312
cloak his actions in the categori–
cal imperative, " there is not the
slightest doubt that in one re–
spect Eichmann did indeed fol–
low Kant's precepts: a law was a
law, there could be no excep–
tions."
Because Botstein misunder–
stands the depth of her insistence
that politics was a realm apart,
he explains awaY' her perverse
refusal to link political freedom
with emancipation from social
and economic domination by
saying that, in the 1950s, it was
reasonable to assume that tech–
nological solutions to the latter
problems were feasible . Al–
though he admits that this as–
sumption is "dated from today's
vantage point," he fails to grasp
its deeper flaw. The ideology of
technical rationality as the an–
swer to political conflict led to
the very withering away of the
political sphere Arendt so de–
tested; it was no less a mystifica–
tion when applied to social or
economic conflict. Arendt failed
to appreciate the link because of
her dogged insistence on the
autonomy of the political and
her concomitant denigration of
the links between politics and
socioeconomic realities.
The most objectionable of
Botstein's distortions is his attri–
bution to me of the charge that
"Arendt, despite appearances,
succumbed somehow to fascism
and was partially, by associa–
tion , responsible for fascism."
As I specifically warned in my
essay, I raised the problem of
Arendt's relation to the earlier
political existentialists not
to
smear her through guil t by asso–
ciation, but rather to establish
the context in which her seem–
ingly unique ideas begin to
make sense. Moreover, I care–
fully pointed out that the politi–
cal existentialists of the twenties
and thirties were themsel ves not
Fascists, but rather that "all of
them, to one degree or another,
have been seen by most histori–
ans as having prepared the way
for fascism." As I clearly stated,
their credo was "not entirely
blameless in the rise of fascism, "
which is very different from
identifying them with the Nazis.
And, in addition, I argued that
Arendt, learning from many of
their mistakes, presented a "ten–
der" rather than "tough" ver–
sion of the political existentialist
position. The links I was trying
to make manifest were in fact
later observed by Sheldon
Wolin, certainly no foe of
Arendt, in his review of
The Life
of the Mind,
where he wrote,
"It
is ironical that an author whose
reputation was established by
studies of totalitarianism and
Nazi war crimes should have
been deeply influenced by two
writers who, for different reasons
