between compassion and pity being far too short). In order to better understand how compassion operates in these discourses, then, I turn to the thought of Hannah Arendt, whose analysis of the influence of compassion on the French Revolution helps to illuminate why the claim to a common disabled identity is both politically misguided and potentially dangerous. For, as Arendt the distance, the in-between which always exists in human reminds us, “compassion…abolishes (OR, 76), and it is this in-between that is necessary for action—and therefore, intercourse” politics—to occur. Against Compassion In her analysis of the role of compassion in the French Revolution in On “devastating” Arendt notes that the American Revolutionaries, unlike their French counterparts, Revolution, did not have to confront the mass poverty that so confounded and entranced figures like Robespierre and Rousseau (62). Undistracted by the misery and want of they les malheureux, could remain committed to the achievement of freedom necessary for the foundation of the republic. The French Revolutionaries, on the other hand, were faced with a people whose conditions, despite the fall of the monarchy, remained very different from their own. Lacking a common cause through which to unite these disparate groups, it was compassion—what Robespierre referred to as which attracts us towards les hommes “’that imperious impulse served to temporarily bridge this chasm (65). faibles’”—that This harnessing of compassion for political purposes is problematic for several reasons. The first is what Arendt identifies as tendency to the worldly space compassion’s “abolish” between individuals necessary for collective action. Compassion—the capacity to feel with suffering others—demands that what unites individuals is a common cause (the foundation of not freedom, for example), but rather a common sentiment—a feeling with a tenuous (if not
between compassion and pity being far too short). In order to better understand how compassion operates in these discourses, then, I turn to the thought of Hannah Arendt, whose analysis of the influence of compassion on the French Revolution helps to illuminate why the claim to a common disabled identity is both politically misguided and potentially dangerous. For, as Arendt reminds us, “compassion…abolishes the distance, the in-between which always exists in human intercourse” (OR, 76), and it is this in-between that is necessary for action—and therefore, politics—to occur. Against Compassion In her analysis of the “devastating” role of compassion in the French Revolution in On Revolution, Arendt notes that the American Revolutionaries, unlike their French counterparts, did not have to confront the mass poverty that so confounded and entranced figures like Robespierre and Rousseau (62). Undistracted by the misery and want of les malheureux, they could remain committed to the achievement of freedom necessary for the foundation of the republic. The French Revolutionaries, on the other hand, were faced with a people whose conditions, despite the fall of the monarchy, remained very different from their own. Lacking a common cause through which to unite these disparate groups, it was compassion—what Robespierre referred to as “’that imperious impulse which attracts us towards les hommes faibles’”—that served to temporarily bridge this chasm (65). This harnessing of compassion for political purposes is problematic for several reasons. The first is what Arendt identifies as compassion’s tendency to “abolish” the worldly space between individuals necessary for collective action. Compassion—the capacity to feel with suffering others—demands that what unites individuals is not a common cause (the foundation of freedom, for example), but rather a common sentiment—a feeling with a tenuous (if not
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