Re-posted here from Komun Academy
In her essay “On Revolution”, political theorist Hannah Arendt analyzes and compares the French, American and other revolutions to determine the “outstanding characteristics of the revolutionary spirit”. She recognizes these within the possibility of starting things with a new beginning, as well as in people’s collective action. Arendt is especially concerned with the question of why this “spirit” (Geist) failed to find lasting “institutions” and was lost in the revolutions. Elsewhere, Arendt writes:
“When I say that none of the revolutions which toppled one state-form and replaced it with another, were able to shake the notion of state, I refer to something that I have elaborated in my book on the revolution: since the revolutions of the 18th century, every greater upheaval developed an approach of a state-form, that immediately stemmed from the revolutions themselves, independent from all theories, namely from the experience of collective…
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