‘Hannah Arendt, education and the potential of human power’ Event

Abstract:

This paper turns to Hannah Arendt's (1998, 241) discussion of 'the potentialities of human power' to sustain and not to destroy, to forgive and not to punish. It is Arendt's view that power exists whereever men and women, 'in sheer human togetherness' (1998, 180), act and witness action, speak and listen to one another, and thereby actualise the human gift of natality, of beginning. To prepare the young for power is thus to introduce them to a plural world, to the qualities of action and spectatorship. The paper argues that this preparation should not be mistaken for empowerment, since power cannot be given to another person and, even if this were somehow possible, the young, being young, should not receive it.