Chapter 34

Arendt considers the relationship to forgiveness and promises. If forgiveness is a mechanism for alleviating the consequences of past uncertainty, a promise is one which attempts to stabilize uncertainty in the future. But even the most well-intentioned promise relies on assumptions about sovereignty, certainty, independence, and good fortune—a gamble, she notes, when the only truly irrefutable promise in life is human mortality.

But faith and hope, Arendt muses, are also fundamental tenets of a promise, and both figurative and literal fertility offer the promise of new beginnings in an uncertain future—there is a reason, she argues, that the most hopeful moment in all the Christian Bible is “a child has been born to us.”

Chapter 35

“35. World Alienation” marks the beginning of the section titled “Chapter VI: The Vita Activa and the Modern Age.” This is the book’s final section, spanning from “35. World Alienation” to “45. The Victory of the Animal Laborans.”

Arendt cites the three events that, in her estimation, facilitated the character of the modern age: the discovery of the New World and subsequent age of global exploration; the Reformation, which upended the relationship between individual and collective wealth; and the invention of the telescope, which infinitely expanded humankind’s relationship with the universe.

Technology, Arendt notes, has made the universe smaller—a person can travel vast distances quickly, can observe celestial phenomena millions of lightyears away, and can understand scientific concepts that would have been incomprehensible to an average person centuries ago. The airplane, in particular, has created a “decisive shrinkage of the earth” that redefined how humans live in relation to each other.

This same modernity, Arendt argues, has led to a certain degree of alienation and a loss of faith, only some of which can be explained by modern secularization. People rely on social classes for protection and belonging where they used to rely on family. The same globalization that facilitates ease of travel has made prosperity travel further, but it also amplifies the reach of economic depression. Borders have become less meaningful, too, as many societies meld into one. This, she insists, is risky—people cannot be citizens of their own countries and citizens of the whole world at the same time.