Hannah Arendt
German-American political theorist · 1906–1975
Hannah Arendt was a German-born political theorist who wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem. She studied totalitarianism, statelessness and political action, and favoured participatory councils and federal structures.
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Estimated from their documented words and actions. A simplification, not a verdict.
Praised council systems and American federalism as ways to spread power.
Favoured participatory democracy and active citizenship.
Defended political freedom against totalitarian control.
Criticised the nation-state for failing the stateless, while doubting a world government.
In On Violence she separated power from violence.
Wrote on the plight of refugees and their 'right to have rights'.
Separated political freedom from economic questions.
No strong recorded view.
No strong recorded view.
Kept politics secular, treating religion as outside the public sphere.
Mixed: opposed forced school desegregation in Little Rock, while defending civil equality.
The Human Condition warned about technology changing the human condition.