This article is about as good as a person like Arendt deserves, but you might learn something.
what's ya beef with Arendt? I've only read Banality of Evil but the backlash for that seemed a bit misplaced, though there are obvious critiques.
I hate to do this but http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Paul-Johnson/dp/1470887568 She's not an explicit subject of that book but the arguments within all apply to her. I don't like intellectuals.
huh, that's an interesting response, I don't feel safe going off the summary to respond to the books thesis, but I'm intrigued. Does the author have any articles or is their similar analysis you know of that I could check out?
Paul Johnson is a (old-style conservative) historian, he's written a couple of really excellent books and a couple dogs (also tons of essays). My response wasn't remotely fair, but the point is that Arendt is part of a long tradition of people -- who Johnson would say originated perhaps with Rousseau -- that we've called 'social critics', intellectuals, people who contributed nothing but won their bread trashing the status quo. Johnson asks why the hell we've listened to these people in the modern era, and suggests that we should be more discerning. I think there are probably other reasons to dislike Arendt but that's the point of that book (which is not always equitable, see the section on Russell). I should probably reread Eichmann in Jerusalem but I don't really want to waste the hours.
I'll check out Johnson, I'm curious now about what he has to say. I probably won't agree with him, but that's beside the point. and yeah, the Russell part seems a bit dubious, as far as I know, the majority of his work is well-respected, oft-cited and doesn't have much to do with criticisms of society. I can't say that re-reading Eichmann would be worth your time, not because it's not interesting, but cause her thesis is a small part of it, and most of her time is spent borrowing verbatim from The Destruction of the European Jews in regards to providing context for the climate surrounding Eichmann's time. That part was enlightening for me, having not really dig into much of the factual history of the Holocaust, but to support her claims it seemed a bit long-winded and sometimes tangential.
Erm, What? Arendt was an amazing philosopher and yes she wasn't perfect. And yes, the first part reads as a press release for her, which is just bad writing.
But that book you bring up is just odd. I don't like just pointing fallacies and calling it off, but that seems both yellow and ad hominem to the worst degree. Do we really need our cultural critics to be perfect? It is widely known that Rousseau was a terrible person. That doesn't require research that requires reading his autobiography. He admits that. So the social contract movement is now void? That seems odd.
Also, if we are going to talk about important philosophers that are less than perfect there is a shining lack of Heidegger. Still widely taught, cited and talked about. One of the most important philosophers of the 20th century and a tad more questionable past than Hemingway.