Arendt's 'conscious pariah' and the ambiguous figure of the subaltern

Bibliographic Data

ID2398124
AuthorsL Ray (0000-0003-1592-3425, University of Kent, corresponding author), Maria Diemling (0000-0003-4717-4748, Canterbury Christ Church University)
Year2016
Volume19
Issue4
Pages503-520
Publication date2016-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1368431016628261
OpenAlexW2293501904
LanguageEN
References cited33

Hannah Arendt's Jewish writings were central to her thinking about the human condition and engaged with the dialectics of modernity, universalism and identity. Her concept of the 'conscious pariah' attempted both to define a role for the public intellectual and understand the relationship between Jews and modernity. Controversially she accused Jewish victims of lack of resistance to the Nazis and argued that their victimization resulted from apolitical 'worldlessness'. We argue that although Arendt's analysis was original and challenging, her characterization of Jewish history as one of 'powerlessness' is exaggerated but, more importantly, her underdeveloped concept of 'the social' is insensitive to the complex modalities of resistance and consciousness among subaltern Jewish communities. Furthermore, her lack of interest in religious observance obscures the importance of Judaism as a resource for resistance. This is illustrated by the 'hidden transcripts' of Jewish resistance from the early modern period

Consciousness · Dialectic · Epistemology · Judaism · Modernity · Pariah group · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Subaltern · Theology · Universalism · Gender Studies · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Psychology

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