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PARTISAN REVIEW
normal left- right political axis (as in certain respects the poli tical
existenti alists were as well ), whi ch mean s tha t reading her wor ks
requi res a hea lthy suspension of received notions about our range of
choices. And las tl y, Miss Arendt will continue to be consulted by
students of our era because of her frequentl y trenchant an alyses o f
topical issu es, many of whi ch transcend the limita ti ons of her more
basic theoreti ca l positi on .
But h aving all owed these stren gth s, w ha t must fin all y be recog–
nized is tha t the version of the human conditi on on which all her wor k
res ted will simpl y not was h . Despite her intenti on to res tore the p roper
noti on of freedom, Hannah Arendt 's stubborn insistence on the split
between society and polity undermined wha tever ho pe her th eory
mi ght have had for illumina tin g the conditi ons under whi ch that
freedom could be realized . Po liti cal existenti alism was an o bfusca ting
ideo logy in the 1920s, and one not entirely blameless in the rise o f
fascism; it must be judged no less of an ideology half a century later,
altho ugh luckil y its potentia l to blight our lives is far smaller than it
was when Hannah Arendt, ironi call y fl eeing from fascism, first suc–
cumbed
to
its dangerous charms.
Leon Botstein
Two claims are at the heart of Ma rtin Jay 's critique of
Hannah Arendt. First, he argues tha t her basic theoretical positi on
contains a waterti ght separation of the political from the nonpoliti ca l,
of politics from economics an d society. Jay views Arend t's di scussion of
action , of the importance of speech and the human capacity for new
beginnings within the political rea lm as evidence of a politi cal
existentialism , a label Jay ap p li es without enthusiasm or approva l.
Second , Jay cl aims tha t Arendt mi sread Marx and oversimp lifi ed him,
tha t she used a dated, inaccura te orthodoxy. T hi s led Arend t, in Jay's
opinion , to ambi valent conclusions regarding violence, the hi stori cal
process as a whole and man 's past and futur e role in history.
Bo th o f these claims will be examin ed in detail. At the outset,
however, Jay's method and o bj ecti ve merit bri ef considera ti on . His is
the approach of the intell ectual hi stori an in its very bes t Ameri can
form , whose intent transcends an y deba te anteri or to political theory.
He has a ttemp ted a comprehensive assessment of Arendt, no t onl y as a
