The Human Condition By Hannah Arendt

Arendt: The Human Condition-Action
Summary
Hannah Arendt’s Action chapter in “The Human Condition” analyses the relationship between action and human existence. One’s actions are interpreted as the defining factor in “who” an individual is, as opposed to “what”. While the individual may be performer of his own specific action, interpretation of said task is out of his hands, making the individual slave to the interpretation of others. The tasks one performs suffer under the critical gaze of all. The idea of being able to take charge of how one’s own behavior is interpreted is a nice thought, but not possible, seeing as how external opinion becomes what matters. Arendt expresses how, regardless of individual opinion of one’s behavior and actions, one will always be victim to the critical gaze of others. Quote #1
“Although everybody started his life by inserting himself into the human world through action and speech, nobody is the author or producer of his own life story. In other words, the stories, the results of action and speech, reveal an agent, but this agent is not an author or producer. Somebody began it and is its subject in the twofold sense
Every action performed, every contact made makes one the performer of an action to be deciphered and interpreted by another, and in turn, makes them the interpreter of another’s behavior. The reality behind the behavior may be lost in both instances of interpretation, receiving a partially, if not entirely, false interpretation. This complex web of relationships makes it so that interpretations throughout the web differ. One may be the performer of an act, but that does not mean that same individual will provide the sole interpretation, just as one cannot hold their perspective as the overall truth, an individual cannot know for certain the truth behind the actions of another. Just like one’s actions can be misread, so can one misread