of societal health.

Thirdly, Arendt is commenting in 1946, a time period which many Americans consider a social golden age. Largely untouched by the ravages of mechanized warfare, the United States was entering a period of unprecedented wealth and prosperity. The legacy of the New Deal was no longer in question, and networks of association, be they small communities or labor unions, were thriving relative to today. It’s interesting that Arendt would think of Americans as politically free but socially enslaved during a period inhabited by the so-called “Greatest Generation.”

This latter point seems to be the most puzzling, particularly since there has been a renewed emphasis by conservatives and liberals alike on recapturing a spirit or set of conditions that we most associate with the early post-war era. Onsustaining a vibrant political life, which is the means of self-expression in the truest sense. While Arendt was an admirer — almost to a fault — of American founding institutions, in her work On Revolution she recognized that the heart of a healthy polity lies in collective participation in grassroots “organs of action.”

Americans failed to preserve a revolutionary and participatory public life, even through the periods of American history we consider the most admirable. When Arendt came to the United States, during what we now consider a golden age, she saw that Americans on an individual level lacked the spirit to come together and act “in concert” to maintain the revolutionary dynamism that not only puts a check on political power, but creates the social bonds essential for