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11 Jan 09

Beware of Pity: A Critic at Large: The New Yorker

Arendt's description of a typical Nazi functionary who "does not regard himself as a murderer because he has not done it out of inclination but in his professional capacity. Out of sheer passion he would never do harm to a fly. Part of the contradictions of her thinking.

www.newyorker.com/...090112crat_atlarge_kirsch - Preview

arendt politics philosophy

We do not enter the political world to pursue justice or to create a better world. No, human beings love politics because they love to excel, and a political career is the best way to win the world’s respect.
The Rights of Man, after all, had been defined as ‘inalienable’ because they were supposed to be independent of all governments
3 more annotations...
- but it turned out that the moment human beings lacked their own government and had to fall back upon their minimum rights, no authority was left to protect them and no institution was willing to guarantee them
- can be solved only politically
- it is the desire to excel which makes men love the world,” then our love for the world actually makes it harder for us to love the people who inhabit it.