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she was anti-Marxist and generally conservative, which led
Marxists and pseudo-Marxists to be critical of her political
theories. On the other hand, her radical stands on current politi–
cal questions brought her into conflict with conservatives.
And her skeptical attitude toward Israel, with whose destiny she
did not identify herself as a J ew, offended both professiona l and
amateur partisans of Israel.
So far as I know, there is no balanced analysis of Hannah
Arendt's work. My own feeling is that the value of her writing
lies not so much in any of her theories as the texture of her think–
ing and in the unexpected insights with which she handled those
areas in which philosophy, history, and politics cross. Thus I am
not sure that Hannah Arendt's theory of totalitarianism will
stand up, particularly in its failure to distinguish sufficiently
between the differing origins of fascism and Stalinism. Her book
on totalitarianism is a very striking illumination of the organized
irrationality of the Nazi years in Germany. Her idea of the
banality of evil in the study of Eichmann could be questioned,
though I think the main issue is a verbal one, involving the use
of the term banality in relation to evil. But the description of
little men wielding large destructive forces has an enormous
suggestive power, particularly for nontotalitarian countries like
the United States, where corruption has become almost a way of
life and is spread by little people who do not otherwise qualify
as monsters. More questionable, in my opinion, are Hannah
Arendt's views on revolution and her philosophy of history,
which are, in effect, a rejection of Marx 's philosophy of history.
To be sure, to be a Marxist today is largely an act of faith-often
mindless faith , in the more orthodox disciples of Marx-but
Hannah Arendt sometimes swung to the other extreme, to a view
of history without causality and without any mechanism for
social advance beyond human intelligence and moral will.
My own relation with Hannah was warm and friendly if
not intimate, except for one interlude of several years, when
each of us acted out the rol e of the hurt and misunderstood
victim.
It
began in 1963 when her book on Eichmann appeared.
Lionel Abel called me one day to say he wanted to review the book
for
Partisan Review.
He said he liked it and indicated a general
sympathy with what Hannah Arendt was doing. So sympathetic
