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Eros and Identity Politics: Understanding Arendts Notion of

Intimacy through the National Museum of the American Indian


The world lies between people, and this in-between- much more than
(as is often though) men or even man- is today the object of the greatest concern
and the most obvious upheaval in almost all the countries of the globe.
Arendt, Men in Dark Times, p. 12
If it is true that The world lies between people, as Hannah Arendt suggested,
then why must we be so particular about the kinds of human relationships that are
allowed into the political realm? Are our politics not informed by understanding plurality
and imagining the situations that others must endure? Must we not be able to start anew
from oppressive situations by seeing how our very situatedness affects and is affected by
other people? It has long been debated by political theorists whether it is possible to
incorporate into political discourse non-traditional ways of understanding others,
including the use of compassion. For example, thinkers like Iris Marion Young (2000)
and William Connolly (1999) questioned whether traditional politics requires us to even
acknowledge one another, let alone relate to those who waiver from mainstream political
approaches. Hannah Arendt, who ever so adamantly separated the sites of human activity
into distinct realms, would have suggested that emotions like compassion are not
conducive to the health of the polis. She argued that while the political actor should
employ enlarged thinking and care for the world, arguments that appeal to
compassion, such as some instances of identity politics, are pre-political and should be
restricted only to the social and private realms. Arendt insisted on a philia-based politics,
or one based on friendship, rather than one based on eros, or intimacy. Philia, according
to Aristotles notion of it, is developed through discourse, which fosters the judgment
necessary for political action. Arendt maneuvers identity politics, or a politics of
difference, into the category of eros because, she suggests, it evokes an intimacy based on

whatness rather than the whoness one has made apparent through speech and action.
The following passages outline Arendts notion of plurality and eros and trace the linkage
that Arendt makes between eros and identity politics using examples from a particular
cultural text, the Smithsonians National Museum of the American Indian. The goal in
illustrating Arndts ideas is to understand how she suggested that a politics of difference
creates an intimacy which will only damage political philia.

Arendt, Identity, and Action


One of the greatest factors that set Arendt apart from German Existanz
philosophers was her view that man lives in a plural world where he is forced to confront
others in order to demonstrate who he is through action and speech or speech as action.
While she was influenced by the thinking of Existanz philosophers, she was not
comfortable with the notion that man is merely worldless and lonely. She had a much
less defeatist outlook than this and insisted that man is connected in a social web and that
he has the potential for natality, or to start anew through action. Part of starting anew
meant that man could define himself on his own terms, not those pre-constructed for him.
Arendt felt that although man was equal to other men, he was distinct, but that this
equality was not a given. Equality must be constructed in a realm Arendt described as
the space of appearances (Benhabib, 1996).
Embodying one of Arendts many distinctions, the space of appearances includes
the separation of different forms of human interaction and relationships. Perhaps it is a
mischaracterization to call Arendts various locations of human interaction spaces,
because, as is apparent in The Human Condition, it is sometimes unclear whether these
boundaries are set physically and whether their boarders are not at times blurred. The

three main realms of human interaction for Arendt are the private, the social, and the
political. Again, as pointed out by Benhabib, it would seem that the space of appearances
has the potential to exist both within the social and the political realms (Benhabib, 1996;
Honig, 1992).
Within these sites, there are different forms of human relationships, including eros
and philia, or a relationship based on intimacy verses one based on friendship, founded in
dialogue. Of course, to Arendt the later, a relationship based on philia only belongs in
the political realm, as a relationship based on intimacy will burn itself out and ruin
political friendship (Jasinski, 1993). One must demonstrate who they truly are through
action, or speech and not based on categories that define one in the complicated social
web before they are born, according to Arendt. Therefore, she links politics based on
difference or identity politics to this relationship based on eros (Benhabib, 1996). She
explains that because one has not had the opportunity to define who they truly are
through action when they are identified according to categories based on social factors
like race, gender, and sexual orientation, they have not had the opportunity to participate
in the political speech act by which they demonstrate their whoness. Ever the
Grecophile, Arendt adopts Aristotles notion that one establishes who they are through
speech, sometimes more specifically, even by talking to ones self, as pointed out by
Brooke Allen (2004).
Therefore, to Arendt, identity politics do not belong in the polis. They employ
categories based on whatness, rather than whoness, and she uses the analogy of intimacy
to describe them. Men in dark times, she suggests, cling to intimate relationships, or
those based on the pre-political, which must be sorted out before the political can begin.
Men have a tendency to substitute warmth for light in dark times like the emergence

of the final solution, for example, in which Jewish people attempted to avoid
appearance because they knew that they would be persecuted for it (Arendt, 1955, p. 16).
These dark times do not allow for the political, but rather an inner emigration in which
those under attack feel as foreigners within their own country, and retreat into an inner
sanctity in the face of worldlessness. This retreat disallows the promises and
accountability that are characteristic of the space of appearances. Similarly, Arendt
suggests that those wishing to appear merely from the stance of social identity do not
allow for the appearance of a non-essential view of themselves and others associated with
them, whether voluntarily or not. In neither case are the conditions suitable for political
action, According to Arendt (1955; 1959).
There are exceptions in which Arendt calls upon an identity defined by the social
web and transports it into the political for very specific, special reasons; for example,
Jewishness, as an identity under attack made political, as she described in Men in Dark
Times. Arendt explained that the Jews of the enlightenment had answered the question of
who they were with the response a man, indicating that they believed in a common
humanity and were likely wary of revealing their identity. Rahel Levin Varnhagen, for
example, acted as a parvenu, denying her Jewish identity in the late seventeen and early
eighteen hundreds for the sake of social mobility, as Arendt (1957) documented in a
biography of her life. Clearly, Arendt believed that Jews of her era did not have the same
options as their enlightenment predecessors. In response to the question raised by Nathan
Wise, Who are you? Arendt had responded, A Jew because she recognized the
danger in ignoring the fact that Jews were being persecuted for the sake of being Jewish.
She writes, I was only acknowledging a political fact through which my being a member
of this group outweighed all other questions of personal identity or rather had decided

them in favor of anonymity, of namelessness (Arendt, 1968, p. 18). Arendt suggested


that Jewish identity in particular was being persecuted, and for this reason it had become
a political fact because it had been singled out above all other aspects of ones self.
It seems a strange slight of hand by which Arendt both suggests that dark times
do not allow for the political, while at the same time suggesting that it is due to these dark
times that her Jewishness becomes a political fact. Benhabib suggests that Arendt
actually had long advocated for the political mobilization of Jews, hoping that they would
unite in post-Hitler Germany. She had also suggested that they form an army and fight
Hitler in the hopes that they would be able to participate politically after they were rid of
their dependence on non-Jewish others. Benhabib (1996) writes, To translate an
identity under attack into a viable collective political project, and in particular to
reconstruct Jewish collective identity in a form that would not repeat the bygone
repertoire of political alternatives, such as Enlightenment cosmopolitanism, nineteenthcentury assimilationism, or nineteenth-century nationalism, was Hannah Arendts
unrealized wish (p. 38). Arendt made it clear in her exchanges with Gershom Scholem
that there is a distinct Jewish identity, which Honig (1992) argued might not have been
the best move in keeping with her notion that people are comprised of multiple selves.
The concept of plurality for Arendt is central to understanding how she situates
the interactions of distinct, yet equal people in the world and the ways in which ones
identity relates to others (Benhabib, 1996, p. 53). However, plurality is defined in
Arendts sense only by the disparate political actions conducted by those in the space of
appearances. As mentioned, only through speech and action does one disclose
themselves as an agent, and action corresponds to plurality and to the fact that men, not
man live on the earth and inhabit the world (HC, p. 7). The unpredictability of action is

what we must risk for true plurality and the possibility of natality. By its very nature,
action place in a non-reflexive way.
To confuse matters a bit, Arendt introduces two different speech acts into the
political by which one may perform their whoness. One is communicative action, the
other is expressive action. Communicative action is based on an agonal, or deliberatative
approach, while expressive action is based on narrative. Through expressive action, one
can most efficiently associate themselves with the Greek sense of glory and honor in
action. Expressive action seems a bit problematic when applying Arendts own terms, as
pointed out by Benhabib (1988) as action by nature is not self-reflexive and requires
some degree of enlarged thinking. Those like Achilles, who wish to gain honor and
glory though this kind of narrative, seem to be motivated least by a projection of
oneself into the life of another, or enlarged thinking, and more an attempt to live forever
through initiating stories about ones great deeds.
Identity politics, as a politics of difference, could most closely be compared to
expressive action, as it is not defined through deliberation as is communicative action. It
sets itself in opposition to others and does not necessarily require enlarged thinking. The
narratives surrounding those advocating for a politics of difference have not been
constructed by the subjects of such narrative, but rather the complicated social
relationships of the people around them. Identity is not self-defined, but created through
social networks in this case. Arendt suggests, however, that within a complicated social
web, ones actions may be misunderstood. Benhabib explains, The metaphor of the
web indicates the invisible, gossamerlike ties, networks, and contexts of human
relationships that constitute the horizon of human affairs (p. 112). In the polis, there
may be more opportunity to make ones intentions understood through deliberation that is

not based on the pulling of trump cards or the complicated social categories one cannot
not help but being placed into. Ones placement into these categories is not based on
discrimination, which Arendt sees as essential to the process of thinking. Arendt did not
question the modernist philosophy that people had rights because they were people.
However, as pointed out by Honig (1988), for Arendt, identity, along with freedom, is not
a given. The will, being spontaneous, leads to action, which helps one to achieve their
whoness in the space of appearances, and this is also an exercise of freedom.
According to Honig, Arendt is simpatico with Nietzsche in that there is no essence of
the self, which will determine ones action.
However, as mentioned, there are times in which Arendt considers identity, such
as Jewishness, to be political. This is, again, only in specific historical contexts. Arendt,
for example, was not always simpatico with Jewish identity politics. She argued
polemically against Jewish leaders that the newly established Jewish Palestine would not
be a sustainable, independent, and democratic force, but one that would require foreign
support. She advocated against dependence on non-Jewish others. Arendts views,
specifically on Palestine, were opposed by collective Jewish groups like the Zionists, and
therefore Benhabib calls Arendt a self-conscious pariah in the Jewish community (p.
39). Also, Arendt, seeing her Jewishness as a social fact, suggested that she was not
claiming that to be a Jew was to be a special kind of human being, but rather, that when
this singular part of ones whatness came to the forefront, it was only in response to the
circumstances in which one can resist only in terms of the identity that is under attack
(Benhabib, 1996 citing Arendt, 1968). The notion of a collective organic political
group in Palestine was pre-political because, for Arendt, politics was plural, and
nationalism, like that of the Zionists was non-inclusive of plurality. The same kind of

homogeneity is seen in the Nazis and other regimes, and for Arendt these groups do not
allow for the political to occur. As Benhabib observes, Analyzing Arendts writings on
Jewish politics, we see how deeply she was involved in these events and how
passionately she thought about twentieth-century political issues as they affected not only
Jews but other peoples as well (p. 46). Arednts ultimate hope was to see a Jewish
coalition fighting for political action within Europe, rather than as a separate nation
where non-Jews would be completely excluded from participation (Benhaibib, 1996).

Applying Arendt to the American Indian Question


Is it the timeliness of the attack that allows Arendt to pull identity constructed via
the social web into the political, specifically when she does so with the Jewish identity in
Men in Dark Times? She suggested that to claim to be a Jew meant the reality of
persecution (p. 17). Historically, one could argue that the American Indian has been
another socially constructed identity under attack. One could argue that it is still under
attack ideologically and would fall into the category that Arendt calls underprivileged,
and therefore one with which Arendt (1959) claimed to identify (in the pedestrian
sense) as a German Jewess and a pariah. And, in many cases, the American Indian
identity is visible via physical characteristics and other signifiers and puts people in a
position of always being associated as such in the private and social, as Arendt explains is
the case with African Americans. So what exactly does constitute an identity under
attack?
As seen in Reflections on Little Rock, how Arendt discriminates between
various forms of human activity depends on the ways in which she chooses to categorize
them. For example, she places publicly funded schools outside of the public in the realm

of the social and private. Where would she place publicly funded museums? She
categorizes museums into the realm of the public in Reflections on Little Rock in the
following passage:
There cannot be a right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of
amusement, because many of these are in the realm of the purely social where
the right to free association, and therefore to discrimination, has grater validity
than the principle of equality. (This does not apply to theatres and museums,
where people obviously do not congregate for the purpose of associating with
each other) (p. 52, emphasis added).
We do not go to museums like the Smithsonian for free social interaction,
according to Arendt, and in cases like this, they are publicly funded institutions, so would
they not fall into the realm of the public? What about when the content of the museum is
entirely based on an identity constructed in the social, or on identity politics as is the case
of the National Museum of the American Indian? As identity relates to public memory,
the museum purports a re-articulation of history based on collaborative efforts made by
American Indian leaders and curators from individual nations. In addition, another goal
of the museum is to portray American Indian culture through current practices, rather
than as an extinct people, as has been the critique of many museums displaying a
conquered American Indian heritage as an object of empire (Vizenor, 1990).
While the National Museum of the American Indian exists in a space that Arendt
has defined as public, large portions of its content do not address political issues,
according to Arendts definition. However, discourse surrounding the museum suggests
that by other standards, its materialization was political. Congress passed an act to build
the museum in 1989, and the following year, Congress passed the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, requiring the repatriation of the
human remains and other cultural patrimony in the possession of many museums,
including the Smithsonian. Both acts of legislation would be based on movements that
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were pre-political, according to Arendts logic, and she would suggest that both should be
sorted out in the social. How would Arendt connect identity politics, and in particular,
the acts of legislation mentioned with the concept of eros?
Even the very titles of the exhibits within the National Museum of the American
Indian suggest an associational grouping by birth and spiritual practices, which Arendt
would clearly associate with eros. They include, Our Lives, Our Peoples, and Our
Universes. The our indicates association by intimacy, shared experience, or birth.
These identities based on birth are associated with the private realm of basic needs, or the
social realm of association, according to Arendt, rather than with action based on
discourse. However, the Our Peoples confuses definitions on these terms a bit. Within
the exhibit, there is a wall with many different pictures of peoples faces displaying
disparate features. The wall explains that although all of these people do not appear to
be of American Indian descent, they each identify as an American Indian. The lesson is
that those who identify as American Indians come in many different shapes and sizes and
live in various locations from reservations to urban settings, whether or not they appear
to be American Indian via traditional clothing or common physical traits. A tour guide
stops by the wall and explains to a group of visitors that You could be walking by an
American Indian and not even know it. The message that the museum suggests is that
Indian-ness is not defined by signifiers like appearance or based on whether one acts as
an Indian. On two levels, then, this kind of identification conflicts with Arendts notion
of identity, including the notion that one must act in the space of appearances. The
museum seems to suggest that it is not necessary to do either of these things to identify
with this group, but that birth, or Arendts notion of whatness is the only prerequisite.
The museum also rejects the notion that blood quantum defines ones Indian-

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ness. One exhibit explains that the government created blood quantum measures in order
to certify American Indians, to provide state-funded benefits, and to define who was
Indian. It was not until the 1970s that American Indian Nations began to provide
official certification to members of their own group. In addition, the museum featured
exhibits from a few groups of American Indians that are not recognized by state or
federal governments. Arendt, like the message on the exhibit wall, would likely be
critical of the states involvement in designating identity based on birth as this is not a
political matter, according to her logic. Perhaps, this kind of government surveillance
would also disallow one to disclose their identity via action through pre-definition based
on genetics.
Another question is whether Arendt would agree with some of the issues being
debated over land claims. Arendt herself sued the German government for compensation
post-Holocaust due to the time she was deprived of her ability to teach, and was stateless
as a result of the persecution of the Jews (Kristeva, 2001). Would she agree with the
retribution for the land, water, and other resources that were appropriated through the
removal of American Indians from the lands they had originally inhabited? In another
discussion that she had on the housing shortage, according to Benhabib (1996), Arendt
suggested that the shortage of housing itself was a pre-political, social/private issue, but
that the influx of immigrants causing the shortage was the political issue. How does
Arendt make distinctions like this? How would this relate to retribution for resources
actually taken by the United States Government? Must the government not take
responsibility when it has committed a radical act of evil, such as genocide, and removed
from a people their ability to make their livelihood (or subsistence activities in this case),

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and might taking responsibility not result in some form of retribution by the government?
How does Arendts own personal experience relate to this issue?
Arendt saw as problematic the retribution-based argument of Jewish people postHolocaust, as she expressed in Eichmann in Jerusalem. She explained that Eichmann
was being punished not for what he had done, but for what the Jews had suffered (p. 5).
Through a highly publicized trial, Jewish leaders wanted to see Eichmann punished in
Jerusalem as a kind of retribution for the hardship the Jews had endured. This is what
Arendt might have explained as a kind of victim centered approach. Rather than
focusing on responsibility and accountability, the focus is shifted to the victim. Arendt
(1963) argued that there was no appropriate punishment available for the radical evil that
had occurred during the Holocaust, and since Men are unable to forgive what they
cannot punish and they are unable to punish what has turned out to be unforgivable,
sentencing Eichmann to his death could never have been compensation for the pain
endured by the Jews. As Dolan (2004) points out, retribution reproduces a kind of
violence by suggesting that one can only undo an action with more destruction.
Dolans argument is in keeping with Arendts discussion in Between Past and Future, in
which she describes man as being engaged in a perpetual, agonistic struggle with the past.
His only means of fighting a battle with the past is forgiveness so that he might move
forward into the future. It is, of course, essential for man to remember the past and the
promises made there, but he should not be seduced by the comforts of it. Although
Arendts discussion of radical evil suggests that certain behavior is beyond mans
comprehension and therefore also beyond forgiveness, she also suggests that no
punishment could ever adequately address such acts. Because only forgiveness allows
one to start anew, Jewish leaders putting Eichmann on trial were not engaged in a

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political act, which might have allowed for a natality for the newly established
Palestine. But, by the same token, Arendt warns against the allure of an over-glorified
future and the promise of progress that it offers. She also may have been critical of
Jewish leaders in Palestine for offering too many promises to Jewish people. Arendt
suggested in her discussion of Eichmanns trial that it was inspired by the drive to
promote nationalism for the newly established Palestine, which she suggested was as
exclusionary as totalitarian regimes because it was only inclusive of Jewish identity.
Based on the argument that Arendt makes about the problems of retributive
justice, it is unlikely that she would agree with a politics of redistribution, which is
addressed in several locations within the Our Lives and Our Peoples exhibits of the
Museum of the American Indian. Retributive justice, after all, is not adequate
compensation for the kind of radical evil that was committed against the American
Indians via colonization. As with the housing issue described by Benhabib, Arendt
would likely categorize issues like land and water rights as pre-political, or part of the
social and private realms. In addition, her argument in The Human Condition that private
property is necessary for one to be able to hide in order to reproduce themselves for the
public realm, as a life constantly in the light of publicity creates a kind of shallow
existence, suggests that she supports the notion of private property, which arguably is the
same phenomenon that deprived American Indians of the lives they knew before
colonization (HC, p. 71). Although Arendt separates privacy from intimacy, she would
likely suggest that land rights are house-keeping issues, which do not belong in the
political realm, but rather, the private or social. These examples might not necessarily
constitute intimacy for Arendt, but they would likely represent the pre-political.

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While some of the issues addressed within the rock-formation inspired walls of
the Museum of the American Indian would certainly constitute the pre-political for
Arendt, her discussion in Between Past and Future suggests that she might agree with the
rethinking of history, as is promoted as a main message of the museum. As so many
thinkers on post-colonialism have written, those who win the battles also dominate
history and public memory. Arendt also points out this fact in Eichmann in Jerusalem
when describing the strange craze of Nazi leaders in creating museums
commemorating their enemies. She writes, During the war, several services competed
bitterly for the honor of establishing anti-Jewish museums and libraries (p. 37). Arendt
suggests that it is tempting for us to be coaxed by the past told through dominant stories
because they are so familiar to us. Therefore, the re-articulation of history, as co-written
by historically subjugated groups might provide the kind of stasis, which Arendt
suggested is necessary for opening up thought. By the same token, she would encourage
a re-thinking of history, rather than merely cutting all ties with the past in order to move
forward. She might even agree with the Our Lives exhibit, which displays and
discusses several of the broken treaties made between Native peoples and the United
States Government. This display helps visitors to remember the promises made in the
past, and brings them back into the space of appearances. Again, promises are essential
for Arendt because human behavior is so unpredictable. While the unpredictability of
human action can promote plurality and natality, it can also be misleading when promises
are broken, as was the case with the many unfulfilled treaties signed by the United States
Government. Arendt might suggest that it is up to the government to take responsibility
for the promises made. However, exactly what this would entail is not clear as Arendt
would likely not argue for retribution and redistribution as political issues, and many of

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the issues raised such as land rights and recognition of social difference might also be
considered pre-political identity politics for her.
In a similar endeavor to connect Arendts notion of eros and philia with a popular
cultural text, James Jasinski provides some guidelines for understanding the concepts
through examples from the 1983 movie The Big Chill. While his article is useful in
understanding eros and philia as demonstrated in interactions between the characters, his
explication is somewhat lacking when he mentions that these concepts can also be
understood through cultural politics (p. 481). What is unclear in Jasinskis article is
how identity politics, if a form of intimacy, wears itself out, exhausting future
possibilities. After all, identity politics is not always invested in the immediacy of the
moment, and it seeks action by which the people associated with it might enjoy material
rewards, greater recognition, representation, and enlarged thinking in the social as well
as the political realms (p. 477). Under Jasinskis definition of intimacy, it is hard to
understand how issues like land claims might fit into Arendts understanding of intimacy
at all, aside from the fact that they are claims that are based on whatness, rather than
whoness. Are sustainable relationships not often based on shared experiences and
narratives? Is it not the goal of Arendts political actors to make themselves understood
through expressive and communicative action? Therefore, why are some narratives
considered intimate merely because they are associated with particular identities while
others are considered normative and rational? It is likely that Arendt, for example, is
working under assumptions that she has acquired by nature of the country in which she
was brought up. For example, in Reflections on Little Rock, she mentions that because
she is European, she does not understand the kind of bigotry that exists in the American
South against African American people. Her notion of private property and who has

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historically been privy to it and how it has served to under-privilege others is another
example of her own bias. She brings these assumptions into the political, but is unwilling
to admit that her way of knowing has been affected by her whatness, or where she has
been raised. Those coming from an Indian nation, however, are not allowed the same
privilege, because their understanding of the world is not necessarily taken for granted by
those already predominantly working within the polis (White men). Thus, while Jasinski
suggests that the downfall of identity politics is that it assumes a common bond through
shared experience, he does not recognize the shared experiences that already exist
within the polis.1 Moreover, neither Arendt nor Jasinski account for potential internal
exclusion, once American Indians are able to participate within the polis. (After all,
American Indians were not even allowed to vote until 1924, when they became citizens
according to the Museum of the American Indian). Moreover, what American Indians
may take as a great deed might not be considered great by those dominating the
polis. Therefore, it makes the matter of distinguishing difference as intimate not
simply because it is associated with race, but because it is associated with the wrong race.
The most vexing issue haunting one attempting to explicate Arendts notions of
eros and philia are again, the process by which she distinguishes. The ability to judge
and to distinguish are precisely what Arendt suggests that relationships based on eros are
lacking as they are more commonly associated with decisions based on passion.
However, although judgment is done autonomously, it requires an anticipated
communication with others (1954, p. 220). The problem is precisely that certain issues
are related to particular racial groups because history has created that situation for them,
Benhabib (1988) expresses the importance of friendship in a political ethic, and its importance in
seeking a common goal, although her notion seems to evoke compassion and common understanding. She
writes, These moral attitudes of civic friendship and solidarity involve the extension of the sympathy and
affection we naturally feel toward those closest to us onto larger human groups and thus personalize
justice (p. 47). Arendt would likely criticize this kind of attitude as victim centered although they seem
useful to fostering a care for the world.
1

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like the situation of the Jews. So, how may we decide which issues belong in the public
and private realms? Benhabib provides a cursory explanation of this in citing exchanges
between Arendt and Mary McCarthy. Arendt explains:
There are things where the right measure can be figured out. These things can
really be administered and are not then subject to public debate. Public debate
can only deal with things whichif we want to put it negativelywe cannot
figure out with certaintyOn the other hand, everything which can really be
figured out, in the sphere Engels called the administration of thingsthese are
social things in general. That they should then be subject to debate seems to me
phony and a plague (Benhabib, p. 156, citing Arendt in The Recovery of the
Public World, p. 316).
Of course, Arendts explanation may leave her critics unsatisfied. She is not
suggesting that all administrative activity is intimate, but she does suggest that it does not
belong in the public realm. Arendts comments leave one wondering just what has been
made common sense. Her sense of common sense, like ones ability to tell right from
wrong, is likely influenced by her own experiences, not just her capacity for thought.
The irony is that for Arendt, thought does require some degree of self-reflexivity, as
discussed by Benhabib (1988). The connection between what issues make it into the
public realm and ones own sense of what constitutes the political seems to be left to
some kind of rationality, which Arendt does not seem to further explicate. Therefore, it is
unclear, again, how Jasinski links cultural politics, like land and water rights, directly to
the intimate, non-political. They are based largely on issues that Arendt would call
private and administrative, but not necessarily intimate. Again, as Benhabib points out,
Arendts notion of private does not always equate intimacy. In addition, cultural politics
are often not necessarily concerned with merely the immediate or even with what Arendt
might call compassion, but with the sustainability of given groups via resources. Arendt
suggests that it is necessary to possess some kind of judgment, informed by thinking,
which will inspire the will and therefore lead to action. The intimate, as described by

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Jasinski, blurs judgment because it is not based on thinking. However, sustainability via
basic resources is vital for the private and social realms. The private and social realms, in
turn, are necessary for the sustainability of the political realm. The political realm is
sustained by pluralism. Following this logical chain, we might conclude that the
maintenance of basic resources is not only future-oriented, but necessary to fuel political
participation. While Arendt would suggest that the disproportionate issues of poverty
predominant within some Indian populations is pre-political as an issue of the hungry
masses, she would certainly agree that these conditions should be addressed via the
administrative in order to sustain the political realm and true plural participation within it.
Therefore, although these issues might not be political for Arendt, they certainly warrant
attention. They are future-oriented and not merely guided by passion or compassion, but
the simple, basic, future-oriented necessities of life, and are therefore hardly intimate by
Jasinskis own definition, nor are they attempting to fulfill some immediate need of men
in dark times as Arendt (1955) describes.
Also problematic is Jasinskis discussion of why those in traditionally
marginalized communities lack the kinds of skills that will allow them to participate in
politics. He writes: First, intimate communities existing on the excluded margins will
lack the practical political resources (for example, the ability to organize coalitions, the
creativity to construct a political vocabulary that can appeal to diverse groups) necessary
for generating social change (p. 481). The act passed by congress in 1989 to build the
National Museum of the American Indian and the subsequent passage of NAGPRA in
1990 requesting the return of cultural patrimony to various Indian Nations are the result
of the very organized advocacy which Jasinski suggests is unlikely from marginalized
groups. American Indian politicians like Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Smithsonian

18

Secretary Lawrence Small, Richard West, the National Museum of the American Indian
director, and Alejandro Toledo Manrique, the indigenous president of Peru, all presenting
quite eloquent speeches at the opening ceremonies of the National Museum of the
American Indian, might be examples of the kinds of unlikely advocates of which Jasinski
speaks (C-SPAN, 2004).
The two acts of legislation mentioned, according to their advocates, evoke a great
deal of social change in the emphasis they place on the re-articulation of history for the
sake of public memory. In addition, the museum might be a material representation of
what Arendt (1958), borrowing from Aristotle, would call an epideictic celebration of
excellence. The first major monument to the American Indian in Washington D.C., the
museum serves to commemorate the great perseverance of American Indians in the face
of extreme opposition, the high percentage of American Indians serving in the Armed
Forces, the participation of particular Nations like the Oneida in the construction of major
American cities like New York, and other great deeds which have contributed to the
social realm and the sustainability of the political realm. American Indian politicians like
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell are also commemorated in the museum for their
advocacy of American Indian issues over the years regarding poverty, political advocacy,
and land rights.2 Each of these examples are based not on whatness, but rather, on
action with the emphasis of starting anew in the face of worldlessness (C-SPAN, 2004).
The museum also documents many of the traditional subsistence activities
performed by Native peoples. According to Benhabib, Arendt (1958) would not have
considered the kind of labor done in the private, or the satisfaction of basic necessity,
as part of the economic or political, as was one of her major points of contention with
For example, a temporary exhibit running at the National Museum of the American Indian in Spring, 2004
was devoted entirely to the private, social, and political accomplishments of Campbell.
2

19

Marx. Arendt contended that those animal laborans merely devoted to basic labor were
not fully human as their activities aimed merely to satisfy basic needs rather than the
purposes of a higher political order. Conversely, private labor done in the home was
essential to the structure of the economy and reproduction of laborers, according to Marx
(Benhabib, 1996).
Arendt (1958) argued adamantly that labor belonged in the private, work in the
social, and action in the public. To consider the emergence of oikos (the private) in the
polis was to allow the rise of the private into the political, disallowing political action,
according to Arendt. However, one can see the necessary connection of the two clearly
in the case of indigenous groups still dependent on the land and its features for survival.
Many American Indians today are unable to perform traditional subsistence activities
because of environmental pollution. One of many examples is the condition of the Pomo
Indian Nation in Northern California, which has heeded warnings by health officials of
the high mercury content in the local lake linked with runoff from mining activities.
Health officials suggest that high mercury content is a major cause of damage to
developing fetuses (United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 2004). Therefore, the
Pomos can no longer perform the basic subsistence activities by which they have
traditionally sustained themselves, forcing them to consume more mass produced
products.3 American Indians are encouraged to assimilate into consumer culture when
other alternatives have been collapsed by the growth of consumerism itself. Would the
environmental issue for Arendt, then, have been a political one, as it combines the issues
of basic necessity with economy and environmental regulation? An essay by Trevor
Norris (2004) describes Arendts investment in the question of the environment and
Note, there is no exhibit addressing the problems encountered by the Pomo Nation in the National
Museum of the American Indian, but many other issues involving other Indian Nations and problems with
the environment are documented. The Pomo example here is only one of many.
3

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consumerism as he interpreted it in The Human Condition. Arendt might agree that


through the modern condition of hyper consumption, people feel increasingly worldless
due to the private/social/political conflation, as was seen in the post-911 political
promotion of increased surveillance (what Arendt might call publicity) and promotion of
consumption.
Arendts major concern with the rise of the private/social into the polis is the
danger to political life. As Norris points out, in the rise of consumer culture, systems of
signification become increasingly devoted to promoting consumption rather than
conveying other useful information. As American pragmatists like John Dewey (1927)
suggested, mass mediated systems increasingly confused political matters in modern
times. Deweys solution was for citizens to make the best decisions possible based on
available information, while other intellectuals like Walter Lippmann (1925) proposed
employment of professional representatives who were well informed enough about
political issues to make decisions for the lesser motivated, able, and informed citizens
that they represented. In each of these cases, the main concern was the relationship of
public signifiers in maintaining a healthy political life. Moreover, the kinds of appeals
made by modern advertisers promoting consumption such as appeals to emotion,
compassion, and love would fit into the category of intimacy for Arendt. Using
Baudrillards notion of commodities as signs and the importance of advertising in
socialization, Norris explains that products are increasingly representing not just their
function, but another fetizhized value for consumers. Consumers increasingly seek to
define their social identity via the false individuality signified through the possession of
particular cultural capital (McChesney, 2004). In addition, McChesney describes the
push for politicians to deregulate media ownership rules, allowing for a few, elite

21

commercial voices to control the airwaves that are technically supposed to serve the
publics interest, necessity, and convenience.4 In recent times, the process of
consumption has sped up, creating more waste and diminishing natural resources, and
arguably even leading to war over resources. In addition, the attempts to construct social
identities, whether individual or collective, based on consumption would be considered
apolitical by Arendt.
According to Norris, the issues of consumption increasingly ascend into the
political while at the same time the environment is destroyed, as is documented in
exhibits explaining land/water rights issues in the Museum of the American Indian. For
Arendt, the modern age encourages the ascent of the private/social into the political,
which traps people in the cycle of production/consumption, rather than allowing them the
freedom of action and natality. In addition, while work has traditionally been associated
with the production of goods sustaining exchange, it is also necessary to politics. Prepolitical, modern times increasingly collapse the distinction between labor and work.
Goods are produced and consumed immediately under this new system, whether they
satisfy basic needs or the desire for signification in the social. Through this accelerated
process of decay, the goods produced through labor/work do not sustain the structures
necessary for political life as Arendt described in The Human Condition (Norris, p. 7).
People are increasingly caught up in consumption, rather than interest in political life,
and the acquisition of goods transcends the boundaries of the political and become
conflated with the notion of freedom. The breakdown of the boundaries between the
three realms of the human condition increasingly allows the non-political to seep into the
political and the private realm to be invaded by publicity. In turn, bonds forged through
the emotional appeals of advertisers and politicians promoting consumption would be
4

As was prescribed by the Communications Act of 1934.

22

considered those founded in eros, or identities not constructed by the actions of those
who claim them, but rather, marketing teams who promote them.

Springing Forth Anew in Modern Times


In modern times, it becomes increasingly more difficult to distinguish the three
realms in which human activity takes place as outlined by Arendt. As politicians
promote irresponsible consumption to fuel the economy, and even the water we drink has
become increasingly fetishized via fancy packaging and marketing, it is difficult to know
whether the information by which we make decisions about the political is not informed
merely by those associated with dominated history, communication, and politics.
Therefore, Arendt would likely agree that a re-evaluation of the past is necessary in order
to understand how we might act in the future. Such a collaborative re-evaluation is
offered at the National Museum of the American Indian, according to its creators. While
Arendt, at times, distinguishes issues common to one social identity as part of the social
or private, it would be difficult to argue that groups historically excluded from the public
should not be allowed to shine forth in the space of appearances now simply because
their narrative differs from those currently dominating the polis. After all, it is the one
who dominates who gets to set the rules, as well as to tell the history. Simply writing off
some issues as intimate because they are necessary for satisfying basic needs does not
make them any less political in the many other future-oriented functions they serve.
Moreover, with the collapse of Arendts realms in modern society, issues once considered
basic are now quite complicated. Action remains the only option for starting anew in the
worldlessness of modern times.

23

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