On Revolution - Hannah Arendt (week 1)

This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to RSVP, please go to to: On Revolution - Hannah Arendt (week 1)

Hannah Arendt was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century. In On Revolution (1963), she offers a philosophical analysis of political revolutions and their transformative power on society. Comparing the French and American Revolutions, in particular, she investigates their different objectives, approaches, and outcomes, their relationship to violence, and dedication to freedom. In transitioning from uprising to orderly nation building, she argues, a movement must preserve "the lost treasure of revolution": a core spirit of public happiness or welfare founded in freedom and equality.

Arendt makes her case by developing a reading of Billy Budd in which Herman Melville's story is an allegory for the public realm and what it means to be a citizen in the world. What does it mean for there to be goodness beyond virtue and evil beyond vice? What's the difference between political, moral, and legal judgment?

Schedule:

• Week 1 (May 18): Chapters 1-3
• Week 2 (May 25): Chapters 4-6

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."