The Human Condition
A work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, The Human condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then--diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions--continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of its original publication, contains an improved and expanded index and a new introduction by noted Arendt scholar Margaret Canovan which incisively analyzes the book's argument and examines its present relevance. A classic in political and social theory, The Human condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
14mentions
12people
2016–2025years
29% recommend64% neutral7% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Awesome, came here to mention this important work of Ellul!
Following a parallel theme of labour vs. work vs. action and the dissolution of the public sphere (as enabled by technology), I can also recommend Arendt's The Human Condition for further reading.
- In my opinion if you want to break out of echo chambers, you'd better read books, not news. I don't mean books written on occasion by the same people who write opinion columns and blog posts - rather great books that go deeper in how things work.
Among the modern writings, Arendt's Human Condition was a real eye opener for me. I hope to find more modern book of such quality of thought, but older ones by classic philosophers don't lose their relevance either.
- I had a look. I recognise Allan Hazlett's name, but that's as much as I can say. Epistemology, PoM and stuff are all fairly interesting but depend a lot on the quality of teaching, in my experience.
If you don't want to just read Kenny's ANHWP, and I were to provide a reading list:
* Plato: Meno, Gorgias, Parmenides, Charmides, Apology. If you enjoy it, then try reading The Republic.
* Aurelius' Meditations. Democritus and Epicurus are worth reading about too, to summarise the Greeks. And Zeno's paradoxes.
* meaningness.com as an entry-point to Buddhist philosophy in general.
* Logicomix as an introduction to Russell & his project in Principia Mathematica.
* Mill's Utilitarianism, Hannah Arendt 'The Human Condition', and Henry George 'Progress & Poverty' for politics, history and economy, throw in a bit of Rawls. Schiller's 'The Robbers' is also very much worth reading.
* SEP articles for the classic writers: Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, Kant; then Kripke, Tyler Burge, and Searle present some interesting problems.
Other mentions off the top of my head: Dreyfus, Chalmers, Parfitt, Singer.
There are some great YouTube channels out there that teach to the intelligent adult. Gregory B Sadler, Mark Thorsby, Daniel Bonevac, Carneades.org are the ones I remember being useful. Some good series' are out there: Human, All Too Human; Alan Watts' TV series; The Reith Lectures...
I've missed a ton, of course, this is just stuff I remember enjoying or gaining something from. I hope this list isn't too overwhelming. I'd start with the Greeks, then flick around some YouTube channels, then meaningness, then off into whatever takes your fancy. I don't really fancy digging through MOOCs so sorry I can't recommend any in particular.
My personal favourite philosophers/philosophical writers: Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Darwin, Hegel, Camus, CS Pierce, Feyerabend, Epicurus.
- Yep, you do make sense (though I would suggest more line breaks :-P ). Also my username is swombat not snowbat...
A great source for this discussion is Hannah Arendt's book "The Human Condition". I find it really heavy and difficult to read but full of incredible insights and powerful ideas about certain features/definitions/perspectives of human life. Highly recommended.
- This essay rubs me the wrong way in that it continues to invest in this coastal elite attitude that the masses should do what we say because we are the experts. These people continue to miss the forest for the trees by avoiding the question: why have Americans lost faith in institutions?
I largely consider Trump a symptom of a larger disorder, I think it is lazy to assume that he and his administration is the source of the breakdown here.
Two thinkers come to mind to me in this case:
1. Hannah Arendt, particularly her writing in The Human Condition (and maybe as an analogue: the Anthony Downs book on Bureaucracy and perhaps Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society I think?):
> Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless we have a tyranny without a tyrant.
Another comment talks about accountability, but a bureau is composed of people "just doing their jobs" without the personal accountability that helps keep systems accountable.
Per Downs, bureaus eventually become mainly obsessed with their own survival over their original mandate, and it requires careful design to avoid this consequence.
2. Christopher Lasch: The idea that government institutions are required to force an centralized objectivity for democracy to survive is just about the opposite of what I think we actually need, per Lasch:
> "[Specialized expertise is] the antithesis of democracy."
> "Democracy works best when men and women do things for themselves, with the help of their friends and neighbors, instead of depending on the state."
The attitude as espoused in this essay will not do any work to re-establish trust with Americans, it continues a long line of unaccountability or reflectiveness from the "adults in the room" on their own contributions to the degradation of the system by pretending Republicans or Trump are a unique aberration.
- > But his friend Hannah Arendt took up many of his ideas in her opus The Human Condition (1958), which argues that political life, like aesthetics, is characterised by an innate, albeit now widely ignored, human need for self-display through performances that are not labour, or routine, or ritual, but what she, following Rosenberg, called ‘action’. Like her friend, Arendt was concerned that possibilities for action in our society were being eroded by mechanisation and bureaucratisation on the one hand, and, on the other, illusory forms of pseudo-action, ranging from the benumbing pleasures of the entertainment industry to the chimeras of mass politics.
I feel like there’s some insight here on how we all interact not just on HN but on social media/forums more broadly but i can’t quite connect the disparate ideas floating around in my head right now.
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