From the Politics of Compassion to Imagination: Hannah Arendt on Collectivized Affect

Marieke Borren

doi:10.54195/HSOV8373

From the Politics of Compassion to Imagination: Hannah Arendt on Collectivized Affect

Authors

Marieke Borren

Open University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/HSOV8373_CH16

Synopsis

Marieke Borren, in her article, “From the Politics of Compassion to Imagination: Hannah Arendt on Collectivized Affect,” goes into Arendt’s belief that compassion is a bad counselor in political affairs, especially when it comes to refugees, the poor and low-skilled workers. Today, many theorists of affect are committed to progressive politics and do not just analyze the affective dimensions of collective political action, but moreover, valorize the “collectivization” of emotion as serving emancipatory causes. In stark contrast, affects, in Arendt’s view, are a poor ground for solidarity, engagement with one’s fellow citizens or human beings – who typically are “anonymous” others most of the time – and for political community. This reticence has caused many readers to accuse Arendt of either heartlessness or rationalism. However, instead of loving or pitying human beings or the Other – amor homines – Arendt advocates a much cooler and distant care for the world – amor mundi. Imagination, representative thinking and care for the world are Arendt’s timely alternatives for the politics of compassion.

Author Biography

Marieke Borren, Open University

Marieke Borren is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, the Netherlands. Her research expertise lies at the intersection of continental political philosophy and phenomenology. She is particularly interested in critical feminist and postcolonial perspectives. She has widely published on Hannah Arendt’s political phenomenology, on which she wrote her dissertation under the supervision of Veronica Vasterling. She recently guest-edited the special issue ‘People on Streets. Critical Phenomenologies of Embodied Resistance’ of the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology (2024, with Maria Robaszkiewicz). Her most recent publications include ‘Resisting Bodies: Between the Politics of Vulnerability and “We-Can” (2024) and ‘Why Should We Care? Care for the World as Proto-Normative Commitment to Political Action and Judgment.’ (2023)