Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin: Freedom, Politics and Humanity

by Kei Hiruta

For the first time, the full story of the conflict between two of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers—and the lessons their disagreements continue to offerTwo of the most iconic thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) fundamentally disagreed on central issues in politics, history and philosophy. In spite of their overlapping lives and experiences as Jewish émigré intellectuals, Berlin disliked Arendt intensely, saying that she represented “everything that I detest most,” while Arendt met Berlin’s hostility with indifference and suspicion. Written in a lively style, and filled with drama, tragedy and passion, Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin tells, for the first time, the full story of the fraught relationship between these towering figures, and shows how their profoundly different views continue to offer important lessons for political thought today.Drawing on a wealth of new archival material, Kei Hiruta traces the Arendt–Berlin conflict, from their first meeting in wartime New York through their widening intellectual chasm during the 1950s, the controversy over Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, their final missed opportunity to engage with each other at a 1967 conference and Berlin’s continuing animosity toward Arendt after her death. Hiruta blends political philosophy and intellectual history to examine key issues that simultaneously connected and divided Arendt and Berlin, including the nature of totalitarianism, evil and the Holocaust, human agency and moral responsibility, Zionism, American democracy, British imperialism and the Hungarian Revolution. But, most of all, Arendt and Berlin disagreed over a question that goes to the heart of the human what does it mean to be free?

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, Biography, Nonfiction

281 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 23, 2021

Reviews

[Nikolai · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book about the two intellectuals Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt, who shared a similar life story as Jewish emigrés becoming important thinkers of their time. They thought about identical topics such as freedom, totalitarianism, and plurality, resulting in different ideas, leading to conflicts between the two. Well written and definitely a must-read for everyone interested in both Arendt and Berlin.

[Fifi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly well written book weaving together the story of two icons of modern moral/political philosophy. Unbelievably easy to read and engaging, with all the facets of the two thinkers and their theories explored without ever losing the thread. You, as a reader, get the satisfaction of completeness without ever feeling like you’re getting lost in a distraction or detail. Starting firmly and staying rooted throughout in the context of each of Arendt and Berlin’s lives, the book succinctly and effectively explores each of their theories on Freedom (political, and negative/pluralist, respectively), Totalitarianism (from a “how” Nazism arose versus from a “why” Bolsheviks came about), the Eichmann trial (critical versus ‘hands off’) and the Hungarian uprising (idealistic because of how it epitomized freedom, versus uninterested because as a realist and more consequentialist, it was doomed from the start and this gave nothing to be excited or happy about).

It’s just fantastically well written, packed with information without ever growing tiresome, and a very worthwhile read.

[John David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), two of the twentieth century’s greatest political thinkers, didn’t much care for one another. After he planned a meeting between the two giants, Arthur Schlesinger said, “It was a disaster from the start. She was too solemn, portentous, Teutonic, Hegelian for him. She mistook his wit for frivolousness and thought him inadequately serious.” But for all their philosophical differences – Arendt’s woolly continentalism (she was Martin Heidegger’s student and lover) versus Berlin’s thoroughly Anglophone empiricism – they had much in common. Their work asks serious questions about the rise of totalitarianism in Europe. They both witnessed tumultuous political change in their home countries when they were young (Arendt during Hitler’s rise to power, Berlin during the October Revolution). They strongly supported the creation of the nation-state of Israel. Kei Hiruta’s book (Princeton University Press, 2021) is a subtle, well-balanced dual intellectual biography of both figures that doesn’t aim at the root of their personal antipathy toward one another so much as how they studied similar questions but came to such drastically different answers.

In sussing out the differences between Arendt and Berlin, he analyzes their opinions across a wide range of topics – the Holocaust, the essence of freedom, imperialism, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution to name a few – to reach for a comparative understanding in how they differed. They considered liberty essential to a liberal society but envisioned it differently. For Berlin, modern society was notable for its negative liberty (first outlined in his 1958 essay “Two Concepts of Liberty”) in which citizens can choose between several options without obstruction or interference. Closely tied to this is his idea of ethical pluralism, i.e., that in a free society, people will have irreconcilable conceptions of the good and should be allowed to pursue them as they please. Arendt rejected this wholeheartedly. For her, freedom meant “acting and interacting and speaking and deliberating with others about matters of public concern in a formally or informally institutionalized public realm.” In other words, Arendt’s version of freedom is only fully realized in Aristotle’s zoon politikon (“political animal”). It’s only when we step out the front door, leave contemplative life, and begin engaging with others for the ultimate good that we become fully human.

Totalitarianism – which can be thought of as the absence of freedom – was another source of disagreement. Arendt thought totalitarianism was unprecedented in human history before the arrival of Hitler and Stalin. Totalitarianism wasn’t just authoritarianism or despotism, but a complete breakdown of the relationship between citizen and state. While totalitarianism openly flouts manmade laws, it answers to a “higher law” (like the pursuit of racial purity or the proletariat-led revolution against the bourgeoisie). Since everything is subsumed in pursuit of the ultimate law, any ethical means justify the ends, even the eradication of the autonomous human in a concentration camp. Berlin rejected Arendt’s idea that totalitarianism was only a product of the twentieth century but traced it back at least to the more fanatical ideas of Alexander Herzen and even Lenin.

Arendt’s most popular book, a collection of essays she wrote for the New Yorker during the 1961 Eichmann Trial and published as “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” in 1963, was another source of contention. In her now-famous thesis, Arendt didn’t see Eichmann as the embodiment of pathological evil. He was going along to get along, a faceless bureaucrat in a crowd driven more by professional ambition than ideological zeal. What may have been a step too far was when Arendt claimed that the Jewish councils throughout occupied Europe were complicit in the Holocaust. It was certainly too much for Berlin, who accused her of blaming Jews for their own destruction. It was surely one of the reasons that Berlin would describe Arendt in 1991 as “a real bete noire to me – in life and in death.”

Even in a book published by a university press, you’d have good reason to think Hiruta would favor one figure and brush the other aside, but he does nothing of the sort. He points out inconsistencies in and defends both when appropriate. Despite their inability to see eye-to-eye on issues that interested them most, each saw their task as formulating an urgent response to the political catastrophes that defined their age. They also did it with different intellectual tools and from two philosophical schools that looked askance at one another across the English Channel. In that tension, Hiruta’s comparative analysis of these two giants shines as a welcome addition to anyone who is even casually interested in the history of twentieth-century political thought.

[Jakub Dovcik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin shared several commonalities that might presuppose them to at least engage with each other - both were political thinkers studying topics of freedom, inhumanity or the human condition itself, and both studied totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They were Jewish emigres of the old Continental Europe, involuntarily transplanted into the Anglophone world, sharing various friends and acquaintances (like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. or Mary McCarthy).

Nevertheless, they hated each other. Or rather, Berlin despised Arendt, to the extent that he could not even discuss her works, and she did not like him or rather did not think about him too much. Whereas he was an Anglophile, firmly rooted in the British (and Jewish) establishment, she was a permanent outsider, even if she later became more Americanised. Berlin saw himself as a liberal historian of ideas and a member of the English analytical philosophical tradition, whereas Arendt was a political thinker of the republican tradition, with roots in German continental philosophy. Their two physical meetings both ended catastrophically and even two decades after her death, Berlin could not willingly intellectually engage with his real ‘bête noire’.

This fascinating dual intellectual biography puts these two of the greatest political thinkers of the 20th century next to each other and into a conversation. Hiruta presents their individual biographies, including stories of their meetings and interactions, but most of the book considers their individual perspectives on liberty/freedom (used interchangeably, with Berlin’s focus on free and unrestricted choice and Arendt’s on participation in political affairs of a society), the nature of totalitarian regimes (where it is fascinating how popular understanding is closer to Berlin’s view, even though Arendt’s works are much more prominent), the trial of Adolf Eichmann (and the extent to which is Arendt’s blame on the Jewish leadership justified) and lastly on revolutionary movements like the 1956 Hungarian revolution and 1968 student protests (where Arendt was amazed by both, Berlin reacting only to the 1968 and both omitting the nationalistic aspects of 1956).

All through the book, there is a sense of division between Arendt, the independent, bold, self-confident thinker who left Germany in 1933 as a relatively mature person, who worked work Zionist causes throughout the 1930s and 1940s, and managed to just escape the wave of Nazism and even when established in New York, never felt full home - as her home was ultimately always the pre-war German academia more than anything else - but did ultimately did not want to. This is in contrast with Berlin, who wanted to belong to any establishment he could have, who was uncritically supportive of anything English and who envisaged a benign role for nationalism as a way to create a shared commonality.

There is some sense that some part of Berlin’s antipathy towards Arendt was based on her being an independent-minded woman, who experienced and fought against the Nazi rule, thus having a greater personal understanding of the nature of totalitarian regimes, in contrast with his sense of guilt of living through the War in the relative safety of Oxford, New York and Washington D.C.

Besides the topic of freedom, which is naturally exciting, there is an interesting contrast in their understandings of the origins of totalitarianism, which, according to Hiruta, is largely based on their personal backgrounds - Arendt having experienced democratic backsliding in the Weimar Republic in 1920s and 1930s, blaming weak political centre for the rise of Nazis, whereas Berlin being afraid of political fanatics on left and right as a result of his family having to flee then-Russian Riga after the October revolution of 1917.

While Arendt is probably the more famous political thinker in our age (interestingly thanks more to her works of The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem, which are more empirical than her other more philosophical works), it is Berlin’s conceptualisation of the negative liberty, which had such a profound impact on not just the Cold War liberal philosophical tradition, but also arguably the world of politics and public policy. Whereas he saw the danger of totalitarianism lurking behind the prospects of positive liberty (although not to the extent as some caricatures of him make it seem so), Arendt put a high standard on what it meant to be actually free.

A great analysis of their ideas, this book is a very enjoyable study of the development of ideas in and by two fascinating thinkers in a crucial historical period.

[David Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered Hannah Arendt a few years ago, began reading her books and haven't stopped. I find her very relevant to the world today. Isaiah Berlin I hadn't read at all until, quite by chance, after buying this book but before reading it, I came across an essay of his in an anthology I was reading.

So you have two people about the same age who are both Jewish refugees from Europe who become public intellectuals in the UK and US, who are both concerned with history and philosophy with a particular interest in Totalitarianism. They only spoke to each other twice, both times very briefly. Yet Berlin conceived a mighty loathing (that's not too strong a word) for Arendt, both for her personally and her work, that lasted until he died, twenty years after her.

Now it's true that Arendt comes across as admirable more than likable. She is scarily intelligent, stern, humorless and moralistic. Berlin sounds cool, witty and reasonable. But why would he hate her so? In fact, one can't help wondering what was going on behind that charming facade of his. This book has no answers; no revelatory letter or diary has come to light. What the author is doing is analysing their work and recorded opinions to find the points of difference in their thinking and temperaments.

The book is scholarly - the 200 pages of text are followed by 70 pages of notes, references and index - but is also well written and, indeed, a pleasure to read. The author assumes some philosophical knowledge in the reader, but not enough to force you to stop every few pages to look up things. There are some technical words that may be just on the edge of a well-read person's vocabulary, and a few philosophers named who general readers won't have heard of, but you can get by without knowing who they were.

The book focuses a lot on Arendt's most famous works, 'The Origins of Totalitarianism', 'The Human Condition', and 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' and serves as a useful introduction to them as well as an explication. It also provides vivid portraits of these two important figures and their concerns. (The author, incidentally, is strictly non-partisan.)

As a general reader with an interest in philosophy and history I found the book a great read, interesting and insightful.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

“For example, I have discussed how Arendt’s theoretical commitment to political freedom and the council tradition distorted her perspective on the Hungarian Revolution; and how her conception of political freedom in the first place originated from her partial, Nazi-focused understanding of totalitarianism. Similarly, I have discussed how Berlin’s defence of negative liberty was unduly influenced (as he himself later came to acknowledge) by his preoccupation with the Bolshevik model of totalitarian oppression; and how his embrace of England as a quintessentially liberal society coloured his perspective on Britain’s present and its imperial past. In short, in both thinkers’ cases, proximity to the ‘real world’ was a double-edged sword: what gave their works immediacy, urgency, integrity and authority also made them vulnerable to distortion, prejudice and rash judgement. This is a variation of the general problem that is endemic in non-idealised modes of political theorising: if one builds one’s theory ‘from below’, beginning with a close examination of some concrete problem at hand rather than with an abstract model, then the resulting theory is likely to be too influenced by that particular problem, which may be currently urgent and yet may not be more significant than other problems in the long run. If Arendt’s and Berlin’s theories were not grey, the light that illuminated them nevertheless also did them damage.
Both thinkers’ works are immensely rich and rewardingly complicated, packed with ideas that may be elaborated in a number of ways. None the less, they have significant shortcomings too, and those who draw inspiration from either or both are advised to tread carefully. They should resist yielding too easily to the suggestion contained in the seductive words that Plato gives to Socrates in the Republic: ‘Do you think it is at all possible to admire something, and spend time with it, without wanting to imitate it?”

[Sid Groeneman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author--a political theorist with an impressive background of scholarship at universities in Japan, Denmark, and Britain (Oxford)--spent ten years researching and writing this book about two of the most important thinkers and public intellectuals of the 20th century. Like with most readings that include a dose of philosophy, the book requires close attention. But it is far from being abstruse, and most readers with even a modest background with concepts like "freedom" should have little difficulty comprehending the narrative. Hiruta's writing is clear, and his his extensive preparation makes for a thorough and stimulating account.

Readers will be engaged by how the author blends analysis of the two protagonists' differing theories/philosophies with the story of their intense personal antipathies, especially Berlin's toward Arendt. And all of this occurs during the turbulent period when the world was trying to make sense of the Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, and the meaning of the Holocaust. For example, did Soviet Communism and Hitler's Naziism represent something entirely new (totalitarianism), as Arendt maintains, or were those phenomena just 20th century manifestations of tyranny and aggression, similar to what has played out numerous times over human history? And what was the nature of the Nazis' genocide against the Jews? What was the obligation of "functionaries" like Adolph Eichmann? Does the Jewish German leadership bear any moral responsibility?

To his credit, Hiruta avoids taking definitive positions on these complex questions which have generated so much heated argumentation, or on the differences separating Berlin's and Arendt's backgrounds, personalities, and philosophies. Instead, he meticulously and fairly lays out the competing sides in all of their complexity for the reader to decide. A lot is to be learned.

[Frank Strada · Rating 5 out of 5]

As others have said in their reviews, Hiruta's book about Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin was not as difficult or dry a read as one might expect. I had some knowledge of Arendt, mainly through the Eichmann in Jerusalem controversy that made her a household name in the 1960s. In my studies in psychology in the 1970s and 80s, the problem of evil was a topic often discussed. Stanley Milgram's studies in obedience and Phillip Zimbardo's work in "the power of the situation" (see the Stanford Prison simulation) were much discussed and both of these researchers referred to Arendt's work in trying to explain how ordinary Germans could do what they did during the holocaust.

So with this in my background and having just recently been introduced to Berlin's essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, I had to read this new book by Hiruta. The contrast between these two thinkers was quite stark, though they both saw the problem of totalitarianism in their time and struggled to explain it. It's not that their explanations were different so much as they focused on different aspects of the problem. Hiruta does a masterful job delineating these differences and convincingly explains why that was the case. Though I tend to lean toward Arendt's view, especially her explanation of "the banality of evil," both thinkers give such convincing arguments concerning totalitarianism that we would all do well to study them today, considering the increase of "illiberal" states and attempted incursions in the democracy in the US and other Western nations.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely well-researched and well-written work. Thanks to Kei's solid and beautifully introduction and comparison between Arendt and Berlin, someone who has zero political-science or philosophy background like me has enjoyed every page of the book and especially then end of chapter 6 and chapter 7, which brought me into tears.
我认为我自己更像伯林，我skeptical，good-mannered and thin-skinned，我是一个conformist，我憎恶violent extremism，所以我更被阿伦特吸引，她更独立、更勇敢、更impulsive and argumentative；她被批评者描述为自大，我可能无法忍受这样的批评；她希望——甚至呼吁——人们少关注点自己和自己的灵魂，而开始关注我们周围的世界：我没有做到，所以我提醒自己这是她对我的要求。

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and fun. Mostly dedicated to setting up a contrast between the ideas of Arendt and Berlin. The style is clear and not too academic (though I've read Arendt and Berlin, and I'm not sure how a reader who hadn't would fare).

Most amusing is the earlier chapters, where the author discusses the likely personal origin of the conflict, stopping just short of saying the two should've just smooched and gotten it over with.

[HuSharp · Rating 5 out of 5]

全书通过双重视角的对话证明“真正的哲学必须是活的”。
作者从二人犹太背景切入，犹太复国主义在30年代拉近了他们的距离，又在40年代末让他们分道扬镳。
双方对立的自由理论反映了他们对极权主义下的自由和非人性的理解上的冲突——阿伦特将集中营视为极权主义的核心，伯林则从观念史出发，警惕乌托邦主义、科学理性与积极自由可能催生的思想专制。
艾希曼审判为棱镜，折射出两人对历史罪责的差异立场：阿伦特以战时行动为荣，直面犹太合作者的道德困境；伯林则因战争期间对纳粹暴行的认知滞后而抱愧。
最后讨论双方的”理想乡“：阿伦特推崇美国立宪精神，对民众革命保持乐观，同时批判英帝国资产自由主义滋养了纳粹土壤；伯林则试图在民族主义与自由主义间寻找平衡，既认可良性民族认同的价值，又警惕德国"压弯的树枝"民族主义的扭曲形态。

[Joel Silverberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and, by extension, even handed. Perhaps to a fault even for the non-academic reader. I'm sure this isn't what the writer wanted, but I came away feeling closer to Arendt and more distant to Berlin. There are special moments in the book where philosophy, history, and biography intertwine. I don't think I would reread it but there wasn't hardly a dull moment from beginning to end.

[Tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific book!

Well organized, lucid. Must read for anyone interested in Arendt and/or Berlin. The conclusion alone is well worth the money!

[Paul Womack · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most helpful assessment and overview of two writers I have relished over the years. Will be a resource for a long time to come.

[Nicktimebreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

在《忽左忽右》播客听到这本书的消息，借着对柏林和阿伦特的兴趣借来阅读。是一本严谨考究、详细论述的著作，但自己学力有限，不少内容仍然囫囵读完。

[Zhen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good introduction to Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin. I didn't expect this book would intrigue and inspire me so much when I picked it up. As someone who've migrated and lived in both New York and London, reading through Arendt and Berlin's idea of Island of Freedom and Hiruta's analyses, I feel many dots in my life being connected.

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solid comparative analysis of two great thinkers of freedom. Well-sourced, it manages to go both deep and broad on the topic.