376
PARTISAN REVIEW
iss ues of practical reason and mallers of judgmenl. To say th a t action
and freedom are in some sense equiva lent is to assert th a t true act ion
therefore needs and requires ends. Curiously, Arendt's long discuss ion
of the contras t between
homo faberand anima llaborans,
between work
and labo r, refl ect a Kantian ethi ca l bias, perhaps transmitted through
j aspers, concerning the necess ity in ethi ca l and political theory to
consider more than the instrumental-the ca tegori ca l impera tive. j ay's
assertion of "decision ism" in Arendt 's view of politics, his view of her
po liti cs as unhampered by norma tive con stra ints, is hard
to
suppo rt by
evidence from her writing. Given this too eas il y es tab lished ana lysis, it
is no surprise tha t j ay call s her a relativist, a label which, as h as been
argued ea rlier, fail s to fit.
At the center of j ay's interpreta ti on of Arendt 's theory of politics
and acti on is his cl a im tha t "she beli eved in unlimited human
ma ll eability with little regard fo r hi stori ca l constra ints." On e is
mystified as to the source of thi s claim. Arendt's three major hi storical
wo rks , the biography of
Rahel Varnhagen,
th e
Origins,
and th e book
on Eichmann 's tri a l a ll tes tify to her perception of the power o f
hi stori ca l constraints on human acti on. Her di scuss ion of the concen–
tra tio n camp seems to be j ay's ev iden ce of her con victi on of man 's
malleability under ex treme circumstances. Yet, precisely because of
those harshes t of histori cal facts, Arendt viewed man' s capacity to
emerge from such circumstances as a " miracle," as an act of ultimate
hero ic courage.
The Varnhagen and Eichmann books are concern ed with th e
immense effort required by th e individua l
( 0
res ist tempta tions to
succumb to extant pattern s of life, to inadequa te and perh aps danger–
o us accommodations to the implicit ideologies of hi sto ri ca l con–
stra ints . Arendt did no t underestimate the extreme difficulty of man 's
exercisin g fr eedom and auto nom y in the face of hi sto ry. Take, for
exampl e, her view th a t the powerful hopes bo rn out of hero ic aClio n in
the French res istance were soon dashed into a bleak future. Such loss of
the power of action without a continuin g political structure inclu sive
o f fr eedom , speech , and di scourse exp la ins in part her adm ira ti on for
the American revoluti on and its hi story and traditi on.
Arendt's ana lysis of fi gures in hi sto ry such as Disraeli , Galileo,
Hitler, Eichmann, and even Rah el Varnhagen refl ects her sensiti ve
ba lan ce between the individual 's peculi a r contribution to chan ge and
hi s dependence on the formation of personality through hi storica l
facts. There is little evidence in Arendt 's hi storic na rra ti ves of the beli ef
th at individua ls can rad icall y avo id the constraints of hi story. Arendt 's
criti cism of Stefan Zweig refl ects her contempt for hi s belief that he
