Abstract

Hannah Arendt wrote the following to Karl Jaspers in 1931: “What this all really adds up to—fate, being exposed, what life means—I can’t really say in abstract. Perhaps all I can try to do is illustrate it with examples. And that is precisely why I want to write a biography. In this case interpretation has to take the path of repetition.” This description seems to me to be characteristic of her whole lifework: always illustrate everything with examples, and only use abstract language as a kind of repetition; this is her attitude whether she writes on totalitarianism, on revolution, on anti-semitism, or on assimilation. I have the feeling that in speaking about her view on assimilation, I should avoid quoting her assertions. The only adequate procedure would be to narrate her own stories, the life-story of Rahel Varnhagen, the stories of the first chapter of The Origins of Totalitarianism; and in the first place to recapitulate her polemics. Since it is surely impossible to do this here, I cannot help but sometimes quote her assertions in abstract, her interpretations; but you must know: her stories always leave room for interpretations which are different and more sophisticated than her sometimes very categorical statements.