Empathy, Situations, and an Enlarged Mentality: Iterations between Jaspers and Arendt

This paper has the broad goal of inquiring into the role of empathy in contemporary interpretations of judgment as enlarged mentality. Specifically, it puts Hannah Arendt in dialogue with Karl Jaspers, her mentor and friend, on this question. While a disagreement (or even a conversation) on this issue never seemed to emerge between the two, I argue that they offer differing interpretations of enlarged mentality and specifically of the role of empathy within it. Arendt is skeptical of empathy and unfavorably contrasts it with imagination when it comes to their role in enlarged mentality. Jaspers, on the other hand, offers an understanding of empathy as fundamental for communication and understanding of the other. It is, for him, a dialectic process of bracketing and drawing from one’s own experience. While Hannah Arendt did consider Jaspers' thought as a bright example of enlarged mentality, I argue that she underplayed the role of empathy, and of idiosyncratic, non-necessarily cognitive elements in Jaspers' own formulation of it

Liberalism for dark times: Judith Shklar versus populist constituencies

The ability of political institutions, actors, and theorists to understand and engage the ‘populist’ challenge may very well be a matter of survival for liberal democracy. Political theory has spanned the range of approaches to this challenge: from chastising, to disciplining, to glorifying. This paper aims at disentangling the economic and social grievances of many populist constituents from the nationalistic and xenophobic rhetoric that often accompanies them, and suggests that Judith Shklar’s rearticulation of liberalism embraces the first while rejecting the second. I argue that three aspects of Shklar’s work make her liberalism different and potentially more responsive to the pleas of populist voters. First, her approach to politics and political theory centres on experiences of injustice, humiliation, fear, and cruelty, which she sees as enabled by strong, existing asymmetries of power. Second, Shklar was extremely attentive to the affective dimension of politics. Third, she was not consumed by matters of justification, but more interested in advocating for and from the margins in order to bring about a more inclusive political agon. Yet Shklar was also critical of populist dreams of cultural homogeneity and strong leadership, resisting citizenship as a privilege to be wielded against minorities or discriminated groups

La lunga genesi di Black Lives Matter: colpa, cura del passato e (ri)costruzione del futuro

La morte di George Floyd a Minneapolis il 25 maggio 2020 ha avuto un impatto straordinario sulla coscienza dei cittadini degli Stati Uniti e su quella dei cittadini di molti altri paesi. La gratuità e l’orrore di quel ginocchio puntato sul collo di un essere umano che chiedeva pietà, le mani in tasca del poliziotto assassino, che evidentemente non riteneva di correre alcun rischio, hanno cristallizzato in un’immagine ineludibile tutto ciò che ancora rimane da fare negli Stati Uniti per superare la piaga di un razzismo sistemico. Nel dibattito pubblico, al grido esasperato “Black Lives Matter” risponde quello di ingenuo buonsenso dei privilegiati: “All Lives Matter”. Nel dibattito teorico politico, Chris Lebron offre una breve storia del movimento dal 2012 a oggi, ma soprattutto rintraccia le sue origini tra il xix e il xx secolo nel lavoro di importanti intellettuali quali Fredrick Douglass, Ida B. Wells e James Baldwin (Lebron 2017). Havercroft e Owen mettono a frutto categorie filosofiche del xx secolo per venire a capo proprio dello scontro tra Black Lives Matter e All Lives Matter, cogliendo la capacità dell’essere umano di relegare parte dell’umanità a 1 Ringrazio Jonathan Havercroft, Michael Illuzzi, Alisa Kessel e Amit Ron per aver discusso con me i temi dell'articolo mentre lo scrivevo e Rajeev Dehejia per aver condiviso alcune delle fonti. Mi sono stati molto utili in fase di revisione i commenti dei valutatori/valutatrici, che quindi ringrazio insieme a Enrico Biale e Federica Liveriero per il loro interesse nel progetto. Giunia Gatta La lunga genesi di Black Lives Matter: colpa, cura del passato e (ri)costruzione del futuro 30 categorie di secondo grado (il soul blinding di cui parla Stanley Cavell). In questa ottica, All Lives Matter diventa l’eco sorda alla voce della protesta, incapace di quel riconoscimento tra esseri umani che misura la dignità dei pari, evitando le modalità tramite le quali ci si risveglia invece per cogliere la sostanziale uguaglianza di tutti: il soul dawning di Cavell e la rancierana apertura di mondi nei quali alcune argomentazioni vengono ricevute e fanno breccia nelle coscienze (Havercroft, Owen 2016; Rancière 2007). Charles Olney distingue tre diverse accezioni nelle quali viene articolata la rivendicazione Black Lives Matter. Da una parte c’è la richiesta di adempiere alla fondamentale promessa di uguaglianza di fronte alla legge, senza necessariamente muovere critiche fondamentali a istituzioni e valori esistenti. Da un’altra c’è la sottolineatura dei diversi modi nei quali la categoria della razza inficia la promessa di giustizia, e quindi fa nascere il sospetto nei confronti di istituzioni che proclamano di non “vedere” la razza, ma che in realtà svantaggiano sistematicamente gli afroamericani. Secondo questa prospettiva, il sogno americano è intaccato dalla macchia del razzismo, ma può essere salvato tramite politiche deliberatamente antirazziste. Vi è anche un senso molto più radicale nel quale la rivendicazione viene articolata, come vero e proprio assalto al progetto statunitense nel suo insieme. Secondo questa prospettiva non c’è alcuno spazio di collaborazione con le istituzioni esistenti, irrimediabilmente e fondamentalmente razziste (Olney 2021). Olney nota come il movimento costituitosi intorno alla rivendicazione sia riuscito a mantenere uno spettro ampio, coprendo il terreno dalle rivendicazioni di senso comune a una critica più strutturale e antagonista alle istituzioni fondamentali della democrazia americana e alla loro possibilità di redimere la sofferenza di ogni gruppo in un ottimistico disegno di emancipazione universale (ibidem). Il movimento conterrebbe in questo senso una capacità dialettica di autocontestazione che tiene insieme in pratica tutte queste anime, come testimonia la sua elusività rispetto a cosa esattamente implichino richieste quali la riduzione o eliminazione del sostegno economico alle forze di polizia. Al di là delle categorie analitiche a volte artificiose di Olney, altri teorici hanno cercato di illuminare il significato di Black Lives Matter, notando che al di là della presunzione liberale di includere le vite degli afroamericani tra quelle che “contano”, la realtà statunitense mostra che esse 31 Giunia Gatta La lunga genesi di Black Lives Matter: colpa, cura del passato e (ri)costruzione del futuro sono in realtà considerate come prive di valore (Lebron 2013). In questo contesto sarebbero da collocarsi le riscritture dell’attivismo afroamericano degli anni Sessanta del Novecento come vincente proprio perché non violento, e le condanne delle più “indisciplinate” rivendicazioni degli afroamericani all’indomani degli assassinii di giovani afroamericani disarmati (Hooker 2016). Spesso qualificare un’ingiustizia come strutturale o sistemica significa invocare dinamiche complesse e di difficile soluzione, con la conseguenza pratica di polarizzare le possibili risposte politiche tra l’acquiescenza e la rivoluzione. In questo articolo propongo la nozione di colpa politica come un utile strumento per superare questa dicotomia e per riformulare le possibilità di risposta alle ingiustizie strutturali. Attribuire, o attribuirsi, una colpa politica significa non accusare o accusarsi di un crimine in prima persona, ma accettare che alcuni corsi di azione presi nel passato hanno creato la possibilità per alcuni di fiorire ed emanciparsi, e per altri di appassire in circostanze opprimenti

Between politics and suprapolitics: Karl Jaspers and the flight from force

Despite a life-long weakness affecting his heart and lungs, which importantly determined the course of his existence, Karl Jaspers ended up living a very long life, embracing German history from the year in which Marx and Wagner died (and Bismarck was Chancellor, in the 1880s) until the triumph of the Federal Republic as a political and economic power in the 1960s. In this sense, he witnessed a number of political crises in Germany, most notably the fall of the Weimar Republic, the rise of Nazism, and the challenges attending the reconstruction of German civil and political life in the aftermath of World War II.Jaspers was born in Oldenburg in 1883, and he studied law, psychiatry, and eventually philosophy. Since late adolescence he lived with incurable bronchiectasis, a condition often associated with respiratory and heart failure. At the time, doctors used to recommend lengthy periods of rest to cope with this condition, and this weighed heavily (together, of course, with personal inclination) in his decision to abandon a career in psychiatry and devote himself to philosophy. His lifelong sickness also prevented him from ever being a “man of action,” and for most of his life he was perfectly content with thinking, writing, and teaching. He grew up and lived in the awareness of being severely handicapped in everything but knowledge and his inner spiritual life. Of crucial importance in the development of that life was the company of his wife and philo-sophical partner, Gertrud, a Jewish woman trained as a nurse with a brilliant mind and strong philosophical interests. The (literally) existential threat posed to them by Nazism had a profound impact on this physically fragile man previously uninterested in active poli-tics, and presented to him political engagement after the war as a matter of life or death. His peculiar situation as internally exiled and overall uncompromised by ties with the Nazis put him at the forefront of efforts to rebuild German higher learning at the end of World War II, under the watchful eye of American occupying forces. This is when he wrote his most “activist” works. He left Germany in 1948, moving to Basel, Switzerland. He continued to be vocal in matters related to German politics after moving, though his influence declined sharply

Suffering as a Political Situation: A Phenomenological Approach

In this paper I argue that, despite resistance by many to its incorporation into public discourse, suffering is a constitutive element of politics today, both a consequence of and a motive for political action. I consider some of the problems attending the incorporation of suffering as a subject of political discussion and I propose a phenomenological approach to address some of these problems. This approach is based on the notion of situation, which allows for a contextual reading of suffering as an intrinsically relational experience encompassing multiple differently situated perspectives. Drawn from Karl Jaspers’ writings on psychiatry, this approach focuses on empathic listening to the claims of differently situated selves, and is rooted in awareness of our own situation

Suffering and the making of politics: perspectives from Jaspers and Camus

Bonnie Honig has recently criticized the attempt to graft ethical and political principles onto the alleged universality of suffering. She considers this trend inhospitable to vigorous, democratic citizenship, and she pits a ‘lamentational politics’ centered on suffering and mortality against a political, agonistic humanism that focuses on life, action and courage. In this article, I inquire into how political action in concert can (and does) arise out of suffering. I characterize suffering, following Karl Jaspers, as a situation that defines being human. Yet, drawing on Jaspers and Camus, I resist its portrayal as immediately universal and anti-political. First, I transpose suffering from the plane of singular, idiosyncratic experience to that of complex situation. Second, by way of my reading of The Plague, I suggest that suffering can be privileged ground for the reconfiguration of political landscapes through its unmaking of identities in both a literal and metaphoric sense. Suffering ought not to be displaced from debates in political theory. Rather, it should become an agonistic ground of contention. It should be re-politicized

«Shklar made me do it!». The liberalism of fear and international intervention

In this article, I draw on Judith Shklar to provide an alternative to the liberal model of military intervention proposed in the last few years by intellectuals such as Michael Ignatieff. I suggest that Ignatieff misunderstands Shklar's liberalism of fear when he appropriates it as a foundation for military intervention on behalf of human rights. Through a reading of his Tanner Lectures "Human Rights as Politics. Human Rights as Idolatry" on one hand, and drawing on Shklar's entire body of work on the other, I highlight the profound differences separating these authors with regard to: their stance on natural law; the question of foundations and moral universals; the question of voice (Who speaks on behalf of the oppressed?); and their general stance with respect to the legacy of colonialism. I pit what I call Shklar's activism against Ignatieff's interventionism, and put forward a reading of «putting cruelty first» as opening a forum for contestation across nations and cultures