I appreciate the use of Arendt to test claims about force, law, and rule. Without anachronism, the post links ICE practice to patterns she traced. The turn to exile names a duty that can’t hide behind slogans or party talk (OR, I would add: the new separatism of evangelical moralism: e.g., the Benedict Option). - Thanks for this timely post!
William, thank you! I was hoping Arendt's analysis from a previous crisis would travel well. I'd cite Arendt also in my critique of the Benedict Option: she warned against confusing a call to full-bodied witness (observe, testify and judge others' testimony in community) with what she (in The Life of the Mind / Thinking) called "mere spectatorship," which she associated with Lucretius and the late Roman Republic. She quotes him: "What joy it is, when out at sea the storomwinds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the shore at the heavy stress some other man is enduring!" Such Epicurean walled gardens remind me of suburbia's flight from any attempt at creating poleis.
Doing your homework. Nicely done, Bryce. Arendt is so on point on policing. Lynching, that unique American voice in a chorus of violence, has now been introduced. Though it’s a straight line, from Emmett Till to Ahmaud Arbery to Alex Pretti. Colonization practice come home, Césaire’s boomerang.
Thanks! I think Arendt was blind to what she called the "boomerang effect" regarding Great Britain. At least in Origins she suggested that the home politicians successfully drew a bright line in the Channel. And she took some time adjusting to the American version. A lot of living between her "Reflections on Little Rock" and her "Civil Disobedience."
I appreciate the use of Arendt to test claims about force, law, and rule. Without anachronism, the post links ICE practice to patterns she traced. The turn to exile names a duty that can’t hide behind slogans or party talk (OR, I would add: the new separatism of evangelical moralism: e.g., the Benedict Option). - Thanks for this timely post!
William, thank you! I was hoping Arendt's analysis from a previous crisis would travel well. I'd cite Arendt also in my critique of the Benedict Option: she warned against confusing a call to full-bodied witness (observe, testify and judge others' testimony in community) with what she (in The Life of the Mind / Thinking) called "mere spectatorship," which she associated with Lucretius and the late Roman Republic. She quotes him: "What joy it is, when out at sea the storomwinds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the shore at the heavy stress some other man is enduring!" Such Epicurean walled gardens remind me of suburbia's flight from any attempt at creating poleis.
So well said, Bryce.
Doing your homework. Nicely done, Bryce. Arendt is so on point on policing. Lynching, that unique American voice in a chorus of violence, has now been introduced. Though it’s a straight line, from Emmett Till to Ahmaud Arbery to Alex Pretti. Colonization practice come home, Césaire’s boomerang.
Thanks! I think Arendt was blind to what she called the "boomerang effect" regarding Great Britain. At least in Origins she suggested that the home politicians successfully drew a bright line in the Channel. And she took some time adjusting to the American version. A lot of living between her "Reflections on Little Rock" and her "Civil Disobedience."