The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Hannah Arendt: Book 26 of 2022

Hannah Arendt was very much a public intellectual. She was willing to speak and be interviewed on radio and TV and in public settings.  The interviews collected in this book are from the last decade of her life.  

The first interview occurred on October 28, 1964, with the German TV personality Gunter Gaus. World War II and the Holocaust ended with German Surrender just 19 years before the interview.  Twelve years before that, Hannah Arendt fled to France when persecution of Jews began with Hitler's rise to power.  

The interview covers Arendt's life in Germany, life as a refugee, and as an American scholar.  Arendt and Gaus also talk about the Eichmann trial and Arendt's very controversial reporting on the trial.  

On the rise of Hitler to power she said, 

People often think today that German Jews were shocked in 1933 because Hitler assumed power. As far as I and the people of my generation are concerned, I can say that is a curious misunderstanding. Naturally, Hitler's rise to power was very bad. But it was political. It wasn't personal. We didn't need Hitler's assumption of power to know the Nazis were our enemies! That had been completely evident for at least four years to anyone who wasn't feebleminded. We also knew a large number of the German people were behind them. That could not shock or surprise us in 1933.

Gaus then asks,  

You mean that the shock in 1933 came from the fact that events went from the generally political to the personal?

Arendt responds,

Not even that. Or that too. First of all, the generally political became a personal fate when one emigrated. Second...friends "coordinated" or got in line. The problem, the personal problem was not what our enemies did but what our friends did.

Arendt describes an "empty space" that formed around her and other Jews as "friends" followed the Nazi Party and abandoned her and other Jews. 

In an interview in October 1973, shortly before Arendt's death in 1975, she was interviewed by Roger Errera or ORTF TV, France.  In the interview, which covered many topics and was filmed over several sessions, Errera made a comment that Arendt answered and I could see why I was so taken with Arendt's thinking and felt compelled to read all of her major works.

Errera:  

Our century seems to me dominated by a mode of thinking based on historical determinism.

Arendt:  

We don't know the future, everybody acts into the future, and nobody knows what he is doing, because the future is being done. ... Action is a "we" not an I...Now this makes it look as though what actually happens is entirely contingent, and contingency is indeed one of the biggest factors in all of history. Nobody knows what is going to happen simply because so much depends upon an enormous amount of variables; in other words on simple hasard.  On the other hand, if you look back through history retrospectively, then you can--even though all this was contingent--you can tell the story makes sense. How is that possible? How is it possible in retrospect it always looks as though it couldn't have happened otherwise? All the variables have disappeared, and reality has such an overwhelming impact upon us that we cannot be bothered with what is actually an infinite variety of possibilities.

There is much more in these interviews.  If you have already read one or more of her books, these interviews will give you more perspective.   

I first read Hannah Arendt after I returned from deployment to Iraq in 2010. A new friend Sara Rouhi who was studying philosophy said, "You have to read Arendt." I did. Became obsessed and read all of her major works.  Sara was one of the people I was thinking about when I recommended making friends of all ages.

I wrote about her here.  

Books 8 and 20 in the list below are by Arendt. 

I brought up Arendt at a conference I attended in June on the subject of claiming territory in space.

Just before COVID, I went to my first conference at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College.

First 25 books of 2022:

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. 

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut: Book 25 of 2022

In 1986, the human race was wiped out, except for a dozen people who escaped from Ecuador to the Galapagos island of Santa Rosalia.  From those dozen ill-matched survivors, after a million years, the human race was reborn as something close to fish.  

The end of the human race in 1986 was the direct result of our brains being too big.  Page after page throughout this very funny story, we learn that our oversized brains lie, are prone to self-deception, to self-regard and all sorts of self-destructive behaviors.  

The Virgil in this tour through the self-created Hell of modern life is a Vietnam War veteran who is the child of a terrible science fiction writer who has one fan in the entire world.  And that fan, a Swedish doctor in Thailand, treats the Vietnam War veteran for syphilis--and sends him to Sweden to be cured. He lives there until he is decapitated in a boatyard and becomes the ethereal guide of the book.

 To quote my last Vonnegut book, "If This Isn't Nice, What Is?"  

You could run out and buy or download the book.  

I got my copy of the book from a barista named Joe who works at The Coffee Bar in Avenel, NJ.  

Thanks Joe! It was as good as you said it was.    

First 24 books of 2022:

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. 

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Marching Back to Health

Fifty years ago on February 1, I started Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The skill I use the most from that eight weeks of learning to be part of a team is marching. In the past two decades I have been busted up pretty badly. 

In recovering from those injuries, I would square my shoulders, look straight ahead, take that 30-inch step and move out. After knee replacement surgery three years ago, my physical therapist was a young Marine. He taught me to walk again using cadence. 

In 2007 I smashed C7 and broke nine other bones in a bicycle race. For three months I wore a neck and chest brace. I walked at least three miles every day after I left the hospital. When I didn't feel motivated I would sing cadence in my head and walk very straight and tall. 

For an aging amateur athlete recovering from injuries and body repairs, marching the road to recovery has helped me recover more quickly.

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton Book 24 of 2022

Edith Hamilton wrote a series of books on Greece and Rome.  This is the third I have read. The first two:  The Roman Way and The Greek Way are about the culture of these two empires at their height and their influence through the last two millennia.  

This book could a "WTF Happened?" to the the great culture of Greece. How did it fall so far so fast never to rise again?  The book answers the question by explaining 4th Century BC Greece in sharp contrast to the glories of the century before.  

The book begins by explaining the freedom that came into being in Athens in the 5th Century, something unique in the world up to that time.  Then she explains how Athens fell, the death of Socrates coming at about the same time as the defeat of Athens by Sparta.  

Then there is a chapter or part of a chapter on Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander, Demosthenes, the stoics and finally Plutarch--a lovely homage to Plutarch's very famous Lives. 

Hamilton is witty, brilliant, and loves the ancient world. I recommend her books to anyone who cares about the culture of Greece and Rome. 

On freedom:  

Responsibility was the price every man must pay for freedom. It was to be had on no other terms.

Fundamental to everything the [ancient] Greeks achieved was their conviction that good for humanity was possible only if men were free, body, mind, and spirit, and if each man limited his own freedom. A good state or work of art or piece of thinking was possible only through the self-mastery of the free individual, self-government.

Freedom was born in Greece because there men limited their own freedom.... The limits to action established by law were a mere nothing compared to the limits established by a man's free choice. 

On God:

Through Plato, Aristotle came to believe in God; but Plato never attempted to prove His reality. Aristotle had to do so. Plato contemplated Him; Aristotle produced arguments to demonstrate Him. Plato never defined Him; but Aristotle thought God through logically, and concluded with entire satisfaction to himself that He was the Unmoved Mover.

First 23 books of 2022:

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. 

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? (Much) Expanded Second Edition: The Graduation Speeches and Other Words to Live By --Kurt Vonnegut Book 23 of 2022

 This short book is exactly what the subtitle promises in the inimitable style of Kurt Vonnegut.  The title quote is also the theme of the book:

“My Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now, one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, "If this isn't nice, what is?

So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, "If this isn't nice, what is?”

Vonnegut puts being kind at the center of a good life: 

“There’s only one rule I know of—Goddam it, you’ve got to be kind.”

But he is quite aware that for most people, hate motivates:

“It is a tragedy, perhaps, that human beings can get so much energy and enthusiasm from hate. If you want to feel ten feet tall and as though you could run a hundred miles without stopping, hate beats pure cocaine any day. Hitler resurrected a beaten, bankrupt, half-starved nation with hatred and nothing more. Imagine that.”

Vonnegut loved growing up in Indiana, the schools he attended and the teachers he had:

“A show of hands, please: How many of you have had a teacher at any stage of your education, from the first grade until this day in May, who made you happier to be alive, prouder to be alive, than you had previously believed possible? Good! Now say the name of that teacher to someone sitting or standing near you. All done? Thank you, and drive home safely, and God bless you all.”

In his many books and articles he fulfilled what is my favorite quote from the book:

“The function of the artist is to make people like life better than before.”

For the rest of us, art is good for our souls:

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories.”

First 22 books of 2022:

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. 

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

To Have a Good Life, Keep Making New Friends

In 2011 I trained with these aircraft fuelers for three weeks. I thought I was going to Afghanistan with them. I didn't.  They did. They cut the deployment list and I did not go, but we trained together, sharing the happiness and hardships of Army life.   

I recently talked to my uncle David who is in his mid-80s. He is very successful: an engineer who started his own company and sold it for more than $10 million when he retired.  In the 45 minutes we talked he would mention friends and colleagues who were in ill health, who recently died, or who were limiting their activity due to their age.  

He is part of successful graduating class at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), has life-long friends and colleagues, and his friends, like him, are rich.  

David does not have friends half his age, or less.  Making friends requires having time to give or simply waste, and it requires equality. Over the past two decades, I have worked with, trained with, volunteered with, and just spent time with people who are half my age. I have made new friends during those years because we were doing the same tasks, with the same goal and we were peers.

My last job was at a museum and library of the history of science.  Non-profits tend to have a staff that is either just starting their careers or near retirement.  Since I worked in communications, many of my colleagues were in their 20s and 30s.  I was a writer who managed a program, so we were always peers on projects.  Because we were peers, there was always  a potential to make friendships.  Since my retirement, several of my former co-workers have been in book groups I was in. 

During the pandemic, a former colleague who got a big promotion was talking about the next step after Director of the Library. We laughed and laughed and decided to form the World Conquest Book Club, because it was one short step from Director of the Library to Ruler of the World!

Some of my co-workers became fellow protestors since 2016. I also made friends among my protest group participants.  We stand together in all weather, we face hecklers together and celebrate victories.

When I re-enlisted in the Army at age 54, I was an enlisted man. I made sergeant pretty quickly, but I was working and training with junior sergeants and enlisted men.  Some were half my age, some were a third.  The Army always has "hurry up and wait time" so we could talk and among a large group, find the people who we wanted to be friends with.  

And now volunteering with Razom, I am meeting many people I like, and a few who I really connect with. Most of the volunteers are in their 20s and 30s and Ukrainian. While we are making medical kits, as with serving in the army, we are all equal, doing a hot, dirty job, that really gives us the satisfaction of knowing we are helping soldiers in a noble cause.  

None of my life has a plan. I wasn't sure if I would have kids: I have six to nine depending on how you count.  I was sure I was done with the Army at age 27.  Then I wasn't. All of my childhood I wanted to be a truck driver and a soldier.  I achieved those life goals by age 19 then started on new ones.  

All of my life, I was a worker or manager of a small team, whether in white or blue collar jobs.  I made enough money to have all those kids and a nice life, but not to be rich.  When the opportunity to volunteer came up, I could go there and be just another pair of hands.  So this year, I could go to a New Jersey warehouse as a volunteer and simply be that pair of hands. And make new friends. 

Since I retired in 2015, I have been to many new places, done things I had never done before, and made new friends. The kind of people willing to stand in the rain and sleet to protest injustice; people with jobs and kids who make combat medical kits to help the soldiers fighting the invasion of their country; people who read, reflect and want to talk about the books that move them, and people who know the thrill of climbing a three-mile hill, then flying back down at either side of 50 miles per hour: these are my people.

One of the difficulties of power and wealth, is that it becomes more difficult to trust people--are they with you just to be near power and money? And, of course, if you have great possessions, to some extent those possessions have you. A couple with three houses and three cars has a lot of laundry to do and fenders to wash.  And they don't have time to just be another pair of hands in a warehouse in New Jersey trying to make a small difference and meeting the kind of people who strive for a better world.

Of course, keeping old friends is important too.  I just got back from traveling in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway with my roommate from 1979 in Cold War, West Germany.  I am looking forward to my 50th high school reunion in October. Like ancient people, I think friendship very important to living a good life--indispensable.  And listening to other people close to or in the eighth decade of life, making friends throughout our lives is a big part of a good life.  

PanzerMuseum East Gift Shop

The Gift Shop at Panzermuseum East, Slagelse, Denmark, is crowded with uniforms, gas masks, models, spent brass, radio equipment, flags and more.

 

Museums, like their creators, have personalities. Panzermuseum East in Slagelse, Denmark, is neat with immaculately restored guns and vehicles and displays.  And it is very crowded.  Tanks, trucks, guns, armored vehicles, tank engines, radios, field hospitals, field kitchens, missiles, missile launchers, helicopters, a transport plane, and decontamination equipment crowd the buildings and the area around the buildings.  

I wrote about the museum two weeks ago.

The neat, organized, crowded feel of the museum displays carries over into the amazing gift shop near the entrance. In the photo above, are full uniforms, jackets, spent cartridges from every kind of gun: rifles to howitzers.  The snack bar table is atop 55-gallon oil drums.  

Near the entrance, by a window is a display of dozens of scale model tanks and armored vehicles, soldiers and toy helmets.  

There are hundreds of scale models of planes, ships, tanks and trucks from World War II to present day equipment.

Even landing craft....

Along with the models are racks of uniforms.

Spent cartridges up to 105mm cannon ammo. Radios, field mess kits, cases and other gear. 

Gifts and toys.....

Even toy guns!!!!!

Maria, who runs the gift shop, said  they sell nine of these Soviet era replica gas masks each week to kids who want these masks!! 

Hundreds of packs and pouches.....

Lots of belts......

And uniforms.......

A long rack of dress and fatigue uniforms and hats from various armies and eras.

Flags and canteens....

Hats....

Top Gun gear....

Flight suits......