The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of the SocialUniversity of Chicago Press, 2021 M02 16 - 374 pages "The European intellectual Hannah Arendt worried about the tendency of social structures to take on a life of their own and paralyze individual action. Pitkin . . . is determined to trace our problems to the actions of individuals. This book is thus a battle of wits. . . . [A] vivid sketch of the conflict between two basic outlooks."—Library Journal "[O]ne leaves this book feeling enriched and challenged. Pitkin prompts us to rethink our understanding of Arendt and to demythologize the pervasive sense of political helplessness Arendt herself sought so hard to articulate. . . . [A] cause for celebration."—Peter Baehr, Times Literary Supplement "[Arendt] is certainly among the most original and outstanding political theorists of the twentieth century. . . . It is difficult to imagine a hostile critic examining more effectively than Pitkin . . . Arendt's concept of the social, for hostility would inhibit the acquisition of the mastery of Arendt's texts that Pitkin displays at every turn."—Peter Berkowitz, New Republic |
Contents
| 1 | |
The Pariah and the Parvenu | 19 |
Philosophy Love Exile | 35 |
Four The Refugee as Parvenu and the Conscious Pariah | 52 |
Five The Birth of the Blob | 69 |
Six Writing The Human Condition | 98 |
Tocqueville and Marx | 115 |
Eight Abstraction Authority and Gender | 145 |
Other editions - View all
The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of the Social Hanna Fenichel Pitkin Limited preview - 2000 |
The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of the Social Hanna Fenichel Pitkin Limited preview - 2000 |
The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of the Social Hanna Fenichel Pitkin No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
abstract action activity Alexis de Tocqueville alienation America anti-Semitism Arbeit Arendt and Jaspers Arendt calls Arendt says becoming a parvenu behavior Benhabib biological Blücher bourgeois Briefwechsel capacity chapter conduct conformist conscious pariah contrast danger Democracy distinction economic Eichmann Elisabeth Young-Bruehl Essays feminine free citizenship freedom gender German Hanna Fenichel Pitkin Hannah Arendt Heidegger Heidegger's helpless homo faber Human Condition hypostasization Ibid ideas individual institutions intellectual isolated Jew as Pariah Jewish Karl Jaspers labor liberté Margaret Canovan Martin Heidegger Marx Marx-Engels Reader Marx's mass matter means modern nature Naziism Nazis necessity never one's Origins of Totalitarianism particular parvenu Past and Future philosophical political theory problem problematic production quoting Rahel Varnhagen reality realm refugees Resistance respect responsibility Revolution role seems sense Seyla Benhabib social as Blob society solidarity surely things thinking thought tion Tocqueville Tocqueville's woman word Young-Bruehl