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Hannah Arendt and the Uses of History: Imperialism, Nation, Race, and Genocide
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) first argued that there were continuities between the age of European imperialism and the age of fascism in Europe in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). She claimed that theories of race, notions of racial and cultural superiority, and the right of ‘superior races’ to expand territorially were themes that connected the white settler colonies, the other imperial possessions, and the fascist ideologies of post-Great War Europe. These claims have rarely been taken up by historians. Only in recent years has the work of scholars such as Jürgen Zimmerer and A. Dirk Moses begun to show in some detail that Arendt was correct. This collection does not seek merely to expound Arendt’s opinions on these subjects; rather, it seeks to use her insights as the jumping-off point for further investigations – including ones critical of Arendt – into the ways in which race, imperialism, slavery and genocide are linked, and the ways in which these terms have affected the United States, Europe, and the colonised world.
- GenresPoliticsPhilosophy
292 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 2007
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November 29, 2009
Since ancient times, human beings have killed, maimed, enslaved and otherwise mistreated each other. Nevertheless, the atrocities of totalitarian regimes between the wars do have a peculiarly dreadful quality. This collection of intelligent essays reassesses Hannah Arendt, a major post-war commentator on human cruelty, looking particularly at her book The Origins of Totalitarianism. Here, Arendt emphasized the uniqueness of totalitarianism, finding its origin in pre-First World War colonialism which “boomeranged” to create racist and non-democratic theories and practices in Europe itself.
Eliza von Jeoden-Forgy starts by giving a flavour of German South West Africa, writing of the rapes, massacres, trophy beheadings and casual executions and floggings that culminated in the near-extinction of the Herero people between 1904 and 1907. She claims that “colour-coded racism”, not only removed native peoples from the protection of the ordinary law, it also helped insulate an essentially humane German identity from colonial brutality.
In a not-dissimilar argument, Robert Bernasconi claims that Arendt wanted to insulate the western and especially the Kantian tradition from the taint of imperialism and totalitarianism. Unfortunately, he says, Arendt’s claim that racism is incompatible with the Western political and moral standards of the past does not bear close scrutiny, for even Kant had declined to oppose slavery and had supported racial segregation. In this context, I also enjoyed Marcel Stoezler’s more straightforwardly historical account which relates the unfolding of anti-Semitism to the decline of the guilds and the rise of liberal capitalism.
Though Arendt was centrally concerned with Nazism, she also considered the Stalinist atrocities. Richard Shorten notes, however, that Europeans, particularly on the Left, for many years failed to recognize the crimes of Stalin. Even now, there are unseemly competitions to emphasize one set of atrocities more than another. Ned Curthoys says that writers such as Camus, Bourdieu and Feraoun were dismayed the atrocities perpetrated by Algerian revolutionaries just as they were by those of the French state, but that others - including Sartre and Fanon - gave the revolutionaries unqualified support.
Several writers, indeed, allege that Arendt herself believed racism towards Africans was more excusable than that towards Chinese, Indian or Jewish people. This is most directly addressed in a piece by Stephen Douglas Maloney, who discusses Arendt’s Reflections on Little Rock which questioned the wisdom of sending schoolchildren to oppose segregation in schools. Interestingly, he notes that in writing about America, Arendt was much influenced by Montesquieu and Tocqueville.
Robert Eaglestone addresses Arendt’s famous association, as her teacher and lover, with Martin Heidegger. Her Heideggerian inheritance reveals itself in the way she sees imperialism, racism and totalitarianism as part of the “subterranean stream” of European history. Heidegger, notes Eaglestone, traces the way in which productionist metaphysics turns the world into a world of use. Arendt, however, understands totalitarianism to take this further in the project of changing human nature itself.
Two articles consider the place of Darwinism in relation to racism and imperialism. André Duarte claims that this “biopolitics”, by regarding the life of the individual, the race, the people or community as the supreme good, by a paradox made it possible for politics to become murderous in the struggle for survival.
Tony Barta asks if it is “fair to draw the gentle scientist Darwin into the history of genocide?” concluding that Darwin did indeed accept the “extinction of less improved forms” of human beings. He similarly finds that Marx talked sufficiently about the “transcendent progress of history” to justify the excesses of a Stalin or a Mao.
Vlasta Jaluic revisits Arendt’s celebrated consideration of Eichmann’s “thoughtlessness” as he committed unspeakable crimes. She claims that, since this kind of “thoughtlessness” is a widespread human trait, then the Holocaust must be seen as eminently repeatable. She proves her point with reference to the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and their worst single atrocity, the massacre at Srebrenica.
I have a few complaints. Most of the Nazi leaders were old soldiers, Germany and Austria having reacted differently in defeat to the way Britain and France did in victory. War, in its own way, exemplifies the expendability of people (both friends and foes) for the greater good, so it is surprising that there is no mention of the Great War. Mussolini, Franco and other dictators are similarly absent, yet it is plain that Hitler, to some degree, modelled himself on Mussolini. Other points could have been expanded. For example, Germany and Russia were small players in the late nineteenth century scramble for Empire; whereas the largest imperial powers, Britain and France remained stubbornly democratic. It is also clear that the much older empires of Austria-Hungary and Russia had had a ramshackle version of totalitarianism – replete with autocracy, bureaucracy, racism and a secret police - long before Hitler and Stalin.
Nevertheless, these essays are a useful testimony to an important thinker writing on a subject that has lost none of its topicality.
Eliza von Jeoden-Forgy starts by giving a flavour of German South West Africa, writing of the rapes, massacres, trophy beheadings and casual executions and floggings that culminated in the near-extinction of the Herero people between 1904 and 1907. She claims that “colour-coded racism”, not only removed native peoples from the protection of the ordinary law, it also helped insulate an essentially humane German identity from colonial brutality.
In a not-dissimilar argument, Robert Bernasconi claims that Arendt wanted to insulate the western and especially the Kantian tradition from the taint of imperialism and totalitarianism. Unfortunately, he says, Arendt’s claim that racism is incompatible with the Western political and moral standards of the past does not bear close scrutiny, for even Kant had declined to oppose slavery and had supported racial segregation. In this context, I also enjoyed Marcel Stoezler’s more straightforwardly historical account which relates the unfolding of anti-Semitism to the decline of the guilds and the rise of liberal capitalism.
Though Arendt was centrally concerned with Nazism, she also considered the Stalinist atrocities. Richard Shorten notes, however, that Europeans, particularly on the Left, for many years failed to recognize the crimes of Stalin. Even now, there are unseemly competitions to emphasize one set of atrocities more than another. Ned Curthoys says that writers such as Camus, Bourdieu and Feraoun were dismayed the atrocities perpetrated by Algerian revolutionaries just as they were by those of the French state, but that others - including Sartre and Fanon - gave the revolutionaries unqualified support.
Several writers, indeed, allege that Arendt herself believed racism towards Africans was more excusable than that towards Chinese, Indian or Jewish people. This is most directly addressed in a piece by Stephen Douglas Maloney, who discusses Arendt’s Reflections on Little Rock which questioned the wisdom of sending schoolchildren to oppose segregation in schools. Interestingly, he notes that in writing about America, Arendt was much influenced by Montesquieu and Tocqueville.
Robert Eaglestone addresses Arendt’s famous association, as her teacher and lover, with Martin Heidegger. Her Heideggerian inheritance reveals itself in the way she sees imperialism, racism and totalitarianism as part of the “subterranean stream” of European history. Heidegger, notes Eaglestone, traces the way in which productionist metaphysics turns the world into a world of use. Arendt, however, understands totalitarianism to take this further in the project of changing human nature itself.
Two articles consider the place of Darwinism in relation to racism and imperialism. André Duarte claims that this “biopolitics”, by regarding the life of the individual, the race, the people or community as the supreme good, by a paradox made it possible for politics to become murderous in the struggle for survival.
Tony Barta asks if it is “fair to draw the gentle scientist Darwin into the history of genocide?” concluding that Darwin did indeed accept the “extinction of less improved forms” of human beings. He similarly finds that Marx talked sufficiently about the “transcendent progress of history” to justify the excesses of a Stalin or a Mao.
Vlasta Jaluic revisits Arendt’s celebrated consideration of Eichmann’s “thoughtlessness” as he committed unspeakable crimes. She claims that, since this kind of “thoughtlessness” is a widespread human trait, then the Holocaust must be seen as eminently repeatable. She proves her point with reference to the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and their worst single atrocity, the massacre at Srebrenica.
I have a few complaints. Most of the Nazi leaders were old soldiers, Germany and Austria having reacted differently in defeat to the way Britain and France did in victory. War, in its own way, exemplifies the expendability of people (both friends and foes) for the greater good, so it is surprising that there is no mention of the Great War. Mussolini, Franco and other dictators are similarly absent, yet it is plain that Hitler, to some degree, modelled himself on Mussolini. Other points could have been expanded. For example, Germany and Russia were small players in the late nineteenth century scramble for Empire; whereas the largest imperial powers, Britain and France remained stubbornly democratic. It is also clear that the much older empires of Austria-Hungary and Russia had had a ramshackle version of totalitarianism – replete with autocracy, bureaucracy, racism and a secret police - long before Hitler and Stalin.
Nevertheless, these essays are a useful testimony to an important thinker writing on a subject that has lost none of its topicality.
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