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Jerome Kohn Guest Editor’s Introduction Tell all the truth, but tell it scant— Success in Circuit lies —Emily Dickinson THE FIRST PART OF HANNAH ARENDT’S ESSAY “THE GREAT TRADITION ,” subtitled “Law and Power,” which was published in the previous issue of Social Research (74:3, Fall 2007), concluded with a discussion of Montesquieu’s decidedly nontraditional discoveries. In rising order, these included a new conception of the generation and nature of politi­ cal power; the different principles of action (or “virtues”) that move the different forms of government; the reflection of these principles in the laws established by each form of government; and the principles of action’s source in “a basic hum an experience of men living and acting together,” such as “love of equality” and “love of distinction” (725). At about this same time, the way that Arendt chooses to say why “an acting and speaking being existing in the singular cannot possibly be conceived” is noteworthy: Just as there exists no human being as such, but only men and women who in their absolute distinctness are the same, that is, human, so this shared hum an sameness is the equalitythat in turn manifests itself only in the absolute Copyright © Jerom e Kohn 2007. social research Vol 74 : No 4 : Winter 2007 xvii distinction of one equal from another.... If, therefore, action and speech are the two outstanding political activities, distinctness and equality are the two constituent elements of bodies politic (Arendt, 2005:61-62). And a few years later she characterizes hum an plurality itself, “the basic condition of both action and speech,” also in terms of equality and distinction: If men were not equal, they could neither understand each other and those who came before them nor plan for the future and foresee the needs of those who will come after them. If men were not distinct, each hum an being distin­ guished from any other who is, was, or will ever be, they would need neither speech nor action to make themselves understood (Arendt, 1958:175-176, emphasis added). W hat Arendt learned from Montesquieu, though it has received scant attention, is apparent in these quotations and throughout “The Great Tradition.”1 To due it justice, however, would require a threefold exer­ cise of the imagination: initially, to read Montesquieu as if for the first time, rather than as a thinker moored in the mentalité ofthe ancienrégime in pre-revolutionary France; then, to form one’s own images or mental re-presentations of Montesquieu’s unanticipated insights; and finally, to think for oneself the meaning of those images—just as Arendt did. Whereupon it would be possible to assess his influence on her impar­ tially, that is, aware of but not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with her extensions, also highly imaginative, of the bond between them. For example, equality is not for Arendt a m atter of having been born or created equal, nor is it in any sense natural, and the deep relationship of equality to distinction is far from harmonious, as we will see. The second part of Arendt’s essay, subtitled “Ruling and Being Ruled,” which appears for the first time in this issue of Social Research, takes off on a new tack where the first part leaves off. In its whopper of xviii social research an opening sentence (still only half the length of the original) Arendt says in effect: In view of the importance of Montesquieu’s discoveries, let us now look at the tradition “from its beginning,” and not, as we have just done, from its development in the “common ground” of the structures of law and power in republican and hierarchical forms of government. Following Montesquieu’s lead, but going where he did not go, she discloses the basic human experiences of ruling and being ruled as mastery and slavery, which at least in antiquity were relegated to the private rather than the public realm. This concerns her greatly since from the beginning of the tradition of Western political thought the division between those who rule and those who are ruled deter­ mined the only three forms of government the tradition recognized— monarchy, aristocracy, and...

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