What are Hannah Arendt's dark times?

Abstract

The concept of dark times runs through the arendtian corpus as an essential argumentative thread for the understanding of modern crises, on the one hand, and the totalitarian phenomenon, on the other. Recognizing them as the limit situations denounced by Hannah Arendt, the aim of this article is to undertake a conceptual analysis of the dark times highlighted by the author. To do this, two steps will be essential. The first will consist in defining the concept, identifying why it is neither a prerogative of modernity, nor did it disappear after the fall of totalitarian regimes. Next, it will be important to point out why the rupture that characterizes dark times can be considered as the dilution of the idea of ​​immortality which, by being essential to politics, indicates its decline. Having gone through these stages, we believe that it will be possible to both understand the process of dilution of the public sphere and point out the possibility of illuminating these periods, a promise contained in the genesis of the concept and of the policy itself.