Title: A Different Price for the Ticket: Hannah Arendt and James Baldwin on Love and Politics
Abstract: In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published essay. It read: "In politics, love is a stranger… . Hatred and love belong together… . You can afford them only in private and, as a people, only so long as you are not free." I use this letter as a point of departure to examine the productive similarities and differences between these two important theorists of love's relationship to politics. Arendt provides crucial resources in understanding the dangers love can play in modern alienation. However, her alternative, a love of the world, is limited by her account of judgment. Baldwin's ideal of love shows equal concern for the public world, but it elevates the role of feeling in judgment. This account of feeling, and the type of imagination that activates it, helps to realize a more inclusive political world, one where black lives matter.
Publication Year: 2018
Publication Date: 2018-10-26
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 6
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