“What would I do?”: Political action under oppression in Arendt

Abstract

The present paper examines the possibility of political action in Hannah Arendt's philosophical framework under the circumstance of oppression. I first analyze Arendt's concepts of self-display and self-presentation in The Life of the Mind as they map onto her division of the human condition into social and political spheres. While society as a realm of selfdisplay provides an outlet for natural human differences, politics is a space for our self-presentation, that is, our chosen way of appearing to others as their equals via action. Since action is the most important-and consequently broadcategory in Arendt, I zoom in on what constitutes specifically political action and argue that the character of political action in Arendt is helpful in our thinking about present-day social and political justice movements. However, I point out that two aspects of Arendt's system complicate the idea of political action as an instrument that should be accessible to everyone. I title these problems as the "denial of self-display" and "denial of self-presentation." I argue that to overcome these limitations of Arendt's framework, we must first recognize that for oppressed groups, navigating both the social and political obstacles involves sacrifices and risks that already constitute political action. Second, we need to understand that our "given" self-displaying identities can become instruments of political action in the Arendtian sense under the circumstances of oppression and discrimination, as embracing them is to embrace the spontaneity and uncertainty of political action. CONCEPTS OF THE SELF-DISPLAY AND SELF-PRESENTATION IN ARENDTArendt's account of the self is grounded in her metaphysics, in which "Being and Appearing coincide" in the sense that "nothing and nobody exists in this world whose very being does not presuppose a spectator" (Arendt, 1971, p. 21). Lacking the quality of "appearingness" corresponds to nonexistence since being perceived by others is what guarantees the reality of both inanimate objects and living creatures of this world.This quality of "appearingness" among living creatures is not passive. We actively seek opportunities for self-display, which captures both our desire to make an appearance among others and our readiness to "take part in the play of the world " (Arendt, 1971, p. 21). Even when we choose to step back from our "urge toward self-display," temporarily withdraw from the immediacy of the world around us and fall back on our mental activities, we cannot achieve a state of reflection free from appearances (Arendt, 1971, p. 21). Our mental processes ultimately always reflect on aspects of