Hannah Arendt on the Destruction of Public Realm in Modernity: A Case with Modern Democracy

This article examines the writings of one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century, Hannah Arendt, and specifically focuses on her views regarding the distinction between the private and the public and the transformation of the public to the social by modernity. The whole of her critique on modernity is related to her reading of the politics of totalitarianism. For Arendt, totalitarianism was an entirely characteristic product of modernity. It is not simply that she is deconstructing political modernity, she is trying to re-construct the manner of politicking based on the fact of human plurality. What Arendt repeatedly calls for, is for us to realize the human condition of plurality as a prerequisite for constituting one’s own life in the world. Rather than modernity’s homogeneity, it is plurality that enables humans to appear as unique individuals instead of as a species of animals. Humans escape their lonely imagination and experience reality in a world that is shared with others and even build the world among each other. The aim of this article is to promote interest in this reading of Arendt and to show how her ideas especially plurality (that is, relating, experiencing and dialoguing with others) could fruitfully contribute to improving modern politics of representative democracy.