I
THE VITA ACTIVA
Hannah Arendt defines vita activa as a life devoted to public-political
matters. In vita activa, Arendt proposes three fundamental human activities:
labor, work and action. They are fundamental because each of them corresponds
to one of the basic conditions which life has been given to human beings. The
reason why these three are fundamental is because they are activities which
can be found traditionally within the range of every human being.
For Arendt, in order to recover the political meanings, she suggests
that life should be faithfully devoted to the activities of labor, work and
action. In fact, these activities of the vita activa are the responses of man
as human beings to the human condition. More importantly, these activities
correspond to the condition of human’s existence which actually man cannot
possibly escape from (HC 9).
LABOR
Arendt defines labor in these following words:
Labor is the activity which corresponds to the biological process
of the human body, whose spontaneous growth, metabolism, and
eventual decay are bound to the vital necessitites produced and
fed into the life process by labor. The human condition of labor
is life itself (HC 7).
Labor is the activity which corresponds to the biological processes and
necessities of human existence. It is a basic activity which is very
necessary for the maintenance of life itself. It is distinguished by its
never ending character since it creates nothing in permanence for its efforts
are quickly consumed. More importantly, man must produce more to sustain
life.
Moreover, labor is characterized as unfreedom since the human being, a
laborer is condemned to perform repetitive service of biological necessity.
In the activity of Labor, Arendt refers to man as animal laborans
because the activity of labor is condemned with biological necessity like all
the animals (HC 22). This kind of activity is the closest to animal activity
because animals are also subject to the demands of nature.
WORK
Arendt defines work in these following words:
Work is the activity which corresponds to the unnaturalness of
human existence, which is not imbedded in, and whose mortality is
not compensated by, the species’ ever-recurring life cycle. Work
provides an “artificial” world of things, distinctly different
from all natural surroundings. Within its borders each individual
life is housed, while this world itself is meant to outlast and
transcend them all. The human condition of work is wordliness (HC
7).
Work corresponds to the fabrication of an artificial world of things.
Work, thus, creates a world distinct from anything given in nature. The
products of work endure temporality beyond the act of creation itself.
In work, Arendt refers man as homo faber because he is the builder of
walls between human realm and that of nature to provide a stable and common
world where human life can unfold (HC 22). Some examples of homo faber are
the builders, craftsmen, architect, the artist and the legislator. These
persons create the public world constructing both physically and
institutionally by building and making laws.
ACTION
Arendt defines action in these following words:
Action, the only activity that goes on directly between men
without the intermediary of things or matter, corresponds to the
human condition of plurality, to the fact that men, not man, live
on earth and inhabit the world (HC 7).
Among all the activities of vita activa, action is the most difficult
to describe according to Arendt. However, she asserts that action is the most
significant activity and the highest capacity which human beings are capable
of. She does not have a systematic description, but what she has is a
phenomenological description of the experience of the action. That is why
Arendt has given conditions of action with regards to her own reflection.
Plurality, natality, freedom, and web of human interaction are the conditions
that can make action possible.
Plurality is the condition of human action because people as humans are
all the same, in such a way that they find themselves in the company of
others. In the company of others, human beings are made aware that they can
understand one another. Yet, they are different since they have a unique way
in communicating and getting in touch with others (HC 8).
By plurality, Arendt has given a two-fold character. First, human
beings need to be equal in order that they could understand one another, so
that they will be able to communicate themselves. Second, they need to be
distinct because they have unique way in expressing and pronouncing
themselves (HC 175-176).
For Arendt, it is speech and action that reveals the unique distinction
of every human person, thus, constitutes plurality (HC 176).
Action has the closest connection with the human condition of natality,
the new beginning inherent in birth, can be felt in the world only because
the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is of
acting (HC 9). Arendt understands natality that man is mortal and man is
subject to extinction and at the same time man has to be born. Furthermore,
she says that natality signifies the birth of someone who represents a new
beginning of the world. Birth is not the coming of something but of somebody
who, as beginner, will represent something new and unique in the world.
The fundamental defining quality of action is its component of freedom,
its status as an end in itself and so as subordinate to nothing outside
itself. Arendt argues that it is a mistake to take freedom to be primarily an
inner, contemplative or private phenomenon, for it is in fact active, worldly
and public. She says that freedom is not a property of the will but rather
exists wholly in its worldly exercise: “to be free and to act are the same
(Reinhart, 147).”
In order for an action to be free, it must be free from motive.
Although she did not give any definition of motive, she understands it as
some private thing, which an actor bears such as needs, desires or
commitments. Furthermore, she asserts that so long as this motive remains
personal it cannot be regarded as freedom. For Arendt, for an action to be
free, it must be done towards an unpredictable end. It is actually
characterized by its unpredictability. She does not suggest, however, that an
act should not be motivated or that it must have no goal. She suggests that
goals and motives are the determining factors in every single act, but the
act remains capable of transcending them.
Arendt proposes that an act is free if it is governed by principles
because action is neither dictated by motive nor goal. Motives may be a
determining factor of an action, but once the goal is achieved, the motives
themselves are terminated. Another characteristic of the principles by which
man can act freely is that they manifest only as the human being acts. In the
absence of political actors to embody them in the public realm, they do not
matter to human affairs. For these principles to have any reality, they have
to be incarnated and particularized in the public realm. Arendt gives
examples such of principles as honor or glory, love of equality, distinction
and excellence (Reindhart, 50). These become concrete and manifest only in
the human being’s dealing with other people. Freedom is also such as it
cannot make its appearance in the world, unless it is through the incarnation
in action of principles. Freedom for Arendt develops fully only when it is
not hidden but appears in a worldly place.
The conditions of plurality and natality correspond as the
communication of a unique individual and the beginning of something new in
the world. Arendt says that these conditions imply what she calls the “Web of
Relationships” between human beings and the world. One is born into the web
of relationships of action which comes to a view that each human life has a
story and history itself is a story of mankind (Reindhart, 181).
The realm of human affairs consists of this web of human relationships
which exists wherever men live together. Together they start a new process
which eventually emerges as the unique life story of the new comer in the
world, affecting uniquely the life stories of those with whom he has in
contact. While the stories focus on the subject or the new comer, Arendt says
that he is not the producer or author of his own life story but somebody
began it. The subject is both the subject and the sufferer but not the author.
Since human beings are born into the web of relationships, she
emphasizes that it is only in this place where action is real because every
action is authentic influence to other actions of human beings. More
importantly, the story of man’s life depends on the activities within the web
of interaction to ensure or produce outcome. At the same time, it is also
unlikely that it will achieve its purpose inadequately because his actions
suffer by the influence of the conflicting wills and intentions present
within the web of human interaction.
II
THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE REALM
In the vita activa, each activity is distinguished by a certain realm
in which these activities take place. Arendt distinguishes private realm from
the public realm. Each activity occurs in the spaces of the private or the
public realm. For a clearer understanding of this, let us first try to
distinguish the private realm from the public realm from Arendt’s point of
view.
According to Arendt, the term private, in its original privative sense,
has meaning.
To live an entirely private life means above all to be deprived
of things essential to a truly human life: to be deprived of the
reality that comes from being seen and heard by others, to be
deprived of an “objective” relationship with them that comes from
being related to and separated from them through intermediary of
a common world of things, to be deprived of the possibility of
achieving something more permanent than life itself (HC 58).
The private realm is the realm where economics and necessities of life
are dealt with in view of sustaining and maintaining biological necessities.
In this realm, the various activities and relationships that are by nature
private remain hidden and protected from the glaring light of the public.
On the other hand, the term “public” signifies two closely interrelated
but not altogether identical phenomena as given by Arendt in her discussion
of the The Private and the Public Realm (HC Chapter II): First, it means that
everything that appears in public can be seen and heard by everybody and has
the widest possible publicity (HC 50). Second, the term “public” signifies
the world itself, in so far as it is common to all of us and distinguished
from our privately owned place in it (HC 52).
In terms of privacy, Arendt clearly gives a definite distinction
between the private and the public realm: “The distinction between the
private and the public realms, seen from the viewpoint of privacy rather than
of the body politic, equals the distinction between things that should be
shown and things that should be hidden (HC 72).”
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE POLIS: PRIVATE AND PUBLIC
Arendt made also a clear-cut distinction between the private and the
public sphere of life in terms of corresponding the two realms to the
distinction between the Ancient Greek household and the polis:
The distinctive trait of the household sphere was that in
it men lived together because they were driven by their wants and
needs. The driving for was life itself---the penates, the
household gods, were according to Plutarch, the “gods who make us
live and nourish our body”---which, for its individual
maintenance and its survival as the life of the species needs the
company of others. That individual maintenance should be the task
of the man and species survival the task of the woman was
obvious, and both of these natural functions, the labor of man to
provide nourishment and the labor of the woman in giving birth,
were subject to the same urgency of life. Natural community in
the household therefore was born of necessity, and necessity
ruled over all activities performed in it.
The realm of the polis, on the contrary, was the sphere of
freedom, and if there was a relationship between these two
spheres, it was a matter of course that the mastering of the
necessities of life in the household was the condition for the
freedom of the polis.
LOCATING LABOR, WORK AND ACTION
With these considerations about the distinction between the private and
the private realm, we now try to locate each activity from Arendt’s two
realms.
Minding her definition of the private and her use of the Greek
household as corresponding to the private realm, labor then for Arendt
belongs to the private realm. Arendt believes that in the ancient Athens, the
activities of labor that were necessary to sustain life was kept hidden from
the public view. To be in the household just like the servant or slave meant
to be deprived of the public life. Private realm is the realm of deprivation
(Fry, 51). Labor as concerned with the cyclical and repetitive biological
needs of human life, one is caught by necessity or sheer survival.
Consequently, one cannot distinguish oneself where labor occurs.
In addition, in the household (which corresponds to the private realm
according to Arendt) was run by a head of the family or the paterfamilias, so
the household is devoid of freedom and equality where the persons who belong
there are enslaved by the necessity of labor:
The polis was distinguished from the household in that it
knew only “equals,” whereas the household was the center of the
strictest inequality. To be free meant both not to be subject to
the necessity of life or to the command of another and not to be
in command oneself. It meant neither to rule nor to be ruled.
Thus within the realm of the household, freedom did not exist,
for the household head, its ruler was considered to be free only
in so far as he had the power to leave the household and enter
the political realm, where all were equals (HC 32).
Let us turn to the activity of work. Unlike labor, work is not
condemned by biological necessities but it transforms nature by shaping it
according to the desires of the human persons. Work is governed by human
intentions, that is why, it is under human being’s control and sovereignty.
Work fabricates more permanent structures such as shelter and furniture that
allow persons to begin to separate from nature.
Labor also provides spaces of durability and relative permanence that
differs the fruits of labor that decay quite quickly. “Viewed as part of the
world, the products of work---and not the products of labor---guarantee that
permanence and durability without which a world would not be possible at all
(HC 94).”
Laboring produces products that are to be consumed, but the products of
work are to be used and reused (Fry, 43).
Work still happens in “privacy” because the master workers must work in
isolation to produce their products. However, workers create a public space
when they come into the market to exchange their goods. “The point is that
homo faber, the builder of the world and the producer of things, can find his
proper relationship to other people only by exchanging his products with
theirs, because these products themselves are always produced in isolation
(HC 160-1).”
In this sense, we could say that work is more public than labor because
there is more freedom (the worker being in control of his work) and builds a
relationship with others (workers exchanging their goods in the market).
However, it is still not in the political realm because it is governed by
private interest, and the products of work are tangible and do not depend on
others.
Lastly, let us see the place of action in Arendt’s private and public
realms. It is very important to note that action is the very important
category of human activity. She believes that action is the activity that is
most specifically human. Through action, human beings can reveal their unique
individuality to others through words and deeds. Arendt writes, “in acting
and speaking, men show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal
identities and thus make their appearance in the human world (HC 179).”
Actions always requires the involvement of the other persons who makes
sense of it and it must occur publicly in order for it to have a significance
at all. Meaning, it must be shown; it must be seen and heard by other
persons. Thus, action occurs in the public realm. (Thorough explanation about
this will be begin on the succeeding part of this report which will focus on
Action, Public and Political Realm).
III
PRE-POLITICAL REALM
Labor and Work, though not political, are preconditions for politics.
Labor as already explained above concerns about necessity of life. This
is very important for politics possible because one’s needs must be taken
care of before it is possible to focus on political concerns. Arendt writes:
Private wealth, therefore, became a condition for admission
to public life not because its owner was engaged in accumulating
it but, on the contrary, because it assured with reasonable
certainty that its owner would not have to engage in providing
for himself the means of use and consumption and was free for
public activity. Public life, obviously, was possible, only after
the much more urgent needs of life itself had been taken care of
(HC, 65).”
Work provides space of durability and relative permanence. It builds a
world of more stable objects and human beings now begin to escape some of the
cyclical demands of nature. Consequently, it changes the focus of life from
sheer survival and allows that possibility of politics. “By providing
stability against the natural world, fabrications allows for the creation of
a public space which relates and separates individuals and makes political
action possible (Fry, 43).”
IV
EARTH vs. WORLD
Earth, for Arendt, would mean the physical world or Nature. It refers
to
the
naturalness
of
things
without
any
intervention
of
humankind.
Therefore, earth corresponds to the activity of labor.
On the other hand, the world is set directly in opposition to nature.
When she talks about the world, she does not mean the physical world, but the
world in her view is precisely what separates man from nature. It is the
human
artifice
of
man-made
objects
and
institutions
that
provides
human
beings with a permanent home. Therefore, world corresponds to the activity of
work.
In order to live a
that nature moves
course, in so far
being men, we are
nature by building
human life, we need more than nature. She says
in endless cycles of growth and decay, and of
as we are organic beings, we do so too. But
able to save ourselves from this futility of
an artificial world to house us (OT, 82).
For Arendt, this is what we need in order to remain stable and outlast
each
individual
life,
providing
a
solid
background
against
which
the
significance of each individual life will be visible. Furthermore, she says
that without a stable human world our lives cannot form significant stories
and only be part of the endless flux of nature. Arendt points out that a
human stable world is an essential condition of a truly human life. Without
such a humanly created environment we eould be subject to the endless cycles
of nature, to the recurring patterns of growth and decay through which nature
“forever invades then human artifice, threatening the durability of the world
and its fitness for human use (HC 100).”
She suggests in particular that it is also the necessary and conducive
basis for proper thinking, judging and acting, because the world we have in
common can alone provide a touchstone of reality. One of the striking things
about this common world is that we all see the same things from different
viewpoints. Men have a common awareness of reality, not when they are all
seeing
and
thinking
in
identical
ways
but
when
they
are
all
seeing
and
thinking about the same objects from their own different points of view
(Canovan, 82). This affirms her notion of plurality which is very essential
to political action.
REFERENCES
HC – Human Condition
OT – Origins of Totalitarianism
Canovan M. 1974. The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt. London: JM Dent.
Reinhardt M.1997. The Art of being Free: Taking Liberties with Tocqueville,
Marx and Arendt. New York: Cornell University Press.
Fry
K.
2009.
Arendt:
A
Guide
for
International Publishing Group.
the
Perplexed.
New
York:
Continuum