Word: arendt
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Time created its distortion of Miss Arendt's views by omission. It was glad to quote her saying "We know to our sorrow that freedom has been better preserved in countries where no revolution ever broke out, no matter how outrageous the circumstances of the powers that be." But you won't find in Time equally important statements which are less to its liking: "When we were told that by freedom we meant free enterprise, we did very little to dispel this monstrous falsehood," or Miss Arendt's observation on the "unchained, unbridled private initiative of capitalism, which...
Part of what Time said, however, is true: Miss Arendt has looked hard at modern revolutions, and decided that they do not do what the revolutions of the eighteenth century tried to do--create an institutional basis within which freedom to participate in government and to enjoy civil liberties will be effectively guaranteed...
...Nothing," Miss Arendt says, "could be more obsolete than to attempt to liberate mankind from poverty by political means.. No revolution has ever solved the 'social problem'... Although the whole record of past revolutions demonstrates beyond doubt that every attempt to solve the social problem with political means leads to terror, and it is terror which sends revolutions to their doom, it can hardly be denied that to avoid this fatal mistake is almost impossible under conditions of mass poverty...
...Miss Arendt's realistic pessimism about the prospects for revolutions that will "constitute freedom" is the keystone of a world view which postulates the disappearance of war. She thinks that the destructive power of hydrogen bombs precludes their use in "rational" conflicts. When war has disappeared from the political landscape, revolution will remain as the only violent catalyst of social change...
...crucial aspect of Miss Arendt's thinking is that, unlike some "peace" thinkers, she does not equate the disappearance of war with an East-West detente. Misunderstanding this point, several members of the Cambridge "peace" community have convinced themselves that Miss Arendt is about to join their ranks. In fact, she emphasizes that although war may become obsolete, the totalitarian-free world struggle "in which so much is at stake" will go on. She suggests that it will probably be won by the side which learns to understand revolution, which, one might add, does not seem to augur well...