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could escape hi s own hi sto ri cal persona lity and context. Onl y to ta litar–
iani sm , through vio lence and coercio n , transmutes histori c perceptions
o f good and evil, produ ces indifference to evil , without outrage, and
genera tes an in version of values. Th e success of the Nazis informed her
pos twar effo rt to help pro tec t the future from that singular historical
moment when the mo ra l and ethi cal criteri a evolved over time were
rendered bana l by to ta lita ri ani sm , itself based on a long historical
p rocess as the
Origins
argues.
j ay mi sinterprets Arendt 's ana logy between political action and
the performin g arts, between po liti cal action and virtuosity. No doubt
Arendt hono red excell en ce. Her vi ew of the performing arts was not ,
however, merely instrumenta l, as j ay implies. The ch aracteristic of the
performin g artist is th at he o r she acts by definiti on in public; he or she
must transcend the interi o r di a logue between will and intell ect towards
acti on . By his or her profession th e performer creates public space.
Music without audi ence and theater without spectators are not music
and theater. Arendt used virtuosity in the performing arts as an anal ogy
fo r the necessity for a commitment to excell ence and action in the
publi c realm, a commitment to the result , the las ting result of perfo r–
mance, in fact and futur e memo ry as an inspira ti on to future gen era–
tion s. Far from considerin g performing art as " uncorrupted by extrane–
o us con sidera ti on s, " Arendt saw it as demandin g a special interaction ,
sha red by po liti cs in a public context, a continuo us process of action ,
remembrance and res ponse.
j ay combines hi s vi ew of Arendt 's uncon vincing separation of
politi cs from the ma teri a l conditi on s of economy and society with her
view tha t she was, des pite di scl a imers, an elitist. H e centers tha t cl aim
around her "marginal" concern fo r the ma teri al probl ems of the
masses and her "categorical" rejecti o n of politi ca l solutions to poverty.
Th e source fo r thi s cla im of a "categori cal" rejecti on is an incompl ete
readin g from a passage from
On R evolution .
It
reveals a fundamental
difference between j ay's view of hi stori cal change and Arendt's. But
mo re impo rtant, j ay trivia lizes Arendt in the way he quotes the
passage. He ends with the word " dangerous" and leaves out the
concluding thoughts. The reason tha t political means a re "futil e and
dangero us" and "obso lete" is because onl y th rough politics in the
modern age can freedom be susta ined. Freedom is one of Arendt 's
ultimate va lues, one of her ends.
T he reason po liti cal means would be "obsolete" as means of social
transfo rma ti on is because of the nature of the viol ence that the
combina ti on of poverty and the lack of politi cal freedom produces .
Sin ce Arendt ass umed the technological and economic capacit y to
