Truth and politics
Truth and Politics is an essay by Hannah Arendt . Arendt reflected on the controversy surrounding her publication Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1964 on the relationship between truth and politics in order to obtain answers to two different problems: “The first concerns the question of whether it is always right to tell the truth. The second resulted from the astonishing number of lies used in the 'Controversy' - lies about what I wrote on the one hand and about the facts I had reported on the other. ”The essay appeared in slightly different English Language 1967 and revised in German again in 1969.
Arendt's understanding of politics
For Arendt, the diversity of those involved is a condition of the political: “ Politics is based on the fact of the plurality of people”. With regard to the soviet republic she prefers , she writes: "that no one can be called happy who does not take part in public affairs, that no one is free who does not know from experience what public freedom is, and that no one is free or happy, who has no power, namely no share in public power. ”Based on the Greek polis , it considers in truth and politics the contemporary threat to meaningful politics. Arendt sees the ability to make judgments when dealing with the truth, both of the ruled and the rulers, as endangered, not only in totalitarian societies , but also in “democratic” communities. She describes the political and moral "sense of direction" as threatened.
Areas of politics and truth
Hannah Arendt states that politics cannot determine what is true. This is not their task, but the field of the philosopher, the scientist, the judge, the historian, the journalist and other professions. Politicians, on the other hand, tended to be “at war” with the truth. Plato's claim to unite truth with politics has only anti-political consequences with regard to politics. On the other hand, Arendt defends politics, since it is the only way for people to "change the world."
Truth in politics
In truth and politics , Hannah Arendt distinguishes the “truths of reason ” from “factual truths ”, since the realm of the political relates to them differently. "When political power attacks rational truths, it transgresses its territory, as it were, while every attack on factual truths takes place within the political realm itself." Arendt describes the manipulation of historiography by politics in connection with attacks by politics on factual truths. As an example, she cites Leon Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution , which is not mentioned in any Soviet history book. The separation of the truth of reason and the truth of fact is, in their view, of great importance for politics. In doing so, she considers factual truth to be far more endangered than rational truth.
There are close connections between the political vision and one's own interests on the one hand and the lie on the other. One consequence of this is that politicians are not so specific about the facts. It is different with truth because it is “that which man cannot change; metaphorically speaking, it is the ground on which we stand and the sky that extends over us. ”So truths stand in opposition to opinions and judgments, which are changeable. "The difficulty lies in the fact that factual truth, like all truth, makes a validity claim that excludes any debate, and the discussion, the exchange and dispute of opinions, is the very essence of all political life." However, the facts remain essential for the judgment of Opinions and limit the possibility of forming an opinion:
"Facts are the subject of opinions, and opinions can come from very different interests and passions, vary widely, and yet all still be legitimate as long as they respect the integrity of the facts to which they relate."
In totalitarian systems, but also in other forms of society, Arendt no longer regards integrity as a given: In dictatorships , inconvenient facts are falsified and suppressed without hesitation, in modern democracy attempts are made to present inconvenient facts as expressions of opinion in order to marginalize them Political to face. According to Arendt, “truthfulness” is only a political virtue in such a situation, which otherwise never represents a virtue in politics.
Transformation of factual truths into opinions
For the modern age , Arendt diagnoses a shift in the conflict between politics and truth. The conflict between politics and truths seems to have disappeared for reasons of reason. Instead, it is the facts that are hostile to politics:
“While there has probably never been a time that was so tolerant of all religious and philosophical questions, there has perhaps never been a time when the factual truths that oppose the advantages or ambitions of one of the myriad interest groups with such zeal and has fought so effectively. "
Arendt is referring here to facts that are well known to the "informed public ". It is therefore a phenomenon that these facts are treated like “ taboos ” today (1967) , that is, as secret, although they are not secrets. Talking about these facts would be dangerous. This problem is not limited to “ the so-called free world ”, but has become known precisely through National Socialism and Stalinism . In the time of National Socialism it was considerably more dangerous to talk about extermination camps , "whose existence was no secret", than to speak about ideologies such as anti-Semitism .
In the “free world”, on the other hand, it is only possible to talk about “disagreeable facts” because these are consciously and unconsciously “transformed into an opinion”. This applies, for example, to "inconvenient historical facts, such as the fact that Hitler's rule was supported by a majority of the German people or that France was decisively defeated by Germany in 1940 or the pro-fascist policy of the Vatican in the last war." These facts would - with the reference to freedom of expression "treated as if they were not facts, but things about which one could have this or that opinion".
Powerlessness and power of the truth against politics
According to Arendt, the truth is always at a disadvantage in the event of a conflict compared to “existing powers and interests”. "Persuasion or violence can destroy truth," she writes. However, politics cannot replace the truth with anything else, and in this the truth has “a force of its own”. This connection applies "to religious and rational truths as well as, perhaps more obviously, to factual truths."
Credibility and impartiality
In this essay, politics is viewed from the point of view of truth. Hannah Arendt postulates:
“Those who want nothing but tell the truth are outside the political struggle, and they forfeit this position and their own credibility as soon as they try to use this point of view to intervene in politics. [However, the question remains] whether this point of view itself has any political significance. "
Anyone who wants to uncover facts, judge them, create art, conduct science, reconstruct history or gain philosophical knowledge has to take an impartial position that can only be found outside of community and society . For the related professions, “political engagement” and “standing up for a cause” are excluded. Nonetheless, these people are not entirely restricted to this function: “They are modes of human existence and as such are known to all people; These are not types that have been shaped in advance, but rather professions in which no one is completely absorbed. "
Fictions in politics
Against the transformation of factual truths into opinions, Hannah Arendt invokes the irrefutable facticity of the factual. This remains intact despite any overlap due to total propaganda fictions:
“Where facts are consistently replaced by lies and total fictions, it turns out that there is no substitute for the truth. Because the result is by no means that the lie is now accepted as true and the truth is defamed as a lie, but that the human sense of orientation in the realm of the real, which cannot function without the distinction between truth and untruth, is destroyed. "
The turning away from factuality and the disruption of the sense of direction also hit those in power. These would be subject to their own fictions by auto-suggestion, which at the same time would help them to produce them all the more plausibly:
“In contrast to lies in foreign policy, which always address an enemy from outside and do not necessarily have to determine the domestic political life of the nation, the» images «tailored for internal use are a great danger for the entire experience of the people, and the first victims of this modern way of lying are of course the makers of these fictions themselves. "
Nevertheless, the factuality of a fact cannot be resolved so easily:
“The clearest sign of the facticity of a fact is precisely this stubborn being there, which in the end inexplicably and irrefutably characterizes all human reality. Propaganda fictions, on the other hand, are always distinguished by the fact that all particular data are clearly arranged in them, that every fact is fully explained, and this gives them their temporary superiority; on the other hand, they lack the unalterable stability of everything that is, because it is so and not different. Consistent lying is in the truest sense of the word bottomless and plunges people into the bottomless, without ever being able to build another ground on which people could stand. "
With this in mind, Hannah Arendt concludes:
"Wherever lies in principle and not just occasionally, the person who simply says what is has already started to act, even if he did not intend to."
Sources and literature
Expenses (selection)
- Truth and politics . In: The Political Responsibility of Non-Politicians . Piper, Munich 1964.
- Truth and politics . In: Truth and Lies in Politics. Two essays . Piper, Munich 1972.
- Reissue Truth and Politics . In: Hannah Arendt and Patrizia Nanz on truth and politics . Wagenbach, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8031-2553-8 , pp. 7-62 (used here ).
More from Arendt on the subject
- Hannah Arendt: What is politics? Fragments from the estate. Edited by Ursula Ludz, Piper, Munich / Zurich 1993.
- Hannah Arendt: About the revolution . 4th ed., Piper, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-492-21746-X ( On Revolution . New York 1963).
Secondary literature
- Wolfgang Heuer , Stefanie Rosenmüller: Truth and Politics. In: Wolfgang Heuer, Bernd Heiter, Stefanie Rosenmüller (eds.): Arendt manual. Life, work, effect. JB Metzler, Stuttgart Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02255-4 , pp. 80-82.
- Patrizia Nanz : 'The danger is that the political will disappear from the world at all' . in: Hannah Arendt and Patrizia Nanz on truth and politics . Wagenbach, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8031-2553-8 , pp. 63-89.
- Patrizia Nanz: Truth and Politics in the Media Society: Comments on Hannah Arendt. Wagenbach, Berlin 2006/2013, ISBN 978-3-8031-4131-6 .
- Thomas Wild: Hannah Arendt . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. 2006, ISBN 3-518-18217-X , pp. 107f
See also
Philosophy bibliography : Hannah Arendt - Additional references on the topic
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hannah Arendt in the footnote to the title of the English publication Truth and Politics (1967), which was only published there.
- ↑ H. Arendt: What is politics? Munich 1993, p. 9.
- ↑ H. Arendt: About the revolution . Munich 1994, p. 326f.
- ↑ See in particular Patrizia Nanz: 'The danger is that the political will disappear from the world at all' . in: Hannah Arendt and Patrizia Nanz on truth and politics . Wagenbach, Berlin 2006, pp. 63–89, here p. 65ff.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 14.
- ↑ as Leibniz had already distinguished
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 62.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 27.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 23.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 42.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 20.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, pp. 20ff.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 54.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 54.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 23.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 55.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 22.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 23.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 24.
- ↑ H. Arendt: Truth and Politics . Berlin 2006, p. 24.