Kultur versus Bildung: amicizia e resistenza in Hannah Arendt

Abstract

This article discusses the idea of culture and its relationship with the notion of politics in the thought of Hannah Arendt. In doing so, the analysis explores the role played by friendship in delineating a culture that may be an antidote to the “banality of evil”. The article aims to focus also on the meaning of the ideal of Bildung, that has been so crucial in the Jewish culture. This may help to provide a better understanding of what Arendt has defined as the risks embedded in an apolitical cultivation of inner life.