On Revolution

Whereas 18th-century European philosophers paid close attention to developments in the American colonies, their 19th-century successors displayed little interest in the American Revolution or the institutions of the American republic. In the post-World War II era, American foreign policy thinkers were motivated by fear of revolution to “support obsolete and corrupt political regimes” (209), as if even they had forgotten the revolutionary origins of the US. Arendt also argues that post-revolution American thought showed little interest in revolutionary political theory, and that this explains the Revolution’s lack of influence on political philosophy elsewhere in the world. The French Revolution, despite its disastrous outcome, became more influential mainly because of how much European philosophers thought and wrote about it.

Arendt argues that Americans have lost touch with the “revolutionary spirit” since the founding of their republic. The Founding Fathers preferred republican to democratic government because democracies had historically been unstable and ruled by the whims of public opinion, which philosophers since ancient times had denigrated. For this reason, they designed the US Senate explicitly to “guard against rule by public opinion or democracy” (218). Whereas the function of the lower chamber of Congress was to represent diverse interests, the upper chamber’s was to represent diverse opinions.