9 ms·

What Freedom and Revolution Really Mean

49 points by akbarnama 9y ago

hprotagonist 9y ago
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/after-a-revolution/ http://uncannymagazine.com/article/after-a-revolution/ > Here is a secret that is not a secret. Here is a curse that is not a curse. Revolutions are not redemption. They will not save you, just as ours did not save us back in 1896, or 1986, or 2001. > > It is not that revolutions are useless; it is that they are not enough. And, perhaps, that is what damns us: we give everything we have, blood and fire and all our screaming voices, and after that it is still not over—we still have to go on, to carry our country through the painful process of rebuilding and rooting out diseases infesting our systems and finding better ways to be just, and fair, and kind, which is an even longer, more difficult trial, for all that it is less lit by fire.
anigbrowl 9y ago
Side note: I wanted to print this until I saw the preview. That's some impressive user-hostility :-/
- leereeves 9y ago
  For me, the preview looks OK in landscape mode with minimum margins, or scaled down.
- Baeocystin 9y ago
  You weren't kidding. Sheesh.
- 68c12c16 9y ago
  I printed the article using google chrome browser, with "simply page" print option turned on, which should make it look much nicer... You could get a copy of this printed article here :-) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1x4blQ2dtdUeHdHT1JfSXExb0U/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1x4blQ2dtdUeHdHT1JfSXExb0U...
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    That's weird, I'm also using Chrome. I was surprised because it usually does such a good job. Thanks for sharing your version!
    - 68c12c16 9y ago
      I used an old version chrome to print the page (I have kept some vintage softwares for old times' sake). That chrome version still has the "simplify page" option on its print preview ...newer versions of chrome have removed that option (perhaps the dev team thought that "revolution" would give its users more "freedom"), as it has been reported here, http://techdows.com/2016/09/chrome-53-simplify-page-printing-option-removed.html http://techdows.com/2016/09/chrome-53-simplify-page-printing... and complained here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647276
dragonwriter 9y ago
I think Arendt critically misses the source of the disintegrator processes that erode central authority and enable revolutions. All the factors that she discounts as causes because they require central authority to break down before they can lead to revolution are also sources of that breakdown. Disaffection among the masses, secret/conspiratorial and overt revolutionary societies among the elites, etc., not only can exploit the breakdown of central authority to engage in revolution, bur also provide the forces which break down central authority and, particularly, which break down regime control of the armed forces, which Arendt correctly points to as the most decisive point. This is a critical oversight, since much of the essay rests on this argument that revolutions aren't caused by revolutionaries of these types, but instead by the collapse of regimes which (implicitly) occurs independently of the these forced rather than because of them.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  I disagree. She is saying that, if the people aren't in a position to rule themselves, "revolution" won't do much of anything useful. And adequate economic circumstances/opportunities are part of being in position to rule themselves (because in their absence, people are too willing to grab onto anything that promises relief from hunger, no matter how unwise in the medium to long term). Now, you can regard "the people in a position to rule themselves" as "eroding central authority", and you'd be at least somewhat right, because people in that position don't need central authority, and start to realize that they don't. But I think she's right - if the people are not able to rule themselves, all the secret societies, disaffection among the masses, and overt revolutionary societies among the elite are only going to lead to a change of masters.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- 68c12c16 9y ago
  Yes, I feel similarly as dragonwriter...Arendt seems to be over-generalizing about revolution. Revolution is only a term, which has constantly been linked to the collective act of overthrowing the current government and establishing a new one. The thing is, I feel we should not confine our thoughts to the term "revolution" itself -- different people are definitely going to have different concepts about this term, even after it has been "precisely" described in some authoritative dictionary or encyclopedia; but rather, we should focus on the purpose of this term (i.e. its pragmatics), with all its ambiguities, which I think we could roughly state as "to have an government, whether an existent one or a totally new one, that could satisfy the needs of the revolutionaries -- or more often, the needs of the leaders of the revolutionary masses, and not the revolutionary masses themselves". Many governments, in history or for the current time being, would often like to call themselves revolutionary government, be it North Korea, People's Republic of China, USSR, or Libya during 1977 - 2011; and their military forces of the revolution are often called, "people's army" or "army of liberation / salvation". But what is revolution, what is freedom, and what is people, all those concepts only exist in the mind of the leaders of those revolutions, and often not as a result of a collective desire as they are expressed by the masses living those countries -- and as a matter of fact, the existence of this "general will" itself is quite debatable. One feasible solution of having a government that could be sure to benefit for every person living in the country -- if that is possible -- is a government that operates based on a set of universal rules and universal values. ("universal" as in the sense that it is applicable -- but not necessarily mentally accepted -- to every one; in short, "universal" is roughly in the same sense as the golden rule of ethics, as well as Kant's "categorical imperative".) In summary, revolution, for the purpose of revolution or for the purpose of freedom, is meaningless if we do not have a concrete and practical grasp of what "freedom" is and what exactly the revolutionaries want to achieve (i.e. a pragmatic purpose). And in this view, perhaps we should not simply categorize the events of "American Revolution" (1765) or "French Revolution" (1789) as revolution, but simply as those events themselves -- and as a matter of fact, the success of either the "American Revolution" or the "French Revolution" is almost a miracle, and had their counters force acted a little differently (for instance, had Louis XVI acted a little more ruthlessly), they could very easily fail quite completely.
eternalban 9y ago
> And no revolution was ever the result of conspiracies, secret societies, or openly revolutionary parties. Preceded by: > No revolution, no matter how wide it opened its gates to the masses and the downtrodden—les malheureux, les misérables, les damnés de la terre, as we know them from the grand rhetoric of the French Revolution—was ever started by them. concluded with: > Revolutions always appear to succeed with amazing ease in their initial stages, and the reason is that those who supposedly “make” revolutions do not “seize power” but rather pick it up where it lies in the streets. I saw this first hand as a kid. These guys were well organized, well trained. So the question for Hannah is this: do you honestly think you can just pick up power on the street without preparations? > Wherever these disintegrative processes have been allowed to develop unchecked ... http://flashbak.com/la-porn-revolution-the-filthy-sex-propaganda-that-destroyed-marie-antoinette-38405/ http://flashbak.com/la-porn-revolution-the-filthy-sex-propag... Hannah wants us to believe that that sort of concerted, very accurately aimed, propaganda to diminish the prestige of the French royal family was not a "conspiracy".
- publyjusz 9y ago
  What Arendt claims is not that revolutionaries are not organized, it's that only with popular discontent they were able to succeed. This discontent is caused by structural weakness and degeneration of ancient regime, and to a large extent cannot be engineered. Which is shown by cases when either revolutionary parties or foreign governments really wanted to make a popular revolution artificially, put many resources and failed. But truth be told, there were cases when power lied on the streets and was left untaken by (often even organized) revolutionaries. The examples would be Italy and Germany after WW1, when technically socialdemocrats could assume power violently, but they chose not to for various ideological reasons. Of course, it is in interest of ancien regimes, however we define them, to make people believe that it's all secret societies. It starts at least with the royalist "theory" of French revolution caused entirely by Freemasons and such. As to your link, demonizing a queen by itself is very far from delegitimizing monarchy and autocratic government in general. It was even possible in such prototypical monarchies as Byzantine Empire. But even you seem to concede that there is no evidence for an "Antoinette porn conspiracy" and its existence is something we need to guess. I'd say "sex sells" is an easier explanation here.
meri_dian 9y ago
Yes revolutions are tricky. It's important to realize that the American Revolution was so successful in part because it was more Separation than Revolution. The goal was to separate from Britain rather than to fundamentally change the way Britain operated. Walking away from a relationship is simpler than trying to change the other person to suit your needs.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
"A comparison of the two first revolutions [American and French], whose beginnings were so similar and whose ends so tremendously different, demonstrates clearly, I think, not only that the conquest of poverty is a prerequisite for the foundation of freedom, but also that liberation from poverty cannot be dealt with in the same way as liberation from political oppression. For if violence pitted against violence leads to war, foreign or civil, violence pitted against social conditions has always led to terror. Terror rather than mere violence, terror let loose after the old regime has been dissolved and the new regime installed, is what either sends revolutions to their doom, or deforms them so decisively that they lapse into tyranny and despotism." That's... not encouraging. I found myself thinking of the "Black Block" protesters as I read that. More broadly, the American Revolution (per her thesis) succeeded the way it did because the people were not in deep poverty and misery at the start of it; instead, they had substantial experience of governing their own towns. Those are not easy conditions to export. The American experience is therefore not likely to be applicable very many other places.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Well it's not like French people had no clue of how to govern their own towns. The primary differentiator in France at that time was that there were far-stronger counter-revolutionary forces in place because they were incumbent rather than managed from an ocean away. It was because of the existing governmental structures in France that Napoleon was able to establish himself as an emperor within only a decade of the French Revolution. I know I've made the point over and over, but Americans really really need to stay conscious of the fact that they essentially got a whole continent for free: the indigenous population of North America was both small and technologically unsophisticated and never presented an existential threat to the State or Federal government by the time of the American revolution. I don't think there is anything fundamentally exceptional about the American experiment in systemic terms; it's just that few newly-constituted countries have such vast and barely-contested resources available to them. Things like the various land rushes and the super-rapid formation of so many new cities during the 19th century don't have many historical parallels in other parts of the globe because the conditions for them simply didn't exist. The importance of free or cheap land is reflected today in some conservative groups' intense lobbying for the Federal government to divest itself of its still-enormous land holdings for private exploitation. There's lots and lots of money to be made in exploiting virgin land. That's... not encouraging. I found myself thinking of the "Black Block" protesters as I read that. Objectively those people have been far more restrained than the various white supremacists/patriot militias around the US. Black bloc people talk about punching nazis, which sensed liberals to the fainting couch, while repeated and specific murder threats are claimed (at least for legal purposes) to be acts of free speech, as in this recent example: http://www.dailyrecord.com/story/news/crime/morris-county/2017/07/05/morris-plains-man-charged-death-threats-washington-college-released-jail/451257001/ http://www.dailyrecord.com/story/news/crime/morris-county/20... I mean, I see your point but citing the black bloc types as an example of The Problem seems like worrying about whether the rats in your basement have fleas.
woodandsteel 9y ago
This is a marvelous piece.
jancsika 9y ago
> No doubt, it is obvious and of great consequence that this passion for freedom for its own sake awoke in and was nourished by men of leisure, by the hommes de lettres who had no masters and were not always busy making a living. In other words, they enjoyed the privileges of Athenian and Roman citizens without taking part in those affairs of state that so occupied the freemen of antiquity. Needless to add, where men live in truly miserable conditions this passion for freedom is unknown. It's been awhile since I read about it, but I'm fairly certain Spanish anarchism in the latter half of the 19th century developed among peasants and factory workers living in "truly miserable conditions." They were concerned with freedom as Arendt defines it: "admission to the public realm and participation in public affairs."
- 68c12c16 9y ago
  I think, by "men of leisure" as in "this passion for freedom for its own sake awoke in and was nourished by men of leisure, by the hommes de lettres who had no masters and were not always busy making a living." Arendt means those people who participated in the American Revolution (1775) and the upper middle class members in the Third Estate who pioneered the French Revolution (1789). The Spanish anarchism and the Revolutions of 1848 could somewhat be viewed as some parts of a long series of consequences of the French Revolution (1789). I feel Her essay touches many points about various revolutions in Europe in the second millennium and her emphasis may not just simply lie at the beginning or the end of this lecture notes. There are quite lot of details and points to argue here.

49 points by akbarnama 9y ago

http://uncannymagazine.com/article/after-a-revolution/ http://uncannymagazine.com/article/after-a-revolution/ > Here is a secret that is not a secret. Here is a curse that is not a curse. Revolutions are not redemption. They will not save you, just as ours did not save us back in 1896, or 1986, or 2001. > > It is not that revolutions are useless; it is that they are not enough. And, perhaps, that is what damns us: we give everything we have, blood and fire and all our screaming voices, and after that it is still not over—we still have to go on, to carry our country through the painful process of rebuilding and rooting out diseases infesting our systems and finding better ways to be just, and fair, and kind, which is an even longer, more difficult trial, for all that it is less lit by fire.

anigbrowl 9y ago

Side note: I wanted to print this until I saw the preview. That's some impressive user-hostility :-/

leereeves 9y ago
For me, the preview looks OK in landscape mode with minimum margins, or scaled down.
Baeocystin 9y ago
You weren't kidding. Sheesh.
68c12c16 9y ago
I printed the article using google chrome browser, with "simply page" print option turned on, which should make it look much nicer... You could get a copy of this printed article here :-) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1x4blQ2dtdUeHdHT1JfSXExb0U/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1x4blQ2dtdUeHdHT1JfSXExb0U...
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  That's weird, I'm also using Chrome. I was surprised because it usually does such a good job. Thanks for sharing your version!
  - 68c12c16 9y ago
    I used an old version chrome to print the page (I have kept some vintage softwares for old times' sake). That chrome version still has the "simplify page" option on its print preview ...newer versions of chrome have removed that option (perhaps the dev team thought that "revolution" would give its users more "freedom"), as it has been reported here, http://techdows.com/2016/09/chrome-53-simplify-page-printing-option-removed.html http://techdows.com/2016/09/chrome-53-simplify-page-printing... and complained here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647276

dragonwriter 9y ago

I think Arendt critically misses the source of the disintegrator processes that erode central authority and enable revolutions. All the factors that she discounts as causes because they require central authority to break down before they can lead to revolution are also sources of that breakdown. Disaffection among the masses, secret/conspiratorial and overt revolutionary societies among the elites, etc., not only can exploit the breakdown of central authority to engage in revolution, bur also provide the forces which break down central authority and, particularly, which break down regime control of the armed forces, which Arendt correctly points to as the most decisive point. This is a critical oversight, since much of the essay rests on this argument that revolutions aren't caused by revolutionaries of these types, but instead by the collapse of regimes which (implicitly) occurs independently of the these forced rather than because of them.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
I disagree. She is saying that, if the people aren't in a position to rule themselves, "revolution" won't do much of anything useful. And adequate economic circumstances/opportunities are part of being in position to rule themselves (because in their absence, people are too willing to grab onto anything that promises relief from hunger, no matter how unwise in the medium to long term). Now, you can regard "the people in a position to rule themselves" as "eroding central authority", and you'd be at least somewhat right, because people in that position don't need central authority, and start to realize that they don't. But I think she's right - if the people are not able to rule themselves, all the secret societies, disaffection among the masses, and overt revolutionary societies among the elite are only going to lead to a change of masters.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
68c12c16 9y ago
Yes, I feel similarly as dragonwriter...Arendt seems to be over-generalizing about revolution. Revolution is only a term, which has constantly been linked to the collective act of overthrowing the current government and establishing a new one. The thing is, I feel we should not confine our thoughts to the term "revolution" itself -- different people are definitely going to have different concepts about this term, even after it has been "precisely" described in some authoritative dictionary or encyclopedia; but rather, we should focus on the purpose of this term (i.e. its pragmatics), with all its ambiguities, which I think we could roughly state as "to have an government, whether an existent one or a totally new one, that could satisfy the needs of the revolutionaries -- or more often, the needs of the leaders of the revolutionary masses, and not the revolutionary masses themselves". Many governments, in history or for the current time being, would often like to call themselves revolutionary government, be it North Korea, People's Republic of China, USSR, or Libya during 1977 - 2011; and their military forces of the revolution are often called, "people's army" or "army of liberation / salvation". But what is revolution, what is freedom, and what is people, all those concepts only exist in the mind of the leaders of those revolutions, and often not as a result of a collective desire as they are expressed by the masses living those countries -- and as a matter of fact, the existence of this "general will" itself is quite debatable. One feasible solution of having a government that could be sure to benefit for every person living in the country -- if that is possible -- is a government that operates based on a set of universal rules and universal values. ("universal" as in the sense that it is applicable -- but not necessarily mentally accepted -- to every one; in short, "universal" is roughly in the same sense as the golden rule of ethics, as well as Kant's "categorical imperative".) In summary, revolution, for the purpose of revolution or for the purpose of freedom, is meaningless if we do not have a concrete and practical grasp of what "freedom" is and what exactly the revolutionaries want to achieve (i.e. a pragmatic purpose). And in this view, perhaps we should not simply categorize the events of "American Revolution" (1765) or "French Revolution" (1789) as revolution, but simply as those events themselves -- and as a matter of fact, the success of either the "American Revolution" or the "French Revolution" is almost a miracle, and had their counters force acted a little differently (for instance, had Louis XVI acted a little more ruthlessly), they could very easily fail quite completely.

eternalban 9y ago

> And no revolution was ever the result of conspiracies, secret societies, or openly revolutionary parties. Preceded by: > No revolution, no matter how wide it opened its gates to the masses and the downtrodden—les malheureux, les misérables, les damnés de la terre, as we know them from the grand rhetoric of the French Revolution—was ever started by them. concluded with: > Revolutions always appear to succeed with amazing ease in their initial stages, and the reason is that those who supposedly “make” revolutions do not “seize power” but rather pick it up where it lies in the streets. I saw this first hand as a kid. These guys were well organized, well trained. So the question for Hannah is this: do you honestly think you can just pick up power on the street without preparations? > Wherever these disintegrative processes have been allowed to develop unchecked ... http://flashbak.com/la-porn-revolution-the-filthy-sex-propaganda-that-destroyed-marie-antoinette-38405/ http://flashbak.com/la-porn-revolution-the-filthy-sex-propag... Hannah wants us to believe that that sort of concerted, very accurately aimed, propaganda to diminish the prestige of the French royal family was not a "conspiracy".

publyjusz 9y ago
What Arendt claims is not that revolutionaries are not organized, it's that only with popular discontent they were able to succeed. This discontent is caused by structural weakness and degeneration of ancient regime, and to a large extent cannot be engineered. Which is shown by cases when either revolutionary parties or foreign governments really wanted to make a popular revolution artificially, put many resources and failed. But truth be told, there were cases when power lied on the streets and was left untaken by (often even organized) revolutionaries. The examples would be Italy and Germany after WW1, when technically socialdemocrats could assume power violently, but they chose not to for various ideological reasons. Of course, it is in interest of ancien regimes, however we define them, to make people believe that it's all secret societies. It starts at least with the royalist "theory" of French revolution caused entirely by Freemasons and such. As to your link, demonizing a queen by itself is very far from delegitimizing monarchy and autocratic government in general. It was even possible in such prototypical monarchies as Byzantine Empire. But even you seem to concede that there is no evidence for an "Antoinette porn conspiracy" and its existence is something we need to guess. I'd say "sex sells" is an easier explanation here.

meri_dian 9y ago

Yes revolutions are tricky. It's important to realize that the American Revolution was so successful in part because it was more Separation than Revolution. The goal was to separate from Britain rather than to fundamentally change the way Britain operated. Walking away from a relationship is simpler than trying to change the other person to suit your needs.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

"A comparison of the two first revolutions [American and French], whose beginnings were so similar and whose ends so tremendously different, demonstrates clearly, I think, not only that the conquest of poverty is a prerequisite for the foundation of freedom, but also that liberation from poverty cannot be dealt with in the same way as liberation from political oppression. For if violence pitted against violence leads to war, foreign or civil, violence pitted against social conditions has always led to terror. Terror rather than mere violence, terror let loose after the old regime has been dissolved and the new regime installed, is what either sends revolutions to their doom, or deforms them so decisively that they lapse into tyranny and despotism." That's... not encouraging. I found myself thinking of the "Black Block" protesters as I read that. More broadly, the American Revolution (per her thesis) succeeded the way it did because the people were not in deep poverty and misery at the start of it; instead, they had substantial experience of governing their own towns. Those are not easy conditions to export. The American experience is therefore not likely to be applicable very many other places.

anigbrowl 9y ago
Well it's not like French people had no clue of how to govern their own towns. The primary differentiator in France at that time was that there were far-stronger counter-revolutionary forces in place because they were incumbent rather than managed from an ocean away. It was because of the existing governmental structures in France that Napoleon was able to establish himself as an emperor within only a decade of the French Revolution. I know I've made the point over and over, but Americans really really need to stay conscious of the fact that they essentially got a whole continent for free: the indigenous population of North America was both small and technologically unsophisticated and never presented an existential threat to the State or Federal government by the time of the American revolution. I don't think there is anything fundamentally exceptional about the American experiment in systemic terms; it's just that few newly-constituted countries have such vast and barely-contested resources available to them. Things like the various land rushes and the super-rapid formation of so many new cities during the 19th century don't have many historical parallels in other parts of the globe because the conditions for them simply didn't exist. The importance of free or cheap land is reflected today in some conservative groups' intense lobbying for the Federal government to divest itself of its still-enormous land holdings for private exploitation. There's lots and lots of money to be made in exploiting virgin land. That's... not encouraging. I found myself thinking of the "Black Block" protesters as I read that. Objectively those people have been far more restrained than the various white supremacists/patriot militias around the US. Black bloc people talk about punching nazis, which sensed liberals to the fainting couch, while repeated and specific murder threats are claimed (at least for legal purposes) to be acts of free speech, as in this recent example: http://www.dailyrecord.com/story/news/crime/morris-county/2017/07/05/morris-plains-man-charged-death-threats-washington-college-released-jail/451257001/ http://www.dailyrecord.com/story/news/crime/morris-county/20... I mean, I see your point but citing the black bloc types as an example of The Problem seems like worrying about whether the rats in your basement have fleas.

woodandsteel 9y ago

This is a marvelous piece.

jancsika 9y ago

> No doubt, it is obvious and of great consequence that this passion for freedom for its own sake awoke in and was nourished by men of leisure, by the hommes de lettres who had no masters and were not always busy making a living. In other words, they enjoyed the privileges of Athenian and Roman citizens without taking part in those affairs of state that so occupied the freemen of antiquity. Needless to add, where men live in truly miserable conditions this passion for freedom is unknown. It's been awhile since I read about it, but I'm fairly certain Spanish anarchism in the latter half of the 19th century developed among peasants and factory workers living in "truly miserable conditions." They were concerned with freedom as Arendt defines it: "admission to the public realm and participation in public affairs."

68c12c16 9y ago
I think, by "men of leisure" as in "this passion for freedom for its own sake awoke in and was nourished by men of leisure, by the hommes de lettres who had no masters and were not always busy making a living." Arendt means those people who participated in the American Revolution (1775) and the upper middle class members in the Third Estate who pioneered the French Revolution (1789). The Spanish anarchism and the Revolutions of 1848 could somewhat be viewed as some parts of a long series of consequences of the French Revolution (1789). I feel Her essay touches many points about various revolutions in Europe in the second millennium and her emphasis may not just simply lie at the beginning or the end of this lecture notes. There are quite lot of details and points to argue here.