¶ … POLITICAL ACTION & HOW DO ARENDT AND NIBUHR RECOMMEND GOING ABOUT POLITICAL ACTION? The objective of this work is to answer the question of what is political action and how do Arendt and Nibuhr recommend going about political action.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines political action as "action designed to attain a purpose by the use of political power or by activity in political channels; specifically: such action by organized labor through recognized political means (as participation in party organization, in elections, and by lobbying) -- contrasted with direct action." (2015, p. 1) There are varying view of what constitutes political action such as those held by Arendt and Niebuhr.

Niebuhr and Political Action

The view of Niebuhr on political action is that the "only adequate account of the limits and possibilities of just and humane politics depended on a religious conception of history and life. The Christian faith was not an impediment to political action but was its foundation." (Patterson, 2008, p. 119) Niebuhr held that sin was both "universal and comprehensive, affecting all persons and every aspect of human life. No person was exempt from sin and no human action could successfully overcome self-love. Since reason itself could be tainted by sin, reliance on moral principles could provide only a proximate guide to ethical action." (Patterson, 2008, p. 119) Niebuhr's political ethics framework was such that claimed that there was the "necessity of power to promote and maintain an humane communal order." (Patterson, 2008, p. 119) Additionally from the view of Nidbuhr "there is no single, overarching value that should guide political thought." (Patterson, 2008, p. 122)

II. Niebuhr: Failure to Act

Niebuhr while stating caution against "overambitious, self-righteous political initiatives...was equally concerns with the dangers of inaction resulting from an ethic of perfectionism." (Patterson, 2008, p. 122) This was held by Niebuhr because there were some moralist so focused on their own levels of purity in terms of their morals that the result was an unwillingness on their part to "confront injustice and tyranny because such action would result in compromising the ideal of love." (Patterson, 2008, p. 122)

It was the belief of Niebuhr that the only method of ensuring a world that was somewhat stable and in some way humane was not by "individually modeling Jesus' love ethic. For Christian realm, the quest for a just international peace necessitated moral inspired, courageous political action." (Patterson, 2008, p. 1) Niebuhr warned that one should not be too expectant in the way of receiving a whole lot from political initiatives however; Niebuhr did stress the "importance of collective action in the service of freedom and justice." (Patterson, 2008, p. 122) According to the beliefs of Niebuhr in order to "reconnect politics with the vital center of human activity" it is necessary that the strategy is one that is based on "collective strategy that seeks to build and sustain free, democratic societies and a stable international order that inhibits aggression and tyranny." (Patterson, 2008, p. 122)

III. Intelligent Action Preferred

According to Rice, Niebuhr held that 'intelligent action was preferable to the extremes of evolutionary change and revolutionary ardor" stating that "the stubbornness of evolutionary change and the blindness of men sometimes make social convulsions and catastrophes inevitable" holding that an approach that utilized violence was "a wasteful method of change" stating that there could thereby be "no guarantee that the new order will be any more just than the old." (Rice,, p. 85)

During the depression of the 1930s is was the position of Niebuhr that the depression, which had lasted a long time had failed to move a "politically and social lethargic people to the kind of social realism which many had hoped for and longed for." (Rice, p. 87) Niebuhr pondered on how the institutions and organizations of the church "would respond to the harsh reality of class conflict -- a reality that he reported to be such that smelled of 'hatred and warfare and seems incompatible with the ideal of love'." (Rice, p. 86) Niebuhr related to the church that the class struggle was historically documented and that the socialists did not invent this reality but if it were not acknowledged that the church would effectively abandon and ignore those most affected by this reality.

III. Arendt

According to the work of Thiele (2009) Arendt is known best "for her trenchant analysis and original evaluation of political life. The sine qua non-of politics is human action, which she celebrates above all other human capacities." (p.1) In the view of...

In fact, according to Arendt, action is the key component of power and results in freedom since actions serves to formulate and maintain the public realm. In the view of Arendt politics is "a facet of the human condition distinct from - and in many respects superior to - the biological and the social realms, with their characteristic activities of labor, work, and life management. Political action, occupying the highest echelon of the vita activa, is also distinguished from the vita contemplativa, that is to say, from the intellectual realm, characterized by reflective thought." (Thiele, 2009, p. 1)
Thiele (2009) reports that "Arendt's depreciation of the philosophical, social, and biological facets of life is frequently censured. Critics chafe against her apparent nostalgia for the vita activa of antiquity and question whether action (specifically, and politics more generally) deserves Arendt's accolade as the defining feature of a truly human existence, the sole bearer of freedom, the most endangered faculty in the modern world and, consequently, the feature of contemporary life most in need of our solicitude. In particular, critics reject Arendt's comprehensive divorce between the public and the private spheres, a divorce Arendt employs to champion political action over social concerns." (p.1)

According to Arendt the public realm or the space utilized for exchange in a free democracy concerning political actions and ideas "is exactly what is eliminated by Totalitarian regimes. This action is often rooted in speech. I's these actions that occur in the public sphere in which we reveal ourselves to each other. Totalitarianism undermines this crucial element of the public sphere. It takes away spontaneous interaction, which is a part of the human condition." (Philoso-phy Talk, nd, p.1)

The work of Arendt as noted in the work of Thiele (2009) states as follows:

"For in every action what is primarily intended by the doer, whether he acts from natural necessity or out of free will, is the disclosure of his own image. Hence it comes about that every doer, in so far as he does, takes delight in doing; since everything that is desires its own being, and since in action the being of the doer is somehow intensified, delight necessarily follows…. Thus, nothing acts unless [by acting] it makes patent its latent self." (p.1)

IV. The Political Realm According to Arendt

Arendt held that the political realm is "a place of appearances, or better said, a place of performances. The agency involved in these performances is not seated in a pre-existing, unified, deliberate, self-knowing subject. Rather, Arendt's actors are fragmented beings that achieve coherence by way of a self-revelatory, theatrical performance. In this vein, Arendt understood the Greek polis as "a kind of theater where freedom could appear." (Arendt 1968a, 154 as cited in Thiele, 2009, p.1)

Thuma (nd) relates that a key term in the way that Arendt understood political action is that of plurality. Stated specifically by Thuma is "Plurality is, simply put, the fact that one is born into a world populated by other people who are different from oneself and who one has to come to terms with. It is the condition in which humans are forced to reveal and communicate their uniqueness in order to facilitate living with each other. Plurality is located within public spaces -- only within their borders are action and speech possible." (nd, p. 1)

From the perspective of Arendt freedom is "not simply liberty from outside forces or private necessities, but a freedom enabled by natality, by the capacity to make beginnings, a freedom expressed in action. It is the human freedom to act, to speak, and to create shared spaces through interaction with others. This interaction requires that a plurality of human beings communicate with each other about the terms of their coexistence. Plurality is thus both a basic existential fact of human existence which requires interaction, communication and cooperation, so that a shared life with others becomes possible, and plurality enables action and speech within shared spaces, because interaction is contingent upon the presence of others." (nd, p. 1) Therefore the meaning of that which is political is the exercise of freedom through public space interactions with others in which the individual is enabled to realize their freedom in a state of "action, in actively experiencing" both the individual nature in a public space and in the world. Arendt holds that the public space "is not a natural consequence of human coexistence." (Thuma, nd, p. 1)

V.. The Public Realm: A Web of Relations

Instead the public space is a creation…