Hannah Arendt: The Appearances of Estrangement

The times we live in are perverse in diverse ways, not only, but also not least, politically. In 2016 we elected a president whose appearance in public is avaricious, destructive, deceitful, predatory, and incoherent. It would be hard to imagine Balzac or Dickens depicting a fictional character more brazenly self-absorbed than this brag-gart who has no hesitation in calling himself "like, really smart." Was it Trump alone who visualized himself presiding over—literally, sitting before—more than 300 million Americans? According to him, that qualifies "as not smart, but genius." But what are the odds, one wonders, of this vulgarian stinging and awakening us, the people, from the political narcolepsy we've dreamed in for the past 50 years?

The first part of this paper examines the German noun Entfremdung. The second part discusses an op-ed piece by Susan Rice. The third part deals with the act of estrangement and its forfeiture of human plurality. The fourth sorts through Arendt's many meanings of the word plurality. In the fifth part, the modern growth of worldlessness is seen through the lens of the loss of the human faculties of speech and action. The sixth part shows how Arendt learned from Homer the uniqueness of human life. The final part cites Schiller's poem, The Maiden from Afar, which revealed Arendt to those closest to her and to herself.