En el verano de 1970, el escritor alemán
Adelbert Reif, entrevistó a Hannah Arendt. La entrevista, traducida al inglés
por Denver Lindley, giró en torno a controversias en ese entonces
contemporáneas, como los movimientos estudiantiles en Estados Unidos y en
Francia, la oposición a la Guerra de Vietnam, el concepto ‘revolución’ y otros
temas políticos. La entrevista fue publicada en 1971 en la NYRB.
En otro momento comentaré algunos asuntos
interesantes respecto a cómo Arendt veía los movimientos estudiantiles y las
universidades en términos políticos y su distinción entre asuntos ‘internos’ y
‘externos’ respecto a las universidades. En esta entrada, sin embargo, me
interesa destacar dos cosas que surgen al final de la entrevista: (1) la
propuesta de Arendt –de orden institucional-- sobre la democracia y lo que hoy
día se conoce como democracia participativa y deliberativa; y (2) un comentario
puntual sobre la diferencia de su propuesta (que nace bajo la premisa del
espacio de la polis como el espacio de ‘lo político’) con lo que fueron los
movimientos hippies en Estados Unidos y sus motivaciones. (Pongo el comentario
en negrillas).
Esto último lo comento en tanto hoy día
parece interesante analizar una serie de movimientos que yo llamaría de
‘retirada’, que enfocan su resistencia al mercado y la política (en su
precariedad actual) en alternativas que tienen su base en cierta idea de
‘autogestión’ (énfasis aquí en el prefijo 'auto'). Estas propuestas, que son ciudadanas y que surgen de sectores
medios, son de corte más individual y, por lo tanto, una podría analizar cómo
despolitizan ciertos temas (e.g. proyectos de agricultura a escala familiar,
como huertos caseros, consumo ecológico o ‘saludable’, por nombrar algunos). Si
bien estos proyectos se justifican frente a la homogeneización y masificación
imperante, los mismos, como muchos han señalado, dependen de posibilidades e
iniciativas individuales y parecen renunciar a un cuestionamiento más estructural
o sistémico, renunciar o abandonar ‘lo político’, en el sentido arendtiano. Otra
alternativa sería ver estas iniciativas en el largo plazo y pensar cómo una
vuelta o regreso a lo micro podría –si de alguna manera- poner en jaque el
estado de cosas actual. Esto requeriría otra entrada, pero el comentario de
Arendt en esta entrevista sobre los hippies arroja alguna luz para un buen
debate sobre esto.
Sólo una precisión más: la propuesta aquí
resumida por Arendt -valga enfatizar que es una entrevista- hay que entenderla en relación con
sus escritos, en los que desarrolla abordajes muy particulares sobre los conceptos revolución, lo político,
la libertad, el pluralismo y la acción. En On
Revolution, Arendt explicita mucho más abarcadoramente lo que aquí expone.
Llama la atención cómo otros teóricos más contemporáneos han desarrollado parte
de lo que aquí ella expone como su propuesta institucional (e.g. Habermas). ¡Salud!
“When I said
that none of the revolutions, each of which overthrew one form of government
and replaced it with another, had been able to shake the state concept and its
sovereignty, I had in mind something that I tried to elaborate a bit in my book
On Revolution. Since the revolutions of the eighteenth century, every large
upheaval has actually developed the rudiments of an entirely new form of government
which emerged independtly of all preceding revolutionary theories directly out
of the course of the revolution itself, that is, out of the experiences of
action and out of the resulting will of the actors to participate in the further
development of public affairs.
This new form of
government is the council system which, as we know, has perished every time and
everywhere, destroyed either directly by the bureaucracy of the nation states
or by the party machines. Whether this system is a pure utopia –in any case it
would be a people’s utopia, not the utopia of the theoreticians and ideologies—I
cannot say. It seems to me, however, the single alternative that has ever
appear in history, and has reappeared time and again. Spontaneous organization
of council systems occurred in all revolutions, in the French Revolution, with
Jefferson in the American Revolution, in the Parisian commune, in the Russian
revolutions, in the wake of the revolutions in Germany and Austria at the end
of World War I, finally in the Hungarian Revolution. What is more, they never
came into being as a result of a conscious revolutionary tradition or theory
but entirely spontaneously, each time as though there had never been anything
of the sort before. Hence the council system seems to correspond to and to
spring from the very experiences of political action.
In this
direction, I think, there must be something to be found, a completely different
principle of organization, which begins from below, continues upward, and
finally leads to a parliament. But we can’t talk about that now. And it is not
necessary since important studies on this subject have been published in recent
years in France and Germany, so that anyone seriously interested can inform
himself.
To prevent a misunderstanding that might easily occur
today: The communes of hippies and dropouts have nothing to do with this. On
the contrary, a renunciation of the whole of public life, of politics in
general, is at their foundation; they are refuges for people who have suffered
political shipwreck –and as such they are completely justified on personal
grounds. I find the forms of these communes very often grotesque – in Germany
as well as in America –but I understand them very well and have nothing against
them. Politically they are meaningless.
The councils
desire the exact opposite, even if they begin very small –as neighbourhood
councils, professional councils, councils within factories, apartment houses,
etc. There are indeed councils of the most various kinds, by no means only
workers’ councils; workers’ councils are a special case in this field.
The councils
say: We want to participate, we want to debate, we want to make our voices
heard in public, and we want to have a possibility to determine the political
course of our country. Since the country is too big for all of us to come
together and determine our fate, we need a number of public spaces within it.
The booth in which we deposit our ballots is unquestionably too small, for this
booth has only room for one. The parties are completely unsuitable; there we
are, most of us, nothing but the manipulated electorate. But if only ten of us
are sitting around a table, then each expresses his opinion, each hears the
opinions of others, then a rational formation of opinion can take place through
the exchange of opinions. There too it will become clear which one of us is
best suited to present our view before the next higher council, where in turn
our view will be clarified the influence of other views, revised of proved
wrong.
By no means
every resident of a country needs to be a member in such councils. Not everyone
wants to or has to concern himself with public affairs. In this fashion a
self-selective process is possible that would draw together a true political
elite in a country. Anyone who is not interested in public affairs will simply
have to be satisfied with their being decided without him. But each person must
be given the opportunity.
In this
direction I see the possibility of forming a new concept of the state. A
council of this sort, to which the principle of sovereignty would be wholly
alien, would be admirably suited to federations of the most various kinds,
especially because in it power would be constituted horizontally and not
vertically. But if you ask me now what prospect it has of being realized, then
I must say to you: very slight, if any at all. And yet, perhaps, after all –in
the wake of the next revolution.”