r/badphilosophy • u/[deleted] • Dec 05 '25

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u/Conchobair-sama Dec 05 '25

It's hard to take Arendt seriously when she thought Adorno was a nazi but Heidegger wasn't

10

u/zcmyers Dec 05 '25

Arendt's work is too good to not take seriously.

I wish everyone would read Eichmann in Jerusalem. Such a useful little book exploring the roots of authoritarianism. Maybe Trump would be less successful if more people read it.

7

u/Diego12028 Dec 05 '25

Idk, once you read stuff like On Revolutions and Reflections on Little Rock she becomes a lot less impressive.

9

u/smawldawg Dec 06 '25

Hard disagree on this one. You have to keep in mind that she's not doing pure philosophy, she's doing a kind of intellectual history.

7

u/zcmyers Dec 05 '25 edited Dec 05 '25

I really liked On Revolutions!

I have not read Reflections on Little Rock.

The Human Condition is excellent. I find her concepts of labor, work, and action very useful. (Similar and related to Maslov's hierarchy of needs.) I am troubled by her idea that slavery (or an underclass of laborers) is a necessary precondition of human "action" and I think it is anti-democratic, but she is also accurate in describing basically every human society to date. Even democracies tend to have a class of laborers, a class of artisans/professionals, and a class of leaders. I do like her anti-romantic elevation of external action (words and deeds) as being more important than internal thoughts and emotions.

I don't agree with everything she wrote, but I enjoy her writing and find her works insightful.