Response: Arendt, The Human Condition
I was only allowed 350 - 500 words, so this one's topped at 566 words:
In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt explains the Greek understanding of society that divides men into three different types: animal laborans, homo faber, and men qua men.
Animal laborans refers to those whose lives are dedicated to the necessities of life, as dictated by biological needs that are traditionally attended to in privacy. Animal laborans is the first point of contact between nature and mankind, harnessing the raw materials of the earth into half-finished products that can be utilized by homo faber, and in antiquity was deprived of the ability to choose and decide (184, footnote 12).
Homo faber refers to those who “make and literally ‘work upon’ ... the sheer unending variety of things whose sum total constitutes the human artifice” (136). Their work “consists in reification” (139), of creating things that will remain in the worldly realm long after human lives have passed on. Homo faber focuses on the permanence, multiplication, fabrication of the “image of the future product” (144) that xe produces or destroys at will.
Untied to biological necessity that dominates animal laborans, nor to the worldliness of homo faber are men qua men, whose lives are defined by not just bios politikos, but also the ability to engage in praxis in the vita activa. Unlike fabrication, the activity of men qua men do not manifest in things nor can it be carried out in isolation, but requires action and speech that is connected to and witnessed by other men.
In her section on Labor, Arendt critiques Marx’s reasoning that “free time eventually will emancipate men from necessity and make the animal laborans productive” by arguing that “the spare time of the animal laborans is never spent in anything but consumption” (133). Using the definitions as laid out, does this understanding of homo faber creating the immortal world apply to our new understanding of the consumer society as spectacle? How do we delineate the difference between consumption and productivity?
At this conjecture, I wish to point to the hierarchy within which these three groups are traditionally understood, which still holds together in many forms, in which animal laborans performs much of the manual labour from which homo faber multiplies and creates surplus from. Men qua men, now reflected in the most privileged classes of the world today, dominate over animal laborans and buys the surplus from homo faber, using the means at their disposal. Although Arendt claims that animal laborans merely consume even when gifted with free time, there are still precious few outlets through which today’s animal laborans are permitted to participate in vita activa / bios politikos to the same extent that may be afforded men qua government policy-maker.
Today, the three realms have all collapsed into each other, as labourers and craftsmen are recognized as political creatures, and to engage solely in the political realm alone is a sign of gross privilege that, when unquestioned, lends to corruption. Homo faber no longer creates merely products that lasts into the next age but engages in production of goods meant to be consumed in a society of the spectacle. Animal laborans is lauded in rhetoric but remains disempowered from participating in “qua homo faber or qua thinker” (236). In a state in which the labourer is admitted into the political realm, adding to the plurality of voices that must be negotiated with, is the result a republic that is truly democratic?
In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt explains the Greek understanding of society that divides men into three different types: animal laborans, homo faber, and men qua men.
Animal laborans refers to those whose lives are dedicated to the necessities of life, as dictated by biological needs that are traditionally attended to in privacy. Animal laborans is the first point of contact between nature and mankind, harnessing the raw materials of the earth into half-finished products that can be utilized by homo faber, and in antiquity was deprived of the ability to choose and decide (184, footnote 12).
Homo faber refers to those who “make and literally ‘work upon’ ... the sheer unending variety of things whose sum total constitutes the human artifice” (136). Their work “consists in reification” (139), of creating things that will remain in the worldly realm long after human lives have passed on. Homo faber focuses on the permanence, multiplication, fabrication of the “image of the future product” (144) that xe produces or destroys at will.
Untied to biological necessity that dominates animal laborans, nor to the worldliness of homo faber are men qua men, whose lives are defined by not just bios politikos, but also the ability to engage in praxis in the vita activa. Unlike fabrication, the activity of men qua men do not manifest in things nor can it be carried out in isolation, but requires action and speech that is connected to and witnessed by other men.
In her section on Labor, Arendt critiques Marx’s reasoning that “free time eventually will emancipate men from necessity and make the animal laborans productive” by arguing that “the spare time of the animal laborans is never spent in anything but consumption” (133). Using the definitions as laid out, does this understanding of homo faber creating the immortal world apply to our new understanding of the consumer society as spectacle? How do we delineate the difference between consumption and productivity?
At this conjecture, I wish to point to the hierarchy within which these three groups are traditionally understood, which still holds together in many forms, in which animal laborans performs much of the manual labour from which homo faber multiplies and creates surplus from. Men qua men, now reflected in the most privileged classes of the world today, dominate over animal laborans and buys the surplus from homo faber, using the means at their disposal. Although Arendt claims that animal laborans merely consume even when gifted with free time, there are still precious few outlets through which today’s animal laborans are permitted to participate in vita activa / bios politikos to the same extent that may be afforded men qua government policy-maker.
Today, the three realms have all collapsed into each other, as labourers and craftsmen are recognized as political creatures, and to engage solely in the political realm alone is a sign of gross privilege that, when unquestioned, lends to corruption. Homo faber no longer creates merely products that lasts into the next age but engages in production of goods meant to be consumed in a society of the spectacle. Animal laborans is lauded in rhetoric but remains disempowered from participating in “qua homo faber or qua thinker” (236). In a state in which the labourer is admitted into the political realm, adding to the plurality of voices that must be negotiated with, is the result a republic that is truly democratic?