Research On Hannah Arendt’s Labor Thought

Labor thought in Hannah Arendt’s whole ideological system occupies a very important position.Arendt initially focusing on labor is mainly based on two reasons, one is from a practical aspect:the rise of consumer society or labor society;Another is theoretical concern:the study of Marx’s labor theory.In Arendt’s view, both reality and theory originally push labor from a lower position to unprecedented heights.This caused Arendt great anxiety and meditation.Because Arendt sees the shadow of totalitarianism from this:everyone is in uniformity.no thinking, lost into consumption, loneliness, which are the soil to produce totalitarian.Arendt holds a strong criticism to this modern change of labor, as the her critique of totalitarianism.About labor,On the one hand, Arendt inherits the ancient Greece and Aristotle’s point of view, considering the labor to be closely related to life.Labor just meets the demand of the body, which is the interaction between human and nature, must be hidden in the private sector.The distinction between labor and production have completely, mainly on the results, the labor is for the sake of consumption, in order to survive, don’t leave any trace;And the production is in order to create a belongs to the people of the world, has a permanent and a deposit.In addition, labor in the dominance hierarchy of Arendt’s positive life is the most are not of the people, the most free activities, work just as the most basic purpose of life.action truly reflects man’s freedom and the value,for in anction people can escape the constraints of life necessity and to make the world, everyone gets the maximum freedom, the pursuit of higher than that of the lofty goal of life, to participate in public affairs, words and actions reflect their own reality and reveal its own uniqueness.On the other hand, Arendt sees the change of labor in modern era, because under the influence of existentialism, her account of modern labor presents a different point from Marx.Through comparing Arendt’s and Marx’s labor thought, we can find that while both are concerned about the change of labor in modern form, but they have different specific elaboration.Arendt focus on the space of labor and the change of place, Marx sees the alienation of labor.From the perspective of historical materialism, Arendt labor thought also has certain limitation.Because of the influence of existentialism and classical republicanism, Arendt does not see the relationship between the real essence of labor and people, only limited to the political horizon, and does not use dynamic point of view of history to labor.Arendt pays a lot of attention, in other words, to the result of place of labor, and how people experience in labor,which is similar and marxist anthropology in the sense of labor.Marx’s understanding of labor, in addition to this, is more of a sense of history, for whom all the results of that labor.But we can still see Arendt labor thought brings us enlightenmen.In the laborer’s society, everyone is just a screw machine, uniform. in today’s such a rampant consumerism society, almost everyone crap into a crazy consumption cycle, overly concerned about the body and the needs of the survival, not pursuiting higher meaning, Arendt’s criticism about laobor and the idea of action can arouse us to consider the meaning of life and pursuits;Humans, on the other hand, because of excessive emphasis on its own development, the destruction of the ecological environment has been severe, Arendt on psychological, makers of instrumental that can make us rethink about attitudes towards nature, which also and the construction of ecological civilization of the since the eighteenth big idea coincides with mine.In addition, Arendt’s narrative about the labor body causes the attention of the feminists, sparking intense discussion of them.