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Men in Dark Times

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Men in Dark Times is a collection of biographical essays Arendt wrote over a period of 15 years (1955-1968), all of which were published elsewhere, and collected here under this title. She has choosen to collct her portraits of cultural and political figures who worked and were caught up in world affairs in the first half of the twentieth-century, figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Jaspers, Isak Dinesen, Walter Benjamin, and Bertolt Brecht. The oppening essay, "On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts about Lessing," focuses on the thought of the eighteenth-century German philosopher, and she uses his thoughts on friendship, on the political and civic aspects of friendship, the ways in which philosophical and political works are formed through civic friendship, to tie all of the personae discussed in the book together. She sees them all as struggling to produce in an era racked by political upheavel. As always, she writes with a highly astute critical eye and a sharp tongue. It is one of her more polemical works, and is sure to make one re-evaulate how we look not only at the lives and works of those she tells us about, but also about ourselves.

These portraits of Karl Jaspers, Waldemar Gurian, Randall Jarrell, Walter Benjamin,Isak Dinesen,Bertolhdt Brecht, Pope John XXIII are remarkable for their human insight, their narrative power and their philosophical understanding. Arendt makes of each portrait a life- story, often a most moving story, and a presentation and critical assessment of the figure 's life- work. In some cases she had a central part in introducing to an English reading audience seminal figures ( Walter Benjamin and Hermann Broch are the outstanding examples) who were far less well known , than they would come to be. She chooses figures whose power of creation is great and unique, and she assesses them in terms of her own set of categories and understandings. One outstanding instance is her evaulation it is really a laudatio a work of praise for the great Pope John XXIII .She speaks of his remarkable simplicity, humanity and courage. His simple great faith "Every day is a good day to be born, and every day is a good day to die"
Some of the portraits are of personal acquaintances and friends. And one feels that in writing about them she is somehow doing for them what she in her " The Human Condition" spoke about as the role of the poet the immortalization of the hero and their deeds. She has a wonderful eye, and her description for instance of the awkwardness with material things of Waldemar Gurian catches the essence of the person in a striking way.
All in all the portraits of Men in Dark Times shed light on the human character and soul, and are a testimony not only to the greatness of the subjects but to the greatness of the writer herself.

With a comment on G. E. Lessing as an introduction, H. Arendt presents in this volume some outstanding personalities who shed a bright light in the dark times of the first half of the 20th century `with its political catastrophes, its moral disasters and its astonishing development of arts and science.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Lessing's primary concern was freedom of thought, of movement and of action. For him, not in the equality of J.J. Rousseau, but in friendship can true humanity prove itself. His intention was always to stimulate others to independent thought.

Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg's sense of justice and freedom was offended by the world she lived in. For her, not only individual, but also public freedom was an absolute necessity.
The major difference between her and the Bolsheviks was her fear for a `deformed' revolution, creating a bureaucracy of apparatchiks.
She, also, heavily criticized Lenin, who had clearly understood, that the Russian Revolution was the consequence of the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese war. For Rosa Luxemburg, wars were the most terrible disasters.

Karl Jaspers
For Karl Jaspers, the philosopher resembles the statesman. Both are to be held responsible for their opinions.
For him, a world government with centralized power over the whole globe, holding the monopoly of all means of violence unchecked and uncontrolled by other sovereign powers, is not only a nightmare of tyranny, but also the end of all political life.

Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin's attitude was one of radical criticism.
He tried a half-hearted Zionism and then a half-hearted Communism. The positive aspects of either ideology didn't much interest him. What mattered was the negative factor of criticism of existing conditions, a way out of bourgeois illusions and untruthfulness.

Bertholt Brecht
The main theme in his plays is the inner conflict of those who, compelled by a passion to change the world, cannot afford to be good. The revolutionist must learn how `not to be good' in order to change the bad world.

Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch's ethics are basically Christian. For him, death and perishability are rooted in the world, but immortality and eternity are anchored in the ego. Life which seems to us mortal is in fact immortal, while the world which seems to us eternal is in fact the prey of death.
H. Broch also imposed an impossible task on literature (art): it should possess the same compelling validity as science. Science (knowledge) reveals the totality of the world; art recreates constantly the world. Art impregnated by knowledge should include all practical everyday activities of man. A fata morgana.

Important quotes
Brecht about G. Lukács: `he is an enemy of production, because it is unreliable and unpredictable. He acts as an apparatchik in order to have control over others. Each of his criticisms contains a threat.' (W. Benjamin: Gespräche mit Bertolt Brecht).
Pope John XXIII about Pope Pius XII: `when asked what to do about Hochhuth's `The Deputy', he allegedly replied: Do against it? What can you do against the truth?'

Hannah Arendt's in depth and totally independent analyses of crucial aspects of the works of important philosophers, politicians, playwrights or novelists, show in a sublime way her superb free mind. Her work should be an example for all political, social and economical commentators.
Not to be missed.

The purchase was very simple, and they had the available book, the times and delivery of the product was made under the engaged conditions. I recommend this company for their quality and responsibility. I recommend this company for their quality and responsibility.

In the Arendt-Heidegger correspondence letter 89 credits Heidegger with being the whole inspiration of her "The Human Condition".

The really troubling question is how she justified excluding "Martin" from this book, "Men in Dark Times", when there are two chapters on Jaspers.

My opinion - my interpretation - is that in this book, the opening of the prize speech is in fact veiled justification of Heidegger.

Read in conjunction with the Arendt account of Heidegger's supposed 10-month Nazi error, I think that this is the inescapable reading of what she says in the opening passages of 4th Chapter of this book. That speech was delivered in the very year that "The Human Condition" was published and 10 years before this little volume.

Not long after this book appeared, the UNESCO tract "Trends in Philosophy" would have no sign of Jaspers - credited in these essays by Arendt as the philosopher to be read by all mankind - but many references to Heidegger.

Two or three essays should have been in this book: an essay on Husserl after expulsion from the university; an essay on Gerhardt Husserl after his expulsion from the University; an essay on Ernst Cassirer and his response to the NS-Zeit (a strong parallel to Gerhardt Husserl.)

My gut feeling is never to recommend these essays to general readers ( I would not recommend them to a suburban public library acquisitions department - if missing, I would not recommend their replacement) - but they should be read for anyone conversant with Jaspers.

Somewhere I recall jaspers reporting how Heidegger mocked his interest in Lessing, but this book opens with an essay on Lessing - and I would like to think that Lessing would also have felt sickened by Letter 89.