Tilda Sutter
Professor Ellis Neyra
ENGL 320
November 16, 2024
Selamawit Terrefe, in her essay, “Death Rattles not Dashikis”, investigates Hannah Arendt’s assertions about the constitutional qualities of humanness – arguing that these requirements illuminate the paradoxical creation of nonbeings, the figure of the Slave. Terrefe references Arendt’s The Human Condition; below, I have expanded a passage Terrefe annotates, continuing to probe Arendt’s work within the context of Terrefe’s uncoverings.
“Speech and action reveal this unique distinctness. Through them, men distinguish themselves instead of being merely distinct; they are the modes in which human beings appear to each other, not indeed as physical objects, but qua men. This appearance, as distinguished from mere bodily existence, rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no human being can refrain and still be human. This is true of no other activity in the vita activa. Men can very well live without laboring, they can force others to labor for them, and they can very well decide merely to use and enjoy the world of things without themselves adding a single useful object to it; the life of an exploiter or slaveholder and the life of a parasite may be unjust, but they certainly are human. A life without speech and without action, on the other hand – and this is the only way of life that in earnest has renounced all appearance and vanity in the biblical sense of the word – is literally dead to the world; it has ceased to be a human life because it is no longer lived among men” (Arendt, 176).
Arendt traces the foundational quality of man as “speech and action”. These conditions allow men to “distinguish themselves” instead of being “merely distinct”; therefore, the conditio sine qua non of humanity is not a “[distinctness]”, but the ability to create this quality of distinctiveness, an ability to “distinguish [oneself]”. The inclusion of this “[mere]” distinction points to the possibility of a non-being; something that simultaneously belongs within the world of the “[distinguished]” yet is excluded from its capabilities. Similarly, her emphasis on the possibility of creating distinction, as the requirement of existence, reiterates her claims about “speech and action” – there is no obligation of creation within the world of beings, solely the ability, whether dormant or not, to generate. These inoperative beings are characterized as such, unlike the alluded to non-beings, who operate in a form of social death.
This ability to distinguish allows men to “appear to each other”, not as “physical objects” but as “qua men”. Without speech and action, within Arendt’s formulation, men are invisible. This invisibility is applied to her implicit creation of non-beings – those perpetually understood as obscure, unseeable, unknowable, never in existence at all. However, paradoxically, these non-beings seem to appear, solely as “physical objects”. The reference to a non-being that materializes as a “physical object” seems to be an unintentional illusion to the Middle Passage – Slaves, who while anthropomorphic, present as objects for the unending use of beings. These Slaves are excluded from appearing as “qua men”, lacking the prerequisite for representation – defined as speech and action. Slaves therefore occupy two irreconcilable modes of visibility; materializing as “physical objects” and simultaneously nothing at all.
Arendt continues to write “this appearance, as distinguished from mere bodily existence”, unintentionally revealing the true conditio sine qua non of being, of life, of the World. Appearance, or being, is created through the “[distinction]” from “mere bodily existence”; life created from the inverted production of the Slave – the Slave as genesis for the Human. However, she continues to offer another origin for existence –“initiative”. Like her discussion of the qualities of speech and action, “initiative” does not require a completed operation for its application. Instead, it is a dormant prerequisite of all humans, creating a caste of humanity that is not contingent on action or success, but rather, a separation from the Slave. Similarly, “no human being can refrain” from initiative “and still be human”; another illusion to the paradoxical nonexistence of the figure of the Slave, defined here as those who “refrain” from initiative, and are therefore inhuman. Initiative is the sole requirement of inclusion within the “vita activa”, political life, or the World.
Arendt continues with a list of actions characteristic of the human, yet none the conditio sine qua non of humanity itself; “Men can very well live without laboring, they can force others to labor for them, and they can very well decide merely to use and enjoy the world of things without themselves adding a single useful object to it”. Above, Arendt again revokes a foundational power from the work of “labor” and “adding” “useful [objects]” to the “world of things”, reiterating that only the basest form of initiative creates the category of a human – the generative conclusion to that quality is irrelevant. She invokes man’s ability to “force others to labor for them” – which while possibly alluding to a form of involuntary labor, does not refer to the enslavement of the Middle Passage. Crucially, those who are forced to labor are “others”, and therefore are beings included within the World, regardless of their different status. This position of the Other is distinct from that of the Slave – as the Slave, while constituted of and for the World, is not an existent member of it. However, Arendt’s assertion that men can “decide merely to use and enjoy the world of things” is where the position of the Slave is unearthed – Slaves are what are “merely [used]” and “[enjoyed]” within the “world of things”. This “use” is both physical and symbolic; the figure of the Slave functions as an endlessly plyable void for the world of beings.
Arendt directly discusses a position of enslavement; “the life of an exploiter or slaveholder and the life of a parasite may be unjust, but they certainly are human”. Above, she reasserts the humanity of a “slaveholder”, a notable affirmation considering her inability to investigate the violences that create this category of being. This “slaveholder” is compared to a “parasite”; both reliant on the “[parasitic]” use of another form for their own existence – an apt but unintentional metaphor for the position of the Slave as genesis for that of man.
Subsequently, Arendt reinstates her prerequisites for human existence; “a life without speech and without action, on the other hand… is literally dead to the world; it has ceased to be a human life because it is no longer lived among men”. Again, a “life without speech and without action” is defined as the position of the Slave – incapable of action due to its preordained natal alienation and noncontingent violences. Therefore, the Slave is “literally dead to the world”, nonexisting in a form of social death. This non-being does not “[live] among men”, as it does not meet the prerequisite qualities of appearance, defined earlier as speech and action.
Arendt’s formulation of the conditio sine qua non of humanity inadvertently reveals its founding genesis, the paradoxical, accompanying, inverted creation of the Slave. She outlines the conditions of this non-being, an inability to speak, act, or exist within the vita activa. These figures, therefore, are resigned to a perpetual, preordained social death – serving as the constituting force of the World and Being, yet excluded from both.
Work Cited
Selamawit Terrefe. "Death Rattle Not Dashikis" Philosophy Today, vol. 64, no. 4, 2023, pp.
773-793
Giovanni, Nikki. "The Great Pax Whitie." Poetry Foundation,
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48221/the-great-pax-whitie. Accessed 16 November 2024.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1998.
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