The Restoration of Action

During some of the more labored exchanges I have on Facebook, there are times when it would be legitimate for any rational person to wonder: "Why bother? You think your way. Others think their way. So why argue?" This is where knowing a little something about Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) is useful. Arendt divided the human experience into three categories: Labor, Work and Action. Labor includes what we do every day to maintain our biological existence (drinking, eating, sleeping). Work includes what we do to build the world we live in (carpenter, bus driver, doctor or, the ultimate profession, programmer - wink). Action is the interaction between people as equals in a public forum to debate and determine the meaning things in the world they share. In short, it is the realm of the political, but not the post-Enlightenment version as a means to an end for economic systems and legal rights. Arendt is referring to the pre-Enlightenment version, where people engaged with one another to establish their identities, their cultures and a sense of meaning and belonging that does not come from Labor, Work or economic and legal systems that are based on the notion of rational self interest. In today's modern society, we cycle between Labor and Work, and we relegate Action to the margins. It is no wonder that we suffer from a collective identity crisis. Our point of confusion around WHO we are versus WHAT we do is what Arendt dubbed 'Economic Man'. The ancient Greeks had a very different notion of life. For them, Labor and Work were a means to an end for Action as the most important aspect of life, where engaging with their fellow man (woman) to discuss, debate and arrive at the meaning of things, including the meaning of life and their position in it, took precedence. Today's version of this engagement is rooted in polarized media outlets, hash-tag campaigns, political memes and echo chambers, which do not foster real discourse and do not create real meaning. We have ceded our role as political actors responsible for shaping the world around us, to a role of political casualties, just trying to survive through Labor and Work, and arranging ourselves along black and white political lines that serve interests that are not our own. It is little wonder that one of Arendt's most famous books is The Origins of Totalitarianism. Whatever your opinion about the evils of Social Media, up to and including the amplification of all of the evils I just mentioned, one undeniable fact about it is that it has restored a public realm for people to engage in, which has liberated us from the isolated cycle of Labor and Work. There are certain exchanges that I have had with certain people that I would have never had outside of a heated Facebook thread. This form of engagement has re-established vital lines of communication. This is why I bother engaging in those belabored exchanges. I am not trying to achieve some kind of end, I am engaging in the restoration of action to find meaning.