get the vote e.g.
could slavery ever appear in the socio-symbolic context; permanently mistranslating slavery
we need to go to the non-identical that grounds appearance
what’s cool about Arednt is stepping back to observe what’s already here: there is a table, we are here
the world is the table, interlaced with wonderful relationships
phenomenological appearance: it’s not about space that we’re in; so we can reorient politics because idea of table isn’t just a given
technology meta-tizes
question: invocation of Kant: transcendental logic based on Newton based on Euclidean space; fixed limited hard space
designation between what and who: symbols
bus stops: not the space where we do have revolutions (but Rosa Parkes); the what of Parkes was precisely the performance; she performed the old timid black woman who was tired
Euclidean space torn apart and phenomenological space emerges
Amanda: there’s a distinction between action and speech but where action does constitute power; Rosa Parkes example helps us to think about how performance can mean a lot of different things to Arendt
Parkes’s solidarity with larger political performance of speech
the what would be impotent if she was just performing that
how can there be a who in solidarity with other whos
Horton hears a who?
question: metatable back down to the wooden formica; questions of access as opposed to questions of arrangement
packing bodies in. who took my course? how many people can we pack in the room?
the material arrangement complicates the performance; we can see that the space is already a performance
in what way is the specificity of the space important?
[it would be interobjective; sensual world is nonlocal, so we’re already in]
emphasis on beginning something new
question: the illusion of material space is the limiting construct
Amanda: the illusion is that we’re stuck in this kind of space; what would Arendt say about internet politics
James: this isn’t an empirical question but to do with a potentiality that can phenomenologically appear anywhere
space as a metaphor for what can become political
temporality within appearance; temporality of the unfolding of space
No comments:
Post a Comment