Abyss of Freedom, Promises Promises - Alan Keenan

Promises, Promises: The Abyss of Freedom and the Loss of the Political in the Work of Hannah Arendt Author(s):
Alan Keenan Source: Political Theory, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May, 1994), pp. 297-322 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192148 . Accessed: 06/12/2013 16:24
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PROMISES, PROMISES The Abyssof Freedomand the Loss of the Politicalin the Workof HannahArendt
ALANKEENAN Universityof Californiaat Berkeley
The effort to recapturethe lost spirit of revolutionmust, to a certainextent, consist in the attemptat thinkingtogetherand combiningmeaningfullywhat ourpresentvocabulary presentsto us in terrnsof oppositionand contradiction. -Hannah Arendt,On Revolution,225-26 Once again we find the paradoxdominatingthe whole of social action: freedomexists because society does not achieve constitutionas a structural objective order;but any social action tends towardsthe constitutionof that impossibleobject, and thus towards the eliminationof the conditionsof libertyitself. -Ernesto Laclau, New Reflectionson the Revolutionof OurTime, 44 Have you ever asked yourselves sufficiently how much the erection of every ideal on earthhas cost? ... If a temple is to be erected a temple must be destroyed:that is the law-let anyone who can show me a case in which it is not fulfilled! -Friedrich Nietzsche,On the Genealogyof Morals,Second Essay, sec. 24
"Theperiodsof being free have alwaysbeen relativelyshortin the history of mankind,"HannahArendt reminds us, in her difficult essay "WhatIs In recognitionof the ease with whichfreedomis lost or forgotten, Freedom?"1 Arendt devotes considerableattentionin her writing to the foundationof of theAmericanand politicalcommunities,mostdirectlyin herinterpretation Frenchrevolutionsin On Revolution.The foundingof a new political body is a particularlyprivileged instance of human freedom for Arendt:it both
AUTHOR'SNOTE: I would like to thankJudithButler,WilliamConnolly,RichardFlathman, Michael Gibbons,Bonnie Honig, ThomasKeenan,KirstieMcClure,and TracyStrong for their help in improvingearlier draftsof this essay.
POLITICAL Vol. 22 No. 2, May 1994 297-322 THEORY, C 1994 Sage Publications,Inc. 297
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assertsthe freedomto bringsomethingnew into the world, the ever-present and it establishesthe public or possibility of whatArendtcalls "beginnings," political realm itself, the very realm of action and freedom. Such moments of foundationare essential to both politics and freedom because freedom, while inexhaustible,is limitedto the momentof its being putinto action:"the of freedom ... coincides with the performingact.... To be free appearance and to act are the same" (WF, 152-53). As a result, freedom is always threatenedwith loss and oblivion; "withouta politically guaranteed public realm, freedomlacks the worldly space to make its appearance" (WF, 149). The importanceof the act of foundingthe political realmlies in the need to make possible the continuationof what can never be absolutelysecured,to and possibility of the most transient a space for the appearance "guarantee" and fragile of humanexperiences:freedomitself. One of the centraldifficultiesthat confrontsArendt'stheoryof freedom (as well as any analysis of it), however,is the tension that exists within her work between the temporaland the political aspects of freedom. Arendt's political theory,in its essence a theoryof freedom,is deeply indebtedto her of time as radicallyopen to new possibilities;yet politics for understanding her is clearly not only a matterof time. This tension becomes particularly acute when the issue at hand is the foundationof political bodies, or the constitutionof the politicalrealmitself. If the politicalis valuablefor Arendt as the space for, or the mode of, the appearance of freedom,which is itself inseparablefrom a particularaspect of time, then the act of founding the political "realm"must be consistent with that free temporality.But the political realm needs the stabilityof foundationsprecisely because freedom cannot simply be left up to time; for freedomto be active and effective as a force in the world,it requiresthe continuoussupport of politicalfoundations. "Foundation," then, is a hinge word in Arendt'stexts, turning(and torn) between the temporalityof "beginning" and the demandthat somethingbe like "thepolitical"itself, "foundation" is caught begun andthen maintained; between the "free"logic of time, with its possibilities for new beginnings, that the realm of freedom be given lasting support.In and the requirement the following pages, I explore this tension and Arendt'sattemptto come to I focus on heridealizationof "mutual termswith it. In particular, promising" as the means by which the freedomfound in political action can save itself I arguethat,despiteArendt'strust by grantingitself its own, free, foundation. in the promiseas a meansto preservefreedomandits politicalrealm,neither freedom nor foundationcan survive intact the deep interdependencethat Arendtso carefullyelaborates.AlthoughArendtseems, in On Revolution,to recognize the inability of promisingto found a realm of political freedom,
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in thehopes as a processof "augmentation," herturnto the notionof authority that it will provide the same combinationof freedom and foundationthat mutual promising has failed to give, repeats at a new level the dilemmas claims for promising. containedin her extraordinary Reading on the basis of Arendt's own formulationof the relation of freedom and foundation,and yet againstArendt'sdesire to "save"the free space of the political by walling it off fromthe realmof violence and rule, I arguethatthe politicalrealmandthe freedomit houses can only be found by accepting their inevitable "loss." However hard Arendt tries to separate freedom and political action from the violence associatedwith sovereignty and politicalrule, freedom'svery need for foundationinevitablyentanglesit activities. Seen in this light, "freedom," in just such "nonpolitical" "action," and"thepolitical"takeon new, morecomplex meanings,accordingto which they can never be entirely detachedfrom those qualitiesArendtrepeatedly or absenceof posits as theiropposites.Farfromimplyingthe simple "death" eitherfreedomor the political,the recognitionof the impossibilityof arriving at a political realm purifiedof nonpoliticalor unfree elements is instead a means to take up the challengeof freedomandpolitical actionin a different with the difficultyandcomplexity of Arendt'sown way, one commensurate analysis of political foundation.
1 Arendt'sprojectof thinkingthroughthe complexities of freedom is part of an effort to resist the inevitable tendency to "forget"the experience of freedom andthe politicalrealmin which it is found.Yet Arendtis very clear thatthe forgettingof freedomis no mere accidentthatbefalls us, or conspiracy on the part of the powerful. It is, instead, a dangerbuilt into the very of freedomitself: the most centralaspector sourceof freedom-the structure and explanation.As possibility of new beginnings-resists understanding "beginning'svery natureis to carryin itself an element of complete arbitrariness" (LM, 207), its emergencecan never be fully explainedby any law of determination: it never has to happen (thoughonce it has happened,it can neverbe undone).Freedom,as the capacityto begin, to bringsomethingnew into being, is structuredlike an "abyss." More precisely, "the abyss of freedom"is the hole formedwhen "anunconnectednew event break[s]into the continuum,the sequenceof chronologicaltime"(LM, 208). Whatbegins, it or what Arendtcalls at some points "theevent,"is not only unpredictable, is, strictly speaking, unimaginableand unknowable:it depends on "the
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freedom to call somethinginto being which did not exist before, which was not given, not even as an object of cognition or imagination,and which therefore,strictlyspeaking,could not be known"(WF, 151). and indeterminacyof the freedom lodged within the The arbitrariness possibility of beginningmakes freedomhardto explain and hardto remember.For this very reason,freedomneeds the supportof political foundations to be more thanan occasionalor marginaloccurrence; yet such foundations, unless they somehow are able to build within themselves a respect for the of freedom,threaten to assist in its forgetfragile, unpredictable temporality amountsto the problem ting. The resulting"riddleof [political]foundation" of "how to re-starttime within an inexorabletime continuum"(LM, 214) while still respecting freedom. How can a political entity be broughtinto being in a way thatfounds a new identity and history ("re-starting time") and contingentnatureof thatbeginning?The without denying the arbitrary greatestexample of an encounterwith the riddle of political foundationis, for Arendt,the AmericanRevolution.The Americanfoundersknew
that an act can only be called free if it is not affectedor causedby anythingprecedingit and yet, insofaras it imnediately tums into a cause of whateverfollows, it demandsa justificationwhich, if it is to be successful,will have to show the act as the continuation of a precedingseries,thatis, renegeon the very experienceof freedomandnovelty.(LM, 210)
The Founding Fathersknew that to establish a space of political freedom required an act that was itself entirely free, one which could have no immediatecause or higherpowerthatcommandedit. Yetthey also knew that for the founding to be successful, to begin a new collective endeavor and bringa new public space into existence,it wouldhave to be the impetus,even cause, of a whole chain of events thatwere to follow. It would thereforefind itself caughtup in a chain of cause andeffect, which would in turnimplicate it in the structures of "justification" or authorization thatthe free act essentially contests. Which explains why, when they were "calledupon to solve ... the perplexityinherentin the task offoundation"(LM, 211), the American founders chose to retreatfrom their own practice and experience of freedom by imagining that they were foundinga new Rome and by generally relying on the Roman tradition(which itself saw all beginnings as rebeginnings).In doing so, "theabyss of pure spontaneity... was covered up the new as an improvedre-statementof by the device . . . of understanding the old" (LM, 216). How is it possible to thinkthe fact of beginning,especially the beginning of a political community,withoutreducingit to somethingsecondary,to the
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continuum? Itis no surprise thatthose, effect of whatprecededit in a temporal whetherphilosophersor political actors,who have tried to think the fact of freedom, have found themselvestemptedby explanationsand absolutes,by with solutionsthat ways of explainingaway the "abyssof purespontaneity" make of beginningsonly the effects of some previousevent or some higher of freedomis abyslaw. However,this is so not only becausethe temporality accountsbut for the relatedparadoxical sal and thus resists straightforward reasonthat"nowheredoes manappearto be less free thanin those capacities of political whose very essence is freedom"(THC,234).2 Forthe temporality action,of the freedomto begin somethingnew, being one of absolutecontinof irreversibility and unpredictgency, carrieswith it an inevitable"burden ability":what is freely done can neitherbe predictedbeforehandnorundone once started,and it can never even be known, much less understood,until after its completion (which is to say that it can neverfully be known: "the reason why we are never able to foretell with certaintythe outcome and end of any action,"Arendtexplains, "is simply that action has no end" [THC, 233]). Because it is essentially incomplete,action is also necessarilyplural: it requiresthe assistanceof othersto be completed,and its "authors," finally, mustremainanonymousas well. All in all, to accept becauseof suchplurality, the burdenof freedomis to be throwninto an abyssof uncertain relationships and to be carriedto unknownandunknowabledestinations.The resultis
that he who acts never quite knows what he is doing, that he always becomes "guilty" of consequenceshe never intendedor even foresaw,that no matterhow disastrousand unexpectedthe consequencesof his deed he can never undoit, thatthe process he starts is never consummatedunequivocally in one single deed or event, and that its very meaningneverdiscloses itself to the actorbutonly to the backward glanceof the historian who himself does not act. (THC, 233)
The fact of this "simultaneous presenceof freedomand non-sovereignty, of being able to begin somethingnew andof not being ableto controlor even foretell its consequences"(THC, 235) means that freedom, as a matterof of othersandthusa common possibility,requiresthe presenceandinteraction space of appearanceand action. Put more simply, freedom, because it can only be found in the midst of plurality,is essentiallypolitical. In this regard, Arendt praises the American foundersfor their recognition that "political freedom is distinctfrom philosophicalfreedomin being clearly a qualityof the I-can andnot of the I-will."It is somethingpossessed only by the citizen, not man in general;it can be had only in communities,since "politicalfreedom is possible only in the sphereof humanplurality" (LM, 200). Yet the freedom that can be experienced in political action, and most in the foundation of the politicalrealm,has, accordingto Arendt, particularly
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been repeatedlyignored or covered over by theories thatlocate freedom in the will. Whetherthey understand the will to be an "inner" space of freedom such theoriesfail to face up to the or a capacityfor collective "sovereignty," complexities of political freedom. The political-the pluraland uncertain, which is to say nonsovereign-nature of freedom has been particularly resisted by many supposedlypolitical thinkers.As a result, the frustrations of freedom have led to destructivedreams of sovereignty,where political action is convertedinto a process of making or fabricationand pluralityis reducedto the singularityof "one-manrule"(whetherthatof the individual monarchorthe collective identityof a single politicalor nationalbody).Born out of the frustrationsinherentto political freedom, the "sovereign"will desires controland rule: controlover the effects of its action into the future, and ultimatelyrule over others.To understand freedomas "sovereignty, the fromothersandeventuallyprevailingagainst ideal of a free will, independent them" (WF, 163), is to try to dodge the pluralityand irreduciblycomplex temporalityof political freedom:it rests everythingon the singularityof the willing agent and the present momentof the willing act. The dreamis of a will that can fully inhabitthe presentin such a way as to controlthe future, and all alterity,from within it. Accordingto Arendt,themasterof thisantipolitical fantasywas Rousseau, who "conceive[d] of political power in the strict image of individualwillpower... [and]argued... thatpower must be sovereign,thatis, indivisible, because 'a dividedwill would be inconceivable'" (WF, 163). The disastrous irony is that theoristsof sovereignty,imaginingit possible to rule from the position of an undivided,presentmomentof the will, in fact invent worlds withoutfreedomandwithoutpolitics,for "thefamoussovereigntyof political bodies has alwaysbeen an illusion, which,moreover,can be maintained only of violence, that is, with essentially nonpoliticalmeans. by the instruments ... If men wish to be free, it is precisely sovereigntythey must renounce" (WF, 164-65).3 Those who desire sovereignty fail to realize that the attemptto escape from the essential incompletionand unpredictability of all free action is in fact doomed to paralysis-a paralysisof power that then requiresa supplemental dose of violence to shore things up. "In reality,"Arendt writes, "Rousseau'stheorystandsrefutedfor the simple reasonthat 'it is absurdfor the will to bind itself for the future'[quotingfrom On the Social Contract]; a communityactuallyfounded on this sovereign will would be built not on sandbuton quicksand" (WF,164).The sovereigndreamof rulingfromwithin the undividedpresenceof the will guarantees ineffectiveness:to inhabitfully the presentmomentguaranteesisolation from, ratherthan controlover, the
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future.Indeed, centralto Arendt'sargumentis thatthe political present,the "gap between past and future"that so fascinatesher and that is the time of freedom, only emerges in relationto the future(and thus, as we see below, to the past as well). Freedom and its political burdenscannot be taken up by retreatinginto the presentof the will but only by recognizingthe necessity of the futureto the present, a recognitionperformedin the act of promising."All political business,"Arendtexplains in responseto Rousseau,
within an elaborateframework of ties and bonds for is and always has been, transacted the future-such as laws and constitutions,treatiesand alliances-all of which derive in the last instance from the facultyto promiseand to keep promisesin the face of the essential uncertainties of the future.(WF, 164)
Instead of yielding to the temptationsof the will and the desire to rule, a properlypolitical responseto the experienceof freedom-as an experience of being out of control-is containedin the faculty of promising.Promising remedies unpredictability:
which the bindingoneself throughpromises,serves to set up in the ocean of uncertainty, futureis by definition,islands of securitywithoutwhich not even continuity,let alone between men. (THC, 237) durabilityof any kind, would be possible in the relationships
Unlike sovereignty,which wants to eliminate the futurethroughthe hegemonic rule of the presentwill, the political strategyof relying on promises rests contentwith merely establishing"certainislandsof predictability" and "certainguideposts of reliability"(THC, 244). The force of promise is so strong,though,thatit can in fact grantthe otherwise"spurious" sovereignty "a certainlimitedreality."Such sovereignty
resides in the resulting,limited independencefrom the incalculabilityof the future..... The sovereigntyof a body of people bound and kept together,not by an identicalwill which somehow magically inspiresthem all, but by an agreedpurposefor which alone the promisesare valid and binding .. . [resultsin] the capacityto dispose of the future as thoughit were the present,thatis, the enormousandtrulymiraculousenlargement of the very dimensionin which power can be effective. (THC, 245)
By contrast with sovereignty,promising takes into account the nature of political power, which Arendtdefines as the "powergeneratedwhen people gathertogetherand 'act in concert,'which disappearsthe momentthey dethat"keeps part"(THC,244). It is the "forceof mutualpromiseor contract" them together,"Arendtexplains, in a crucial stipulation,"as distinguished
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from the space of appearances in which they gatherand the power which keeps this public space in existence"(THC, 244-45). In the recognitionthat neitherthe necessity of the futureto all action nor the essentialplurality of actioncan ever be eliminatedbut only managedpoliticallythroughthe act of is generated that"keepstogether," andeven "enmutualpromising,a "force" larges,"the "space"maintainedby power, by speakingand acting together.
2 Arendt'sideal of mutualpromisingplays a crucialrule,then,in preventing the realm of the political from being lost to sovereignty,with its confusion Arendt'spromisingcan of freedomwith the will, violence, andrule.Whether actuallyescape the difficultiesthatplague Rousseau'snotion of sovereignty will be the focus of the concludingsection of the essay. But to get there,we must first considerin detailjust what it is thatmakespromisingso important in Arendt'squestfor afree politicalfoundation.On the one hand,Arendthas argued that the freedom found in "speakingand acting together"(which might be abbreviatedas speech-actionand which defines for Arendt the political itself)4 can never be guaranteed, as it exists no longer than its thanits existencein andas action.Yetto the extentthatfreedom actualization, is valued as what is most properlyand gloriously human,the space for the of freedommust be preserved,or given life beyond the fleeting appearance moment of its initial appearance.How can something that rejects all substantialization orreification,thatresiststhe verylogic of time as a continuum, be given any duration or afterlife?"Theforce of mutualpromiseor contract" suggests a way out of the difficulty:by respectingboththe plurality5 of those who inhabitthe political realmand the uncertainty introducedinto political life by the future (and the possibility of new beginnings that it contains), for the politicalrealmwhile remainingtrue promisingcan act as a foundation to the logic of freedomessential to it. How exactly promisingperformsthis function,however,requiresexplanation. In her description (in the passage just cited) of the centrality of promisingto the foundationof politicalcommunities,Arendtis very careful to distinguish three apparentlyseparate stages of political freedom: "the in which [people] gather"; the "powergeneratedwhen space of appearance people gathertogetherand 'act in concert,'" which "keepsthis public space in existence";and, finally, "theforce of mutualpromiseor contract," which "keeps them [the gathered people] together."According to this model, promisingwouldmerelyshoreup-by formalizing-the powerandfreedom
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Arendtcannotallow the appearance alreadyalive in the politicalcommunity. of freedom-as the power of the beginning,the power of an "unconnected" event eruptinginto and disruptingthe continuumthat has preceded it-to depend on the priorexistence of a formallyconstitutedpolitical space. The constitution or foundation of that space must itself follow the logic of freedom. Yet without the durationthat promisinggives, freedom is caught in its own evanescent, insubstantialtemporality,doomed to a fitful, primarily existence. By holdingthe actorstogetherinto the indefinitefuture, "hidden" promisingtransforms freedomfromthe simplepossibilityof new beginnings of freeinto "worldly" political freedom.Even as it follows the appearance dom in the world, promisinggives freedomthe "space"for its "fully developed"political existence. How is it possible, then, to accept the centralityof promising to the developed, stable,politicalexistence of freedomwithoutlosing the undetermined, "beginning" quality of the freedomthat needs to be secured?In the section of The HumanConditionentitled"Powerand the Space of Appearance," Arendt presents a "solution"to this question that helps clarify her assertionsaboutthe foundingpowerof promising.She arguesat firstthatthe polis, as the space of freedom's appearance,is free from the need for any institutionalsupport:
the space of appearance comes into being wherevermen are togetherin the mannerof speech and action,andtherefore predatesallformal constitution of thepublic realmand variousformsof government,thatis, the variousformsin which the publicrealmcan be organized. Its peculiarityis that . . . it does not survive the actualityof the movement which broughtit into being, but disappearsnot only with the dispersal of men ... but with the disappearanceor arrest of the activities themselves.Whereverpeople gather together, it is potentially there, but only potentially,not necessarily and not forever. (THC, 199; my emphasis)
There is a clear priorityof freedom over "formalconstitution" in this definition of the political realm. Yet thatpriorityof freedomstill leaves the political dangerously"potential"; the public realm would then be subject to repeatedloss, to being forgottenas soon as men cease theirpolitical activity. That this "potential" natureof the public realmof freedomis a problemrequiringsome solutioncan be seen in Arendt'salmostimmediatequalification that such a space of appearanceis itself in need of the supportof power. "Power,"she explains, "is what keeps the public realm,the potentialspace of appearance betweenactingand speakingmen, in existence.... Whatfirst andthenkillspoliticalcommunities undermines is loss of power"(THC,200).
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Yet power too is subject to the same problem that plagues freedom: it "cannotbe storedup andkeptin reserveforemergencies,like the instruments of violence but exists only in its actualization." Indeed,
the word itself, its Greek equivalentdynamis,like the Latinpotentia with its various modem derivativesor the GermanMacht (which derives frommogen and moglich, not from machen), indicatesits "potential" character. Power is always, as we would say, a power potentialand not an unchangeable, measurable,and reliableentity like force or strength.... [Itis] dependent uponthe unreliableandonly temporary of many agreement wills and intentions.(THC, 200-1)
It would seem, then,thatthereis no plausibleexplanationfor how the public realm,by its natureradicallypotential,could ever be maintained beyondthe sporadicmomentsof its actualization becauseits relianceon power is in fact only a reliance on anotherform of potentiality.It would seem doomed to a mere chance existence, to come and go as people happenedto rediscoverit afterpreviousneglect or forgetfulness,unless-in the only possible solution to the challenge posed to Arendt'stheoryof political foundationby her own theory of freedom-such potentialitywere somehow able to operateas its own guarantee.Were it able to act as its own support,keeping itself alive between the momentsof its actualization,across the gaps of its being mere the danger of its being forgotten would diminish, and the "potentiality," foundation of freedom would once again be imaginable.6 To suggest how such a solutionmight work,Arendtturnsto Aristotle,whose notion of energeia or actuality,she claims, conceptualized the Greekexperienceof speechaction (and the political life it broughtinto being) as the highest possible humanachievement.Centralalso to herown, noninstrumental conceptionof political action, energeia
designatedall activitiesthatdo not pursuean end (areateleis) andleave no workbehind itself.... [I]n these instancesof ..., but exhausttheir full meaningin the performance action and speech the end (telos) is not pursuedbut lies in the activity itself which thereforebecomes an entelecheia,andthe workis not whatfollows andextinguishesthe process but is imbeddedin it; theperformanceis the work,is energeia. (THC, 206; my emphasis)
The attractivenessof this idea for Arendtlies in the possibility of there being a "work," a tangible worldly entity, that is "embedded"in its own production-at once alive in its own right and yet entirelydependenton the momentsof performance. It is with this same understanding of performance-not only as its own end but also as its own guarantee-that Arendtclaims one should readthe words of Pericles, which
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are perhaps unique in their supreme confidence that men can enact and save their greatness at the same time and, as it were, by one and the same gesture, and that the as such will be enoughto generatedynamisand not need the transforming performance reificationof homofaber to keep it in reality.(THC, 205)
The thought,so difficultto think,of an activitythatcan "save"(orremember) itself in "oneandthe samegesture" as its own performance-propellingitself forwardand grantingitself continuedexistence, withoutever becoming an object separatefrom this performance-this thoughtis essential to Arendt's theoryof political action(definedas a-telic, withoutend otherthanmaintaining itself). It also helps make sense of otherwise blatantly tautological statements.When Arendtclaims, for instance,that "power"is "whatkeeps people togetherafterthe fleetingmomentof actionhaspassed(whatwe today call 'organization')and what, at the same time, they keep alive through remainingtogether"(THC, 201), what first appearsas disturbinglycircular can insteadbe understood as an attemptto namethe capacityof freedomand or endurance.Arendt speech-actionto generatetheirown substantialization helps clarify this capacitywhen she explainsthatthe activitiesof speech and action, "despitetheir materialfutility,possess an enduringquality of their own because they create their own remembrance" (THC, 207-208; my of emphasis):the possibility maintainingfreedomrests on the possibility of memory. It remainsfair to wonderhow this might work, however.How could the most fleeting of activities be preserved even as they remain "materially futile" and have their "end"in the activity or performanceitself? To think throughwhat it means for speech and action to "createtheir own remembrance,"we can reconsider now what Arendt argues about "the force of mutualpromise."The promiseextends power into the future,thus giving it duration.This extension into the future simultaneouslygives power-and with it the political community-a past by giving it the time for memory;by opening the always fleeting freedomof action (and the power it generates) to the future,mutualpromisinggrantsthe space for historyandmemory(and Arendt's frequently praised "immortality" of the public realm). Speechaction can "endure"in the form of "remembrance" only because of this "force"of promise.Promisingis speech-action'sway of remembering itself; it institutionalizes, or textualizes, the merely "potential"nature of free speech-action.Even when the act of mutualpromisingis not, in fact, written (although all of Arendt's actual examples of great political promises are written),it operatesas a way of simultaneously constitutingandmarkingthe constitutionof a new collective being. Theforce of promiselies in its ability to form a new political community,or "space,"wherenone had been before, by deliberately leaving a trace or mark, in the present that immediately
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becomes past,on whose basis the identityandthe freedomof the community can be measured. This returns us to the earliersuggestionthatthe promiseplays an essential role in the constitutionof a realmof political freedom:it is only on the basis of a promisethatfreedomcan exist both "freely"and yet also with foundaof promisingas a merelysecondary tion, despiteArendt'sinitialpresentation supportfor an alreadyexisting "space"of freedom.Freedombecomes more thansporadiconly on the basis of the collective signatureof the promise,the way in which the wordsof the promisemarkoff a site in which memory,and called a promise is a thus political action, can take place. The "speech-act" conditionof possibility for the constitutionof a space for "speech-action" in the broadersense. Although Arendt details, and at times embraces, the way in which the constitutivepower of the promiseis essential to the emergence and preservation of political freedom,she nonethelessavoids exploringits more difficult implications.It is important to note, first of all, thatto lay down the law of freedom-and remainconsistent with Arendt'stheoryof political action as anti-instrumental, withoutend otherthanits own perpetuation-the promise can only be the promiseof the politicalitself. Whatthe promisepromises is the establishmentand continuationof a realm of politics: both the space of appearance (of freedom)andthe power generatedby common action.For that to be the case, the promise in fact only promises itself. When Arendt of the Declarationof Independence argues,for instance,thatthe "grandeur" lies "in its being the perfect way for an action to appearin words"(indeed, it represents"one of those raremomentsin historywhen the powerof action is greatenoughto erect its own monument"), that"action" turnsout to be the "mutual out of whichthe Repubpledge,"whichfunctionedas the "principle lic eventually was founded"(OR, 127). The action of promisingpromises action;the principleof free speech-action,which is enshrinedin the promise as the essence of the political, turnsout to be promising.The Declaration works as a promise of freedom only by the immediatememorializationor institutionalization of its action, by which it promisesits own continuation, the continuation of joint actionandmutualpromising.Promisesmaintainthe communityof actorsand promisors-they act as the foundationof freedom themselves. -only by theirpromising(andremembering) To the extent, however, thatpromisingis consistentwith Arendt'slogic of freedom and action, the foundationit providesthe political realm is less thansecure.To function,instead,as effectivelyfoundational,politicalpromises must limit all subsequent"free"acts, which are indebtedfor theirvery possibility to the space opened up and securedby the originalpromise. As Arendt herself argues, mutual promises are always specific: what holds
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togethera people "bound" (or founded)by a promiseis "an agreedpurpose for which alone the promises are valid and binding."Thus the "law"of the promise, what gives it its foundational and "binding"character,is the particularpurpose agreed on by the community of promisors.But to the extent thatthe freedomof the politicalrealmis foundedon a specific project, it cannotbe entirelyfree:the "space"for actionopenedup by such a promise to andlimitson the possibilityof new action will necessarilyformboundaries that follows this founding moment and foundingprinciple. Promisingcan effectively lay down the law of freedomonly by immediatelyviolating that same law: it is a free act thatat once makes less thanfully free all acts that follow its law and example. Arendt's efforts to describe the political foundation of freedom thus remaincaughtbetweenfreedomandfoundation,andthe "mutual promising" that acts as the cement for the foundationof freedomoscillates essentially betweenthese two poles. Even acknowledgingthe validityof Arendt'sanalysis of the extraordinary capacityof promisingboth to memorializeand continue the freedomof political action,it is not certainwhethersuchpromising can provide,in any simple or secureway,eitherfreedomor foundation.This in turn,goes to the very heartof Arendt'seffortsto uncoverthe uncertainty, means of securing,or founding,a realmof politicalfreedom:if neitherfreedom nor foundation can survive their mutual dependence, any essential separationof the political realmfrom thatof sovereignty,violence, andrule is impossible.Before addressingthis dangerdirectly,though,it is important to note one furtherattemptthatArendtmakes to avertit.
3 It becomes evident, in the course of the long comparisonof the French and American Revolutions found in On Revolution, that Arendt herself of politicalfreedomrequiressomethingmorethan acceptsthatthe foundation promises. She argues that the experience of promising was central to the American "revolutionary spirit"and went a long way toward helping the Americansavoid the violence and instabilityof the FrenchRevolution;yet she makes it clear that promises were not enough for the foundation of freedom:thatrequiredsomethingelse, called "authority." Whetherauthority, in turn,proves to be strong(and supple) enough to solve the problemsthat undermine promisesis a questionto be takenup shortly.It is important, first, of promising'srelationto authority, however,to clarifythe precisecharacter as Arendtdescribesit in the course of On Revolution.
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The greatnessof the AmericanRevolution-and Arendt'sappreciation of it-rests in large parton the way it (unlikethe FrenchRevolution)was able need for the act to circumventthe problemof the "absolute"-the apparent of constitutinga new politicalbody to be itself authorized or foundedin some higher law or divine power. Althoughthis basic "perplexityof foundation" plagued the leaders and theorists of both revolutions, the genius of the Americanfounderswas the way in which they avoidedrelyingon the fiction of a "nationalwill" (such as the pouvoir constituantof the Frenchtheorist natureof which, Arendtargues,is such that"a Sieyes), the "ever-changing" structurebuilt on it as its foundationis built on quicksand"(OR, 162). The Americanswere able to avoid invoking such a concept in partbecause the colonies were alreadyorganized intomanydifferent"self-governing bodies," or sourcesof power,andthuswere neverfaced withthe theoreticaldilemmas of the stateof nature; "thereneverwas any seriousquestioningof thepouvoir constituantof those who framedthe state constitutions,and, eventually,the Constitutionof the United States"(OR, 164). Therewas no need to "constitute" power; the already existing power, rather,had to be regulated and structured as the engine of foundation. The power thatflowed throughout the colonies was thatpower originally generatedby acting togetherandmaintained by a promise-specifically, the mutualpromiseof the MayflowerCompact.The originalpromisorson board the Mayflowerhad confidence
in their own power, grantedand confirmedby no one and as yet unsupported by any means of violence, to combine themselves togetherinto a "civil Body Politick"which, held togethersolely by the strengthof mutualpromise"in the Presenceof God and one all necessary another," supposedlywas powerfulenoughto "enact, constitute,andframe" laws and instruments of government.(OR, 166-67)
The Revolutionmerely "liberate[d] the power of covenantand constitutionmaking,as it had shown itself in the earliestdays of colonization"(OR, 167), which had thus, as an experienceof the foundationof freedom,alreadybeen underway on the Mayflower:
binding and promising,combining and covenantingare the means by which power is kept in existence;whereandwhenmen succeedin keepingintactthe powerwhichsprang act or deed, they are alreadyin the up between them duringthe courseof any particular of constitutinga stableworldlystructure to house, as it were, their processof foundation, combinedpower of action. (OR, 174-75)
Much of the Revolution'swork had been done even before it occurred.
Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES:THE WORKOF ARENDT
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The Americanscould avoid the vicious circles of pouvoirthatplaguedthe French Revolution because power was already alive in the colonies and maintained by various forms of mutual promising. Yet such power and promises were inadequateto the task of devising a lasting foundation-that rooted is, an effective authority-for a new national politicalsystem."Power, in a people that had bound itself by mutualpromises and lived in bodies constitutedby compact,was enough 'to go througha revolution' . . . ," but
it was by no means enough to establish a "perpetual union,"that is, to found a new Neithercompactnorpromiseuponwhichcompactsrestaresufficientto assure authority. perpetuity,that is, to bestow upon the affairsof men that measureof stability without which they would be unableto build a world for theirposterity,destinedand designed to outlasttheirown mortallives. (OR, 182)
Despite her argumentthat promises move beyond the action and power that they institutionalizeor memorialize,Arendtnow arguesthatpromises, like the power they maintainand preserve,are not strongenough to constitute a lasting foundation.The foundationof a republic,which would be the foundation of freedom, requires something more stable than power and promising. The Americanfounderswere finally able to avoid the violence and the instabilitythatplaguedtheFrenchRevolutiononly by deliberately separating the source of law and authorityfrom thatof power:
the framersof Americanconstitutions,althoughthey knew they had to establisha new source of law and to devise a new system of power,were never even temptedto derive law and power from the same origin. The source of power to them was the people, but the source of law was to become the Constitution,a writtendocument,an endurable objective thing, which, to be sure, one could approachfrom many differentangles and which one could change upon which one could impose many differentinterpretations, and amend in accordance with circumstances,but which nevertheless was never a subjectivestateof mind,like the will. It hasremaineda tangibleworldlyentityof greater durabilitythanelections or public opinionpolls. (OR, 155-56)
Ratherthan put the source of law, or authority, in somethingas changeable as the people's will (assumingsomethinglike it could ever be found),or even their very real politicalpower,the Americansplaced authority in an entirely separate,andmorereliable,sphere:it was locatedin a text-the Constitution -and an institutiondesignedto interpret thattext-the SupremeCourt.The authorityof a republicanconstitutionlies in its resistanceto change: it is there, a "tangible"unchangingartifact;it forms the boundariesfor free action but is not itself, at least at this point in Arendt's argument,subject to
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the law of freedom,orthe possibilityof an absolutelynew beginning.In other words, what such authorityresists is power. Instead, the American republic has its foundationin the authorityof a written text. That text can be interpreted,of course, but even the most radical reinterpretation would always be in the terms of the original documentand thus confined within certain boundaries,boundariesthat act as a brake on the ever-changing expressions of the "will" or opinions, or even the power, of the political community. of authority frompower AlthoughArendtmakes much of this separation -for it is what grantsauthoritya firmerfoundationthan promising-their relationshipis in fact significantlymore complicatedthanthe word"separation" might imply, for it is clear that authority'scapacity to serve as a foundationcannotbe entirelyseparatefrom the power maintainedin promises (especially given Arendt'sown claim that the foundationof American freedom was only the continuationof the experiencebegun with the power maintainedin the MayflowerCompact).Instead,"authority" shouldbe seen to foundfreedom-another as Arendt'snamefor the next stagein the attempt link in the chain-that begins with "thespace of appearance," then goes on to "power,"then to "the force of promise,"and now finally to "authority." Although promising was supposed to enable power to "create its own the stabilitythuslent to power andto freedomis insufficient remembrance," for a surefoundation; the capacity of promises to "memorialize" power is not lasting enough. Authority,then, is called in to solve the problem now plaguing promising that promising itself was to solve for power: it must character of promising-and somehow sustainthe "free"and undetermined along with it, power-even as it gives them, and ultimately freedom, a lasting, durablefoundation. This solution was possible, Arendtexplains,only on the basis of a radical insight into the natureof freedomand foundationreachedby the men of the AmericanRevolution.This insight was theirrealization
that it would be the act of foundationitself, ratherthan an ImmortalLegislatoror selftransmundane evident truthor any othertranscendent, source,which eventuallywould become the fountainof authorityin the new body politic. Fromthis it follows that it is futile to searchfor an absoluteto breakthe vicious circle in which all beginningis inevlies in the very act of beginningitself. (OR, 205) itably caught,because this "absolute"
In much the same way that promising-on the model of energeiawas said to be the way that power generates,out of its own free action, a means of self-remembrance, here finds its stability(or absolute)in authority the very activityof founding.Viewed fromanotherangle,freedomcan resist
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absolutes-foundations or sources or causes that violate its logic of beginning, contingency,and uncertainty-only by being itself "absolute." Arendt explains this in more detail:
is that it carries its own what saves the act of beginning from its own arbitrariness principlewithin itself, or, to be more precise, thatbeginningand principle,principium and principle,are not only relatedto each other,butarecoeval. The absolutefromwhich the beginning is to derive its own validity and which must save it, as it were, from its is the principlewhich, togetherwith it, makesits appearance inherentarbitrariness in the world.The way the beginnerstartswhateverhe intendsto do lays downthe law of action in the enterprise for those who havejoined him in orderto partake andto bringaboutits As such, the principleinspiresthe deeds thatareto follow andremains accomplishment. apparentas long as the action lasts. (OR, 214; my emphasis)
Whatlends the beginning-or constitution-of the new AmericanRepublic is the principlecontainedin thatbeginning,in the its authority(or "validity") momentof foundation.But when it comes to the foundationof freedom,not just any principlewill do. It has, of course,to be the principleof freedom:if freedomfounds itself, it can only be on the basis of its own law. What,then, is the law, or principle,of freedomin this case? Arendtexplainsthat
the principlewhich came to light duringthose fatefulyears when the foundations where laid-not by the strengthof one architectbutby the combinedpowerof the many-was the interconnected principleof mutualpromiseand commondeliberation.(OR, 215)
The principlethatservesas the foundation for Americanauthority andthat saves the Americanfoundation fromvicious circles,absolutes,andquicksand is "the interconnectedprincipleof mutualpromise and common deliberation."The "authority" foundedby the AmericanRevolution,then, is someof mutual promising. thing like the textualization,or institutionalization, into the text of the ConstiPromisingis made lasting when it is transformed of the SupremeCourt.There,finally,promising(and tutionandthe institution the law of freedom, along with it powerandfreedom)findsits remembrance: as the practiceof promising,is laid down.
4 Despite Arendt'sargumentthatpower and promisingmust be separated it turnsout that,in fact, authority is based,in a certain fromlaw andauthority, As of promising. Arendt'sconcern here is with the way, on the "principle" foundation of freedom, authoritymust remain true to freedom's logic of
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it does so by actingas the institutionalization impermanence and"actuality"; or textualization of power of promising,which is itself the self-remembrance holdspromisingto its own law offreedom, andfree action.As such, authority continuingthepromiseof promising,ratherthanlocking the promiseinto an form. unalterable Yet it is clear thatsomethingdoes happenin the move frompromisingto authority:the "principle"of promising, while obeying the fundamentally unstabletemporalityof all free action, is neverthelesssupposedto possess, in the form of authority, a stabilitythatpromises alone have proven not to. is differentthanpromising Promising,as institutedin the form of authority, tout court. Arendtattemptsto come to termswith,if notexactly solve, the seemingly paradoxicalrelationof freedomandfoundationcontainedwithin"authority" derived from her readingof by introducingthe notion of "augmentation," Roman auctoritas. Describing the influence of auctoritason the American founders,Arendtexplainsthat
authorityin this contextis nothingmoreor less thana kindof necessary"augmentation" by virtueof which all innovationsandchangesremaintied backto the foundationwhich, to the Constitution at the same time, they augmentand increase.Thus the amendments of the Americanrepublic;needlessto say, augmentandincreasethe originalfoundations the very authorityof the AmericanConstitutionresides in its inherentcapacity to be amendedand augmented.(OR, 203)
as the text of the Constitution(or more generally, Authority-as-foundation, of the promise), cannot be separatedfrom authority-as-freedom, as the possibility of revisingthe text, of addingto andreworkingthe clauses of the Constitution,the materialout of which the political realmis made. The text (or foundation)grantsthe possibility of the political action (or freedom) of revision; freedom is only possible on the basis of this text, or contract,or institutionalizedpromise. But in the same way, such foundation,to be a political foundation,requiresthatit be revisable,thatit be subjectto the law of augmentation,ratherthan an absolute that lies beyond the freedom of political action. Authority,in short,is producedout of this interpenetration of freedomandfoundation; it dependson the "coincidenceof foundationand in which "the 'revolutionary' preservation by virtueof augmentation," act of beginning somethingentirelynew, and conservativecare, which will shield this new beginning throughthe centuries, are interconnected" (OR, 203). Authorityas "augmentation," then, is anotherversion of Arendt'sideal of residetogetherandreinforceeach energeia,in whichfreedomandfoundation other.
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To the extent, though,thatthis process of "interconnection" and "coincito Arendt the dence"is understood and by preserve independence identityof and "conservation," the two termsinvolved ("beginning" or "freedom"and remainstoo simple a conceptto describethe "foundation"), "augmentation" relation of freedom and foundation.Indeed, authorityas "augmentation" attemptsto have it both ways: to insulatethe politicalfromthe threatthatthe "necessity"of foundationposes to freedomand from the loss threatened by thatis, presentsas a smooth, its lack of foundation.Arendt's"augmentation," evolutionaryprocess what is instead a much less stable, even conflictual, And althoughthe conceptof augmenrelationshipof freedomto foundation. tation might at first sight seem to be an example of her ideal of "thinking togetherand combiningmeaningfullywhat our presentvocabularypresents it actuallysmoothsover the to us in termsof oppositionand contradiction," possibilities and difficultiesthatsuch a "thinking together"shouldprovoke. A theoryof authority thatis, takesno accountof the way as augmentation, in whichthe political "space" markedoff by the foundational promisealways has both too much freedomand too muchfoundation(conditionsthatare,in fact, merely two sides of the same dangerbuilt into the natureof freedom). conformsto the law of freedom,the To the extent thatArendt's"authority" political realm thatit "founds"must always remainonly a promisedrealm, alive perhapsin the momentof actionbutwithoutsecurityagainstfutureloss. can neverguarantee Such a foundation thepoliticalrealmagainstthe dangers inherentto freedom itself: the danger of being lost, for example, through habit, insecurity,or forgetfulness. But this same danger,in fact, is presentin the very meansArendtsuggests to alleviate it: to lay down the law of action, or promising,can only be to violate, in the very same gesture,the law of action (or freedom).Authority's of theprincipleof mutualpromising(justlike promising's institutionalization memorialization of power)must,to functionas a foundationand a law, place limits on the freedomof all thatfollows it, on the very political actionthatit helps make possible, for it is always a particularlaw of freedom:authority, like the promiseon which it is based, is always specific to "an agreedupon common purpose,"whetherthis is enshrinedin a verbalpromise, a written or the text of a constitution.Freedomcan compact, a founding"principle," only gain a foundationor a space, or become a law for a particular groupof to makecertain people, by takingon a specific, limitedform;the foundation, optionspossible, will have to close down certainothers:futurepossible new beginnings will be restrictedand others ruled out entirely. And whatever that are made, to "augment" ratherthanreject the founda"augmentations" tion, must takeplace withinthe limits set down in the foundation.The realm
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openness, plurality,and the of freedom-seen as a logic of indeterminacy, in the attemptto compromised new inevitably of beginnings-is possibility is for its survival. (It thus foundation necessary as some such found it, even of On Revolution, in final the chapter should come as no surprisewhen, Arendt explains that even the American Revolution failed, in the end, to establisha lasting foundationfor freedom.) relationof freedomandfoundation,the loss As a resultof this paradoxical of "the political" (as the realm of openness, plurality,and new beginnings) that Arendtregularlylamentsis a loss that cannot fail to happen.The very means of saving it from being forgotten-the text of the promise or of authority-inevitably involves it in the workingsof necessity and nonfreedom against which its freedom is to be protected. Caught within, and producedout of, a dialectic of freedom and foundationthat leaves neither its constitutive termintact,the politicalcan only be foundwithinandthrough loss, within and through its fall into the nonpolitical. To search for the political in light of the impossibilityof shelteringit fromthe "nonpolitical," however,requiresacceptingthe political as itself a space of conflict. Despite Arendt's efforts to wall off the realm of politics and freedom from that of violence and rule, the way in which the political space is constitutedout of has theeffect of lodgingconflict the conflict betweenfreedomandfoundation and violence withinthe heartof the political itself. To defend this claim in the detail that it deserves would requirea close reading of Arendt's numerousdiscussions of violence, which is, unfortunately,beyond the scope of the presentessay.7It can nonethelessbe shown, from within the terms of Arendt's own analysis, that in the face of the openness and pluralityof political freedom,the specific and limiting nature of political foundationsbrings with it a constitutivethreatof conflict and violence. One way this is so becomes apparentwhen we examine more closely an aspect of promisingaboutwhich Arendthas little to say: the fact or agreed on, the promise immediately that once it has been "performed" As we have seen previously,Arendt becomes a text in need of interpretation.8 arguesthatpromisingis to be valued in partfor the way in which it protects the pluralityof political action,refusingto subsumeall the promisorsunder a single will. Nonetheless, Arendtalso argues that it produces "a body of people bound and kept together... by an agreed purpose for which alone the promises are valid and binding" (THC, 245; my emphasis); it holds out of the "temporary agreementof many togetherthepowerthatis generated The promisecan bind only wills and intentions"(THC,201; my emphasis). because of the common purposethat the promisorshave agreedto pursue. Although Arendt makes much of the way in which promises preserve the
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pluralityessentialto politics, she nonethelesstreatseach promiseas if it were at all momentsjust a single promise.For the promiseto functionas the kind of foundationthat Arendtwants, its meaning, and the purposewith which everyoneexpressestheiragreement throughthe promise,mustin some sense be evident to and identicalfor all the promisors. Arendt'sassumptionnotwithstanding, what each memberof the political body has "agreed"to in the mutualpromise of foundationis never merely self-evident: for the promise to be "free,"it, too, must be subject to the contingentplay of political contestationthatis the markof freedom.Promises, that is, are subjectto the law of freedom not only in their revision or augmentationover time but as texts whose meaning is found only in their which rendersthem susceptibleto as manypotentialinterpreinterpretation, tations as there are promisors.The freedom enshrined in the text of the promise, which makes it both so ideal as a political foundation and so unstable as a politicalfoundation, can be found in the way in which the "single" promise serves as the common site for a multitudeof different, potentially conflicting purposes. (There is no guaranteeof unanimity,for or "continuing" the founding instance, about what counts as "augmenting" act andthe principle[s]it enshrines.)A promise,like any agreement, is at best a point of conjuncture,a site at which conflicting goals, intentions,forces, and projectsfind a commonexpressionor formulation but never an identity of meaning.To assumethe foundingpromisecan be limitedto a single, fixed, thatis at the basis meaningwould be to deny an aspectof the interpretability of Arendt'sown ideal of augmentation. Indeed,for a promiseto be truly an agreement, for it to be free, it must emerge out of, and continue to be threatened of a real "differend" that by, the possibility of real disagreement, has no guaranteeof peaceful resolution. Thus whateverfoundational supportthe promiseoffers (whetherdirectly or in the form of Arendt's"authority") comes fromthe single, authoritative interpretation that must at certaincrucial momentsbe established,more or less forcefully.To arguethatthe promiseoffers a site for competinginterpretations,and thus for a certainformof freedom,in no way reducesthe extent to which the promise also serves to limit the very freedom it enshrines. Althoughthe necessity thatthe promisebe interpreted opens the space for a it also involves theopposingnecessityof deciding pluralityof interpretations, on one interpretation ratherthananother.(It is this requirement of deciding between interpretations thattransforms theirpluralityinto conflict.)Rulings about how the law is to be interpreted, aboutwhat counts as "augmenting" or continuingthe foundingprinciplesof a documentlike the Constitution or other such collectively binding decisions that rework the meaning of the
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"agreeduponpurpose"of the mutualpromise(andwith it the identityof the "body"of promisors),areall integralaspectsof thefreedom of any political community. But this means,in turn,thatits very role as a foundationlodges withinthe promise a certainkind of violence (a violence, however,thatis inextricable from freedom itself). Despite Arendt'sdesire to banish from the political realm the violence involved in ruling (as it substitutesthe singularityof a commandor decision for the pluralityof the momentof promising),ruling is neverthelessboth unavoidableand fully political. A political community founded on promising cannot avoid such moments of decision, in which the promise that all make and to which all are bound is given an inevitdeterminedby only some. All pledge ably limited, particular interpretation themselves-as membersof the one "bodyof people"broughtinto being by the promise-to the "same"promise, or foundationallaw, even as the political decisions that specify the scope or applicationof the law redefinethe (practical)meaningof the promisein ways not agreedto by all. By putting to the freedomfoundin the existence of varying an end, at least temporarily, interpretations of the foundingpromise,collective decisions bind members of the communityto promisesthatthey may not even agreethey have made. Accepting that the promise will always enshrinea particular purpose in need of interpretation, then, involves recognizingthatthe promiseis constitutively divided between pluralityand singularity. This new back-and-forth of freedom and foundationrendersthe promise once again both less stable thanArendtwould have it-because it is a site of conjuncture andconflictand less free-because it functionsas a foundationonly to the extent that a is imposed on it by some act of decision. As a single, limited interpretation result, it also entails recognizing once more that the political realm of freedom can never simply be separatedfrom the "nonpolitical" realm of sovereigntyandrule.The veryopennessandfreedomof the politicalrealmthe fact that the foundationalpromise is without self-evident meaning, or any otherabsoluteand is thus subjectto a multitude independentarbiter, of possible interpretations and to the necessity of constant redefinitionleads to a continualprocessof decision making,ruling,andclosurethatviolates its law of plurality, nonviolence,andopenness.Thistearwithinthe heart of the political realm lies within the act of decision itself, divided as it is between the freedom of reconstituting the political realm by redefiningthe promise and the violence of imposing thatdefinitionin ways that all do not accept and that exclude other possible communities and other possible futures.(The potentialfor conflict and violence thatcomes with the need to the promiseis only one example of the violence thatattachesmore interpret and exclusive characterof political foundations. generally to the particular
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Arendt's peaceful metaphorsof building walls and making promises, together with the essential but never stated assumptionthat such foundation takesplace in a vacuum,in an empty,not yet politicalspace,deflect attention from the way in which the singular,limiting, anddecisive natureof political foundationentails a more or less violent displacementof other,existing or potential,communities.)9 To acceptthepossibilitiescontainedwithinsuchfreepoliticalaction,then, one must also accept the costs that action entails for freedom itself. The particularcomplexity of the relationshipbetween freedom and foundation thatthis essay has exploredshouldteachus thatthe qualitiesof freedomand actionthatArendtvalues mosthighly-those of openness,plurality, andlack of absolute ground-necessarily involve political action in some of the processes and actionsthatmost endangerit. This refersnotjust to freedom's unavoidablereliance on foundationsthat will limit futurefreedomnorjust to the way in whichthepluralityandopennessof actionwill alwaysculminate in (even as they continueto resist)a singularanddecisive actof closure.Most important, instead,is how the very conditionof freedom-the fact thatsuch decisions (in theirsingularity, limitation,andclosure)arefree actsrather than necessary ones and thatthey take place, therefore,in the face of a plurality of opinions, perspectives,and criteria,without any guaranteeof agreement or "absolute" to act as a ground-implicates politicalactionin the supposedly "nonpolitical"world of sovereignty,rule, and violence. One cannot, then, mournthe repeated"loss"of "therevolutionary spirit"-when "freedomand powerhave partedcompany,andthe fatefulequationof powerwith violence, of the political with government,and of governmentwith a necessary evil has begun"(OR, 134>-as if one could somedayresurrectan experienceof the political free from thatloss. Therecan simply be no political action free from the loss of the political and the tendency to forget the freedom that makes it possible. Nor, for similarreasons,can political action simply be equatedwith the work of resistingthe inevitableloss of the political, with the constanteffort to renew the spiritof foundationandto remember the freedomof beginning, as if the moment of action-of deciding, or founding, or resisting-could simply be separatedfrom the momentwhen freedomis violated or forgotAs free acts, of course,promisesanddecisions are always provisional, ten.10 andways mustbe devised to continuallyreexaminetheparticular "promises" and decisions of a political community.But this cannotbe done as if it were a more pure act of political intervention,or in the name of a freedom or politicalpracticesomehow able to avoid its own fall into unfreedom,into the more or less violent closurethatcomes with havingto decide one way or the other,in the absence of unanimityor any absolute.
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To argue, however, that within the very political action that freedom makes possible there is an unavoidableviolation of freedomis not to argue for its simple impossibility or absence. It is, instead, to suggest that the of the politicalcan only be preservedby remempromised,or free, character bering its impurity and incompletion, and with it the fact that political freedom always comes at a cost-the cost of being implicatedin various forms of violence and unfreedom.To deny this condition is to forget the freedom of the political in the name of anotherfreedom,one so pure that it can never be enjoyed.
NOTES
in Between Past and Future:Eight Exercises in 1. HannahArendt,"WhatIs Freedom?" Political Thought(New York;1961), 169. Citationsto this essay will hereafterbe noted in the also in Between Past text by the initials WF. Othertexts to be cited are "WhatIs Authority?" as WA;On Revolution(New York;1965), abbreviated as OR; TheLife and Future,abbreviated as LM; and TheHuman Condition of the Mind, vol. 2, Willing(New York;1978), abbreviated as THC. (Chicago; 1958), abbreviated 2. For a very helpful discussion of this and otheraspects of Arendt'saccountof political action-one which, like the presentessay, emphasizesthe importance of contingency,plurality, and nonsovereignty-see Dana Villa, "Beyond Good and Evil: Arendt, Nietzsche, and the of PoliticalAction,"Political Theory20:274-308,esp. 277-81. Villa'sargument Aestheticization for the deep connectionsbetweenArendt'sprojectof revaluingpolitical actionand Nietzsche's critique of Platonism and against Arendt's "colonization"by either Habermasianor poststructuralist readingsis both convincing and useful. My essay, however,takes a very different approach: by exploring the natureand effects of the tension between freedom and foundation within Arendt'sown texts, I arguefor the inevitablefailureof any projectaimed at recovering an experienceof politics purifiedof "unfree" or "nonpolitical" elements. 3. One of the centralconcernsof the presentessay is to complicateArendt'sargument that violence is "essentially nonpolitical."Arendt's most extensive treatmentof violence and its relationto power can be found in "OnViolence,"in Crises of the Republic(New York,1972), 105-98, esp. sec. 2 and appendix11. She arguestherethatpoweris, in its essence, distinctfrom violence. Generatedand maintainedby thejoint action and supportof many people, power has no purposeotherthanitself; indeed,power is "thevery conditionenablinga groupof people to think and act in terms of the means-endcategory"(CR, 150). Violence, on the other hand, is it can commandobedience,but it can never generatepower;at best it is a purelyinstrumental; andinessential,supplement temporary, for a lack of power.It thus follows thatArendtholds that laws are not essentially commands,restingin the final analysison coercion, but rathermerely as the rulesdirectthe game"(CR, 193). AlthoughArendtis rightthat "directhumanintercourse violence alone cannot replace power as the foundationalsource for political communities,I arguein the concludingsection of this essay thatbecausethe foundationthatpower itself turns out to need inevitably has particular, nonneutral and purposes attachedto it, instrumentality violence arenot essentially separablefromthe politicalrealm.Or,in otherwords,althoughlaws
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are not merelycommands,it is nonethelessof the essence of law that it be able at times to act as a command. 4. For an illuminatingaccount of the importanceof speech to Arendt's conception of political action, see George Kateb, Hannah Arendt,Politics, Conscience, Evil (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983), 15. 5. Centralto Arendt'sclaim for the effectivenessof promisingas a foundationfor freedom is the fact that it acknowledgesthe pluralityof those who make up the political community. of a sovereignandgeneralwill, andthusthe Promisingresists the violent, totalizingpretensions vicious circles of foundationas well, in partbecause it does not claim to be the expressionof a singular will; it is, rather,no more than a temporary,always revisable, agreementof many on Arendt'sdescription differentwills andintentions.Althoughfromthis pointon I concentrate to note this additionalargument of hers of the temporality of the act of promising,it is important for the free natureof promising.I returnto the issue of promising'srelationto pluralityat the end of the essay. 6. This solution is the only one that does not violate Arendt's understandingof the natureof political action. Unlike labor,which struggleswith the distinctivelynoninstrumental necessities of life, and work, which produces"products" designedto achieve a preexistingend, political action has only itself as an end. Action has no otherpurposethanthe continuationof action and the preservationof the conditionsfor futureaction. For a sympathetictreatmentof the difficulties that this conception of political action raises, see the first chapterof Kateb's HannahArendt,esp. 10, 12-13, and 16-22. See also Villa, "BeyondGood andEvil," 277-81. As of political evidence, however, that Arendt also maintaineda more purposiveunderstanding makesmana politicalbeing is his faculty action,thereis thispassagefrom"OnViolence":"What of action; it enables him to get togetherwith his peers, to act in concert,and to reach outfor goals and enterprisesthat would neverenterhis mind, let alone the desires of his heart,had he not been given this gift-to embark on something new." Crises of the Republic, 179, my emphasis;see also 150. 7. For a brief treatment of some of the relevantissues, see note 3. the statusof a promiseas a performative 8. To arguethis is not to disregard speech-actor to ignore the distinctionbetweenperformatives and constatives.It is meantto suggest, instead, that because, accordingto Arendt,the act of mutualpromisingcreatesa monumentor markto which a group will be bound into the future,the performative immediatelybecomes a text in need of interpretation, aboutwhich claims are made and aroundwhich arguments and disputes one can recognize that it also becomes circulate.Withoutdenying its statusas a performative, the site for constativespeech-acts,andwith them,a whole set of possible conflicts. Fora helpful andprovocativediscussionof the relevanceof speech-actanalysisto the studyof Arendt'stexts, see Bonnie Honig's "Declarationsof Independence:Arendt and Derridaon the Problem of Founding a Republic,"AmericanPolitical Science Review 85 (Winter 1991): 97-113. For a critique similar to the one I propose of Arendt's need for the meaning of the promise to be see esp. 104. And for Derrida'sargument thatthe strictseparation "relativelyunproblematic," of performative andconstativeis impossibleto maintainat the momentof political foundation, see "Declarations of Independence," New Political Science, no. 15 (Summer1986): 7-15. 9. Arendt'ssilence on this aspectof foundationis a particular of problemin hertreatment the Americanfounding,involving as it did the violent displacementof an entirecivilization. It of social contract is a traitthatArendt'sworkshareswith the tradition theory,whose practitioners of "theNew World" as a model for the were fascinatedin theirown ways with the "emptiness" "stateof nature."
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foundationis the debatableconclu10. This equationof politics with the act of "resisting" ArendtandDerridaon the Problemof of Independence: sion to Honig's excellent "Declarations Foundinga Republic."Despite hercritiqueof Arendt'stendencyto equatepolitical freedomtoo and her neglect of the inevitable role of "coneasily with performanceand "performatives" statives"in political action and foundations,Honig's concludingattemptto find some common and Arendt'stheory of political groundbetween Derrida'spolitical "strategyof intervention" Arendtianin its faith in "practicesof ends up soundingremarkably authorityas augmentation andamendment [that]make[the]beginningourown - not merelyourown legacy augmentation (p. 111). The suggestion that political action and but our own constructionand performative" authorityconsists in the constantrenewalof the beginningas one's own, in a process whereby "we treatthe absolute [or antipoliticalconstative] as an invitationfor intervention,. . . declare it" (p. 112), still by deauthorizing ourselvesresistantto it, [and]refuseits claim to irresistibility (or freedom/foundaequatesthe political with only the first side of the performative/constative tion) division. Even though Honig accepts Derrida'spoint that the performativenecessarily involves a constativemoment(or the supportof somethingwhose existence andauthorityis not of questioned),she still sees the essentiallypolitical act as the resistanceto anddeauthorization "theconstative"to preventus from forgettingthe free and thus revisablenatureof our political foundationsor institutions.Althoughsuch resistanceis certainlypolitical, so too is its apparent insistencethatcertainthings have been decided and areno longerto opposite:the "constative" be debatedor resisted(howeverdebatablesuch decisions might soon become).
Alan Keenan teaches political and legal theory in the Departmentof Rhetoric at the Universityof California,Berkeley.His dissertationis titled "TheDemocraticQuestion: Political Theory,the 'People,'and the DifficultLaw of Freedom."

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Promises, Promises: The Abyss of Freedom and the Loss of the Political in the Work of Hannah Arendt Author(s):

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

THEWORKOF ARENDT Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES:

POLITICAL THEORY/ May 1994

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THE WORKOF ARENDT

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THEWORKOF ARENDT

POLITICAL THEORY/ May 1994

THEWORKOF ARENDT Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES:

POLITICAL THEORY/ May 1994

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THEWORKOF ARENDT

POLITICAL THEORY/ May 1994

THE WORKOF ARENDT Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES:

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

Much of the Revolution'swork had been done even before it occurred.

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES:THE WORKOF ARENDT

POLITICAL THEORY/ May 1994

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THEWORKOF ARENDT

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THEWORKOF ARENDT

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THEWORKOF ARENDT

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THEWORKOF ARENDT

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

Keenan/ PROMISES,PROMISES: THEWORKOF ARENDT

THEORY/ May 1994 POLITICAL

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