Abyss of Freedom, Promises Promises _ Alan Keenan

8/13/2019 Abyss of Freedom, Promises Promises _ Alan Keenan

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Promises, Promises: The Abyss of Freedom and the Loss of the Political in the Work ofHannah ArendtAuthor(s): Alan KeenanSource: Political Theory, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May, 1994), pp. 297-322Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192148.

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PROMISES,PROMISESTheAbyssof Freedomand the Loss of thePolitical n the Workof HannahArendt

ALANKEENANUniversityof Californiaat Berkeley

The effortto recapture he lost spiritof revolutionmust,to a certainextent,consist inthe attemptat thinking ogetherandcombiningmeaningfullywhat ourpresentvocabu-lary presents o us in terrnsof oppositionand contradiction.

-Hannah Arendt,On Revolution,225-26Once againwe find the paradoxdominating he whole of social action:freedomexistsbecause society does not achieve constitutionas a structural bjective order;but anysocial action tends towards he constitutionof thatimpossibleobject,and thus towardsthe eliminationof the conditionsof liberty tself.

-Ernesto Laclau,New Reflections on the Revolutionof OurTime,44Have you ever askedyourselvessufficientlyhow much the erectionof everyideal onearth has cost? ... If a templeis to be erecteda templemust be destroyed: hat is thelaw-let anyonewho canshow me a case in which it is not fulfilled

-Friedrich Nietzsche, On theGenealogyof Morals,Second Essay, sec. 24

"Theperiodsof being free havealwaysbeenrelativelyshort nthehistoryof mankind,"HannahArendtremindsus, in her difficult essay "WhatIsFreedom?"1nrecognitionof theeasewithwhichfreedom s lostorforgotten,Arendt devotes considerableattention n her writingto the foundationofpoliticalcommunities,mostdirectly n her nterpretationf the AmericanandFrenchrevolutions n On Revolution.The foundingof a new politicalbodyis a particularlyprivilegedinstanceof human freedom for Arendt: t bothAUTHOR'SNOTE: I would like to thankJudithButler,WilliamConnolly,RichardFlathman,MichaelGibbons,BonnieHonig, ThomasKeenan,KirstieMcClure,andTracyStrong or theirhelp in improving arlierdraftsof thisessay.POLITICALTHEORY,Vol.22 No. 2, May 1994 297-322C 1994 Sage Publications, nc.

297

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298 POLITICALTHEORY May 1994

assertsthe freedomto bringsomethingnew intothe world,the ever-presentpossibilityof whatArendtcalls "beginnings," nd it establishes hepublicorpolitical realmitself, the very realm of action and freedom. Suchmomentsof foundation are essential to bothpolitics and freedom because freedom,while inexhaustible,s limitedto the momentof itsbeing put nto action:"theappearance f freedom ... coincideswith theperformingact.... To be freeand to act are the same" (WF, 152-53). As a result, freedom is alwaysthreatenedwith loss andoblivion;"withouta politically guaranteedpublicrealm,freedom lacks the worldly spaceto make its appearance"WF, 149).The importanceof the act of foundingthepoliticalrealm lies in the needtomake possible the continuationof whatcan never be absolutely secured,to"guarantee" spacefor the appearance ndpossibilityof the most transientand fragileof humanexperiences: reedom tself.One of the centraldifficulties that confrontsArendt'stheoryof freedom(as well as any analysisof it), however,is the tension that exists within herwork between the temporaland the political aspectsof freedom. Arendt'spolitical theory, n its essence a theoryof freedom, s deeplyindebted o herunderstanding f time as radicallyopento new possibilities;yet politics forher is clearly not only a matterof time. This tension becomesparticularlyacute when the issue at hand is the foundationof political bodies, or theconstitutionof thepoliticalrealm tself. If thepoliticalis valuable orArendtas the space for,or the mode of, the appearance f freedom,which is itselfinseparable rom a particularaspect of time, then the act of founding thepolitical "realm"must be consistent with that free temporality.But thepoliticalrealm needs the stabilityof foundationspreciselybecause freedomcannotsimplybe left upto time;for freedomto be active andeffective as aforcein theworld, trequires hecontinuous upport f politicalfoundations.

"Foundation,"hen,is a hingewordin Arendt'stexts, turning and torn)between the temporalityof "beginning" nd the demandthatsomethingbebegunand thenmaintained;ike "thepolitical" tself,"foundation"s caughtbetween the "free" ogic of time, with its possibilitiesfor new beginnings,and the requirement hatthe realmof freedom be given lasting support.Inthe following pages, I explorethis tensionandArendt'sattempt o come toterms with it. Inparticular, focus on her dealizationof "mutualpromising"as the meansby which the freedom found in politicalaction can save itselfby grantingtself itsown, free,foundation. argue hat,despiteArendt's rustin thepromiseas a means topreserve reedomand tspolitical realm,neitherfreedom nor foundationcan survive intact the deep interdependence hatArendtso carefullyelaborates.AlthoughArendtseems,in OnRevolution, orecognize the inabilityof promisingto found a realm of political freedom,



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Keenan PROMISES,PROMISES:THE WORKOF ARENDT 299

her turn o thenotionof authority saprocessof "augmentation,"nthehopesthat it will providethe same combinationof freedom and foundationthatmutualpromisinghas failed to give, repeats at a new level the dilemmascontained n herextraordinarylaims for promising.Reading on the basis of Arendt'sown formulationof the relation offreedom and foundation,andyet againstArendt'sdesireto "save"the freespace of the political by wallingit off from the realm of violence andrule,Iargue hatthepoliticalrealmandthefreedom t houses canonlybe foundbyaccepting their inevitable "loss." However hardArendt tries to separatefreedom andpoliticalaction from the violence associatedwith sovereigntyandpolitical rule,freedom'sveryneedfor foundationnevitablyentangles tinjust such"nonpolitical" ctivities. Seenin thislight, "freedom,""action,"and"thepolitical" ake onnew,morecomplex meanings,according o whichthey can never be entirelydetached rom those qualitiesArendtrepeatedlypositsas theiropposites.Farfrom mplyingthesimple"death" r absenceofeither reedomor thepolitical,therecognitionof theimpossibilityof arrivingat a political realmpurifiedof nonpoliticalor unfree elements is instead ameans to takeupthe challengeof freedomandpolitical actionin a differentway,one commensuratewith thedifficultyandcomplexityof Arendt'sownanalysisof politicalfoundation.

1Arendt'sprojectof thinkingthrough he complexitiesof freedom is partof an effort to resist the inevitabletendencyto "forget" he experienceof

freedom and the political realm n whichit is found. YetArendt s very clearthat the forgettingof freedom s no mere accidentthatbefallsus, orconspir-acy on the partof the powerful.It is, instead,a dangerbuilt into the verystructure f freedom tself: the most centralaspector sourceof freedom-thepossibility of new beginnings-resists understanding nd explanation.As"beginning'sverynature s to carry n itself an element of completearbitrar-iness"(LM, 207), its emergencecan never be fully explainedby anylaw ofdetermination: t neverhas to happen(thoughonce it has happened, t canneverbe undone).Freedom,as thecapacity o begin,tobringsomethingnewinto being, is structured ike an "abyss."More precisely, "the abyss offreedom" s the hole formedwhen "anunconnectednew eventbreak[s] ntothecontinuum, hesequenceof chronological ime" LM, 208).Whatbegins,or what Arendtcalls at somepoints"theevent," s notonly unpredictable,tis, strictly speaking, unimaginableand unknowable:it depends on "the



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freedom to call something ntobeing which did notexist before,whichwasnot given, not even as an object of cognition or imagination, and whichtherefore,strictly speaking,could not be known" WF,151).The arbitrariness nd indeterminacyof the freedomlodged within thepossibilityof beginningmakes freedomhard o explainand hardto remem-ber.For this very reason,freedomneeds thesupportof politicalfoundationsto be more thanan occasionalormarginaloccurrence; et suchfoundations,unless they somehow are able to build within themselves a respectfor thefragile,unpredictable emporality f freedom, hreaten o assist in its forget-ting.The resulting"riddleof [political] oundation" mounts o theproblemof "how to re-start ime within an inexorabletime continuum" LM, 214)while still respectingfreedom. How can a political entity be brought ntobeing in a way thatfounds a new identityand history("re-starting ime")withoutdenyingthe arbitrary ndcontingentnatureof thatbeginning?Thegreatestexampleof an encounterwith the riddleof political foundation s,for Arendt, he AmericanRevolution.The American oundersknew

that an act canonly be called free if it is not affectedorcausedby anythingpreceding tandyet, insofar as it imnediately tums into a cause of whateverfollows, it demandsajustificationwhich,if it is to be successful,will haveto showtheact as thecontinuationof a preceding eries,that s, renegeon thevery experienceof freedomandnovelty. LM,210)

The FoundingFathersknew that to establish a space of political freedomrequired an act that was itself entirely free, one which could have noimmediatecauseor higherpower thatcommanded t. Yetthey also knew thatfor the foundingto be successful, to begin a new collective endeavor andbringa newpublic spaceintoexistence, t would have to be theimpetus,evencause,of a whole chainof events that were to follow.Itwouldtherefore inditself caughtupin a chainof cause andeffect,whichwouldin turn mplicateit in the structures f "justification"r authorization hat thefree act essen-tially contests. Whichexplainswhy, when they were "calleduponto solve... theperplexity nherent n the taskoffoundation"(LM, 211), theAmeri-can founders chose to retreatfrom their own practiceand experience offreedomby imaginingthatthey were foundinga new Rome andby gener-ally relying on the Roman tradition which itself saw all beginningsas re-beginnings).Indoing so, "theabyssof pure spontaneity .. was coveredupby the device . . . of understandinghe new as an improvedre-statementofthe old"(LM, 216).How is it possibleto thinkthe fact of beginning,especiallythebeginningof a politicalcommunity,withoutreducing t to somethingsecondary, o the



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effectof whatpreceded tinatemporal ontinuum? t is nosurprisehat hose,whetherphilosophersor political actors,who have tried to think the fact offreedom,have found themselvestemptedby explanationsandabsolutes,byways of explaining awaythe"abyssof pure spontaneity"with solutionsthatmake of beginnings only the effects of somepreviousevent or some higherlaw. However,this is so not only because thetemporality f freedom s abys-sal and thus resistsstraightforwardccountsbutfor the relatedparadoxicalreasonthat"nowheredoes manappear o be less free than n thosecapacitieswhose veryessence is freedom" THC,234).2 Forthetemporality f politicalaction,of the freedom o begin somethingnew, beingone of absolutecontin-gency, carrieswith it an inevitable"burden f irreversibility ndunpredict-ability":what is freelydone can neitherbe predictedbeforehandnorundoneonce started,and it can never even be known,much less understood,untilafter its completion (which is to say thatit can never ully be known: "thereasonwhy we areneverable to foretell withcertainty heoutcome and endof any action,"Arendtexplains,"is simply that action has no end"[THC,233]). Because it is essentially incomplete,action is also necessarilyplural:it requires he assistanceof others o be completed,and its"authors,"inally,becauseof suchplurality,mustremainanonymousaswell. All inall,toacceptthe burdenof freedom s to be thrown nto anabyssof uncertain elationshipsand to be carried o unknownandunknowabledestinations.Theresult is

that he who acts neverquiteknows whathe is doing, thathe alwaysbecomes "guilty"of consequenceshe never intendedor even foresaw, hat no matterhow disastrousandunexpected he consequencesof his deedhe cannever undoit, thattheprocesshe startsis never consummatedunequivocallyin one single deed or event, and that its verymeaningneverdiscloses itself to the actorbutonlyto the backward lanceof thehistorianwho himself does not act. (THC, 233)

The fact of this"simultaneous resenceof freedomand non-sovereignty,of beingable tobegin somethingnew andof notbeingable to controlor evenforetell its consequences"(THC, 235) means thatfreedom,as a matterofpossibility,requires hepresenceand nteraction f othersandthusa commonspace of appearanceandaction. Put more simply, freedom,because it canonly be found in the midst of plurality,s essentiallypolitical.In thisregard,Arendtpraises the American founders for theirrecognitionthat "politicalfreedomis distinctfromphilosophical reedom n being clearlya qualityofthe I-canandnot of the I-will."It is somethingpossessed only by thecitizen,not manin general; t can be hadonly in communities,since "political ree-dom is possible only in the sphereof humanplurality" LM, 200).Yet the freedomthat can be experiencedin political action, and mostparticularlyn thefoundationof thepoliticalrealm,has, according o Arendt,



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been repeatedly gnoredor coveredover by theoriesthat locate freedominthe will. Whether heyunderstandhewill to be an"inner" paceof freedomor a capacityfor collective "sovereignty,"uch theoriesfail to face upto thecomplexities of political freedom.The political-the pluraland uncertain,which is to say nonsovereign-nature of freedom has been particularlyresisted by many supposedlypolitical thinkers.As a result, the frustrationsof freedom have led to destructivedreams of sovereignty,wherepoliticalaction is converted nto a processof makingor fabricationandplurality sreducedto the singularityof "one-man ule"(whether hat of the individualmonarchor thecollectiveidentityof a single politicalornationalbody). Bornout of the frustrationsnherentto political freedom,the "sovereign"willdesires controland rule:controloverthe effects of its action into the future,andultimatelyruleover others.Tounderstand reedomas "sovereignty,heidealof a freewill, independentromothersandeventuallyprevailingagainstthem"(WF, 163), is to try to dodge the pluralityand irreduciblycomplextemporalityof politicalfreedom: t restseverythingon thesingularityof thewilling agentand thepresent momentof the willing act. The dream s of awill that can fully inhabit hepresent n such a way as to controlthe future,and all alterity, romwithin it.According oArendt, he masterof thisantipolitical antasywasRousseau,who "conceive[d]of political powerin the strictimage of individual will-power... [and]argued .. thatpowermust be sovereign,that s, indivisible,because 'a dividedwill wouldbe inconceivable'"(WF, 163).Thedisastrousirony is thattheoristsof sovereignty, maginingit possible to rule from thepositionof an undivided,presentmomentof the will, in fact invent worldswithout reedomandwithoutpolitics,for"the amoussovereigntyof politicalbodies hasalwaysbeen anillusion, which, moreover, an be maintained nlyby the instrumentsof violence, thatis, with essentially nonpoliticalmeans.... If men wish to be free, it is precisely sovereigntythey must renounce"(WF,164-65).3Those who desire sovereignty fail to realize thatthe attemptto escapefrom the essential incompletionand unpredictability f all free action is infact doomed to paralysis-a paralysisof powerthat thenrequiresa supple-mental dose of violence to shore things up. "In reality," Arendt writes,"Rousseau's heorystandsrefuted or the simplereasonthat'it is absurd orthe will to binditself for the future'[quoting rom On theSocial Contract];a community actuallyfounded on this sovereignwill would be built not onsandbutonquicksand" WF, 164).Thesovereigndreamof ruling romwithintheundividedpresenceof the will guaranteesneffectiveness: o inhabit ullythe presentmomentguaranteessolationfrom,rather han controlover,the



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Keenan PROMISES,PROMISES:THE WORK OF ARENDT 303

future.Indeed,centralto Arendt'sarguments that thepoliticalpresent, he"gap between past and future" hat so fascinatesher and that is the time offreedom, only emergesin relationto the future(and thus, as we see below,to the past as well).Freedomand its politicalburdenscannot be takenup by retreating ntothe presentof the will butonly by recognizingthe necessityof the futuretothe present,a recognitionperformed n the act of promising."All politicalbusiness,"Arendtexplainsin response o Rousseau,

is and alwayshas been, transactedwithin an elaborate ramework f ties and bonds forthe future-such as laws andconstitutions, reaties andalliances-all of which derivein the last instancefrom the facultyto promiseand to keep promises n the face of theessential uncertainties f the future. WF, 164)

Instead of yielding to the temptationsof the will and the desire to rule, aproperlypolitical responseto the experienceof freedom-as anexperienceof being outof control-is contained n thefacultyof promising.Promisingremedies unpredictability:

bindingoneself throughpromises,servesto setupin the oceanof uncertainty,which thefuture s by definition, slands of securitywithout which not even continuity, et alonedurabilityof any kind,would be possiblein therelationshipsbetween men.(THC, 237)

Unlike sovereignty,which wants to eliminate the futurethrough he hege-monic ruleof the presentwill, the political strategyof relyingon promisesrests contentwithmerely establishing"certainslandsof predictability" nd"certainguideposts of reliability" THC, 244). The force of promiseis sostrong,though,that t canin factgrant he otherwise"spurious"overeignty"acertain imitedreality."Suchsovereignty

residesin the resulting, imitedindependence rom the incalculabilityof the future.....The sovereigntyof a body of people bound and kept together,not by an identical willwhich somehowmagically inspires hemall, butby an agreedpurpose or which alonethe promisesare valid andbinding.. . [results n] the capacityto disposeof the futureas though t werethe present, hat s, theenormousandtrulymiraculous nlargement fthe very dimension n whichpowercan be effective. (THC, 245)

By contrastwith sovereignty, promisingtakes into accountthe nature ofpolitical power,which Arendtdefines as the"powergeneratedwhenpeoplegathertogetherand 'act in concert,'whichdisappears he momentthey de-part" THC, 244). It is the "forceof mutualpromiseor contract" hat"keepsthem together,"Arendtexplains, in a crucialstipulation,"asdistinguished



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from the space of appearancesin which they gatherand thepower whichkeeps this public spacein existence"(THC, 244-45). Inthe recognition hatneither the necessity of the future o all actionnorthe essentialplurality ofaction can ever be eliminatedbutonly managedpoliticallythrough he act ofmutualpromising,a "force"s generated hat"keeps ogether," ndeven "en-larges," he "space"maintainedby power, by speakingandacting together.

2Arendt's deal of mutualpromisingplaysa crucialrule,then, npreventingthe realmof the political frombeing lost to sovereignty,with its confusion

of freedomwiththewill, violence,andrule.WhetherArendt'spromisingcanactuallyescape the difficultiesthatplagueRousseau'snotion of sovereigntywill be the focus of the concludingsectionof theessay.But to get there,wemustfirstconsider n detail ustwhat it is thatmakespromising o importantin Arendt'squestforafree political foundation.On the one hand,Arendthasarguedthat the freedom found in "speakingand acting together"(whichmight be abbreviatedas speech-actionand which defines for Arendt thepolitical itself)4 can never be guaranteed, as it exists no longer than itsactualization,han ts existenceinandas action.Yetto the extent hat reedomis valued as what is most properlyand gloriously human,the space for theappearanceof freedom must be preserved,or given life beyondthe fleetingmomentof its initial appearance.How can somethingthatrejectsall sub-stantialization rreification, hatresiststhevery ogic of time as acontinuum,be given any durationor afterlife?"The orceof mutualpromiseor contract"suggestsa wayoutof thedifficulty:by respectingboththe plurality5 f thosewho inhabitthe political realm and the uncertainty ntroduced nto politicallife by the future(and the possibilityof new beginnings thatit contains),promisingcanactasafoundationorthe politicalrealmwhileremaining rueto the logic of freedomessential to it.How exactly promisingperforms his function,however,requiresexpla-nation. In her description (in the passage just cited) of the centralityofpromisingto the foundationof political communities,Arendt s verycarefulto distinguishthree apparentlyseparate stages of political freedom: "thespace of appearancen which [people] gather";he "powergeneratedwhenpeople gather ogetherand 'actin concert,'"which"keepsthispublic spacein existence";and, finally,"theforce of mutualpromiseorcontract,"which"keeps them [the gathered people] together." According to this model,promisingwould merelyshoreup-by formalizing-the powerandfreedom



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Keenan PROMISES,PROMISES:THEWORKOF ARENDT 305

alreadyalive in thepolitical community.Arendtcannotallow theappearanceof freedom-as thepowerof the beginning,thepowerof an"unconnected"event erupting nto and disrupting he continuumthat has precededit-todependon the priorexistence of a formallyconstitutedpolitical space.Theconstitution or foundationof that space must itself follow the logic offreedom.Yet withoutthe duration hat promising gives, freedom is caught in itsown evanescent, insubstantial emporality,doomed to a fitful, primarily"hidden" xistence.By holdingtheactors ogether nto the indefinite uture,promising ransforms reedom romthe simplepossibilityof newbeginningsinto "worldly"political freedom.Even as it follows the appearance f free-dom in the world, promisinggives freedomthe "space" or its "fullydevel-oped" politicalexistence.How is it possible, then, to accept the centralityof promising to thedeveloped, stable, politicalexistence of freedomwithout osing the undeter-mined, "beginning"qualityof the freedom that needs to be secured?In thesection of The Human Conditionentitled "Powerandthe Spaceof Appear-ance,"Arendtpresentsa "solution" o this questionthathelps clarify herassertionsabout hefoundingpowerof promising.Shearguesat firstthat hepolis, as the space of freedom'sappearance,s free from the need for anyinstitutional upport:

the space of appearance omes into being wherevermen aretogether n the mannerofspeechandaction,and therefore redatesallformal constitution f thepublic realmandvariousforms of government, hat s, thevarious orms n whichthe publicrealmcan beorganized.Its peculiarity s that . . . it does not survive the actualityof the movementwhich brought t into being, butdisappearsnot only with thedispersal of men ... butwith the disappearanceor arrestof the activities themselves.Whereverpeople gathertogether,it is potentially there,but only potentially,not necessarilyand not forever.(THC, 199; my emphasis)

Thereis a clearpriorityof freedomover "formalconstitution" n this defi-nition of the politicalrealm. Yet thatpriorityof freedom still leaves the po-litical dangerously "potential"; he public realm would then be subjecttorepeated oss, to being forgottenas soon as men cease theirpoliticalactivity.That this "potential" atureof the publicrealmof freedom s a problemre-quiringsomesolutioncanbe seeninArendt'salmost mmediatequalificationthat such a space of appearance s itself in need of the supportof power."Power," he explains,"is whatkeeps the public realm,the potential spaceof appearance etweenactingandspeakingmen,in existence.... Whatfirstundermines ndthenkillspoliticalcommunitiess loss of power" THC,200).



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Yet power too is subjectto the same problemthatplagues freedom: it"cannotbe storedupandkept nreserve oremergencies, ike theinstrumentsof violence but exists only in its actualization."ndeed,

the word itself, its Greekequivalentdynamis, ike the Latinpotentia with its variousmodem derivativesor the GermanMacht(which derives frommogenandmoglich,notfrommachen),indicates ts "potential" haracter.Power is always,as we would say,apower potentialand not an unchangeable,measurable,andreliableentity like force orstrength.... [It is] dependentupon he unreliableandonlytemporary greement f manywills andintentions. THC, 200-1)

It wouldseem, then,thatthere s no plausibleexplanation orhow thepublicrealm,by its nature adicallypotential,could ever be maintainedbeyondthesporadicmomentsof its actualizationbecause ts relianceon poweris in factonly a reliance on another ormof potentiality. t would seem doomed to amere chanceexistence,to come andgo as people happened o rediscover tafterpreviousneglectorforgetfulness,unless-in theonly possible solutionto thechallenge posedto Arendt's heoryof politicalfoundationby her owntheoryof freedom-such potentialitywere somehow able to operateas itsown guarantee.Wereit able to act as its own support,keepingitself alivebetween the moments of its actualization,across the gapsof its being mere"potentiality,"he dangerof its being forgottenwould diminish, and thefoundation of freedomwould once again be imaginable.6To suggest howsuch a solutionmightwork,Arendt urns o Aristotle,whosenotion of ener-geia oractuality, heclaims,conceptualized he Greekexperienceof speech-action (and the political life it brought nto being) as the highest possiblehumanachievement.Centralalso to herown, noninstrumentalonceptionofpoliticalaction, energeia

designatedall activitiesthatdo notpursuean end(areateleis)and eave no workbehind..., but exhausttheir full meaning n the performancetself.... [I]nthese instancesofaction and speech the end (telos) is not pursuedbut lies in the activity itself whichthereforebecomes anentelecheia,andthe work s not whatfollows andextinguishes heprocess but is imbedded n it; theperformance s thework, s energeia.(THC, 206; myemphasis)

The attractivenessof this idea for Arendt ies in the possibilityof therebe-ing a "work,"a tangible worldly entity, that is "embedded" n its ownproduction-at once alive in its own rightandyet entirelydependenton themoments of performance.It is with this same understanding f performance-not only as its ownend but also as its own guarantee-that Arendtclaims one shouldread thewords of Pericles,which



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Keenan PROMISES,PROMISES:THE WORK OF ARENDT 307

are perhaps unique in their supremeconfidence that men can enact and save theirgreatnessat the same time and,as it were, by one andthe same gesture,andthat theperformance s such will be enoughto generatedynamisand not need thetransformingreificationof homofaberto keep it in reality. THC, 205)

The thought, o difficult othink,of anactivity hatcan "save" or remember)itself in "oneandthesamegesture"asits ownperformance-propelling itselfforwardandgranting tself continuedexistence, without ever becominganobject separate rom thisperformance-this thought s essential to Arendt'stheoryof politicalaction(definedasa-telic,withoutend other hanmaintain-ing itself). It also helps make sense of otherwise blatantly tautologicalstatements.When Arendtclaims, for instance,that"power"s "whatkeepspeople togetherafter hefleetingmomentof actionhaspassed (whatwe todaycall 'organization')and what, at the same time, they keep alive throughremaining ogether" THC, 201), what firstappearsas disturbingly ircularcan insteadbe understoodasanattempt o name thecapacityof freedomandspeech-action o generate heirown substantialization r endurance.Arendthelps clarifythiscapacitywhensheexplainsthatthe activitiesof speechandaction, "despitetheir materialfutility, possess an enduringqualityof theirown because they create their own remembrance" THC, 207-208; myemphasis): hepossibilityof maintaining reedomrestson thepossibilityofmemory.It remainsfairto wonderhow this might work,however. How could themost fleeting of activities be preservedeven as they remain"materiallyfutile"and have their "end" n the activityor performancetself? To thinkthroughwhat it means for speech and action to "createtheir own remem-brance,"we can reconsidernow what Arendtarguesabout "the force ofmutualpromise."The promiseextendspowerintothe future, hus giving itduration.This extension into the futuresimultaneouslygives power-andwithit thepolitical community-a past by givingit the timefor memory;byopening the always fleeting freedomof action(andthe powerit generates)to thefuture,mutualpromisinggrants hespaceforhistoryandmemory andArendt's frequently praised "immortality" f the public realm). Speech-action can "endure" n the form of "remembrance"nly because of this"force"of promise.Promising s speech-action'swayof rememberingtself;it institutionalizes,or textualizes, the merely "potential"nature of freespeech-action.Evenwhenthe act of mutualpromising s not,in fact,written(althoughall of Arendt's actual examples of great political promisesarewritten), t operatesas a wayof simultaneously onstitutingandmarking heconstitutionof a new collectivebeing. Theforce of promise ies in its abilityto form a new political community,or "space,"where none had beenbefore,by deliberately leaving a trace or mark, in the present that immediately



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becomespast,on whosebasis theidentityandthe freedomof thecommunitycan be measured.

This returnsus to the earlier uggestion hatthe promiseplays anessentialrole in the constitutionof a realmof politicalfreedom: t is only on thebasisof a promisethatfreedom can exist both"freely"andyet also withfounda-tion, despiteArendt's nitialpresentation f promisingas amerelysecondarysupport or an alreadyexisting "space"of freedom.Freedombecomes morethan sporadiconly on thebasis of the collective signatureof thepromise,theway in which the words of thepromisemarkoff a site in whichmemory,andthus political action,can takeplace. The "speech-act" alled a promiseis aconditionof possibilityfor the constitutionof a spacefor "speech-action"nthe broader ense.

Although Arendtdetails, and at times embraces,the way in which theconstitutivepower of the promiseis essentialto the emergenceandpreser-vation of political freedom, she nonethelessavoidsexploring ts more diffi-cult implications.It is importanto note,first of all, thatto lay down the lawof freedom-and remainconsistentwithArendt'stheoryof politicalactionasanti-instrumental, ithoutend other han tsownperpetuation-the prom-ise canonly be thepromiseof thepolitical tself. What hepromisepromisesis the establishmentandcontinuationof a realm of politics:boththe spaceof appearance of freedom)and thepower generatedby common action. Forthatto be the case, the promisein fact only promisesitself. When Arendtargues,for instance,thatthe"grandeur"f the Declarationof Independencelies "inits being the perfectway for an action to appear n words"(indeed,it represents"one of those raremoments nhistorywhenthe power of actionis greatenoughto erect its ownmonument"),hat"action" urnsoutto be the"mutualpledge,"whichfunctionedas the"principle ut of which theRepub-lic eventuallywas founded"(OR, 127). The action of promisingpromisesaction;theprincipleof freespeech-action,whichis enshrined n thepromiseas the essence of the political, turnsout to be promising.The Declarationworks as a promiseof freedom only by the immediatememorializationorinstitutionalization f its action, by which it promisesits own continuation,the continuation f jointactionandmutualpromising.Promisesmaintain hecommunityof actorsandpromisors-they actas the foundationof freedom-only by theirpromising andremembering)hemselves.To the extent, however,thatpromising s consistentwith Arendt's ogicof freedom andaction,the foundation t providesthe politicalrealm is lessthansecure.Tofunction, nstead,aseffectively oundational,politicalprom-ises must limit all subsequent"free"acts,which are indebtedfor theirverypossibilityto the space openedup and securedby the original promise.AsArendt herself argues, mutualpromises are always specific: what holds



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togethera people "bound"or founded)by a promise s "anagreedpurposefor which alone the promisesare valid andbinding."Thus the "law"of thepromise, what gives it its foundationaland "binding"character, s theparticularpurpose agreedon by the communityof promisors.But to theextent thatthe freedomof thepoliticalrealm s foundedon aspecific project,it cannotbe entirelyfree:the"space" oractionopenedup by such apromisewill necessarily ormboundarieso and imitson thepossibilityof new actionthat follows this foundingmoment and founding principle. Promisingcaneffectively lay down the law of freedomonly by immediatelyviolatingthatsame law: it is a free act that at once makes less thanfully free all acts thatfollow its law andexample.Arendt's efforts to describe the political foundation of freedom thusremaincaughtbetweenfreedomandfoundation,andthe "mutual romising"that acts as the cement for the foundationof freedom oscillates essentiallybetween thesetwopoles.Evenacknowledging hevalidityof Arendt'sanaly-sis of theextraordinary apacityof promisingboth to memorializeand con-tinuethe freedomof political action, t is not certainwhethersuchpromisingcanprovide, n any simpleorsecureway,eitherfreedomorfoundation.Thisuncertainty,n turn,goes to theveryheartof Arendt'sefforts to uncover hemeansof securing,orfounding,a realmof politicalfreedom: f neither ree-dom nor foundation can survive their mutualdependence, any essentialseparationof thepoliticalrealmfrom thatof sovereignty,violence, and ruleis impossible.Before addressing hisdangerdirectly, hough, t is importantto noteone furtherattempt hat Arendtmakes to avert t.

3It becomes evident, in the course of the long comparisonof the Frenchand American Revolutions found in On Revolution,that Arendt herself

acceptsthat he foundation f politicalfreedomrequires omethingmorethanpromises. She arguesthat the experience of promising was central to theAmerican"revolutionary pirit"and went a long way toward helping theAmericansavoid the violence andinstabilityof the FrenchRevolution;yetshe makes it clear that promises were not enough for the foundation offreedom: hatrequired omethingelse, called"authority."Whetherauthority,in turn,provesto be strong (and supple) enoughto solve the problemsthatunderminepromises s aquestion o be takenup shortly. tis important, irst,however,to clarifytheprecisecharacter f promising'srelation o authority,as Arendtdescribes t in the course of On Revolution.



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The greatnessof the AmericanRevolution-and Arendt'sappreciation fit-rests in large parton the way it (unlikethe FrenchRevolution)was ableto circumvent he problemof the "absolute"-the apparentneed for the actof constitutinganewpoliticalbodytobe itself authorized rfounded n somehigher law or divine power. Althoughthis basic "perplexityof foundation"plagued the leaders and theoristsof both revolutions,the genius of theAmerican ounderswas theway in whichtheyavoidedrelyingon thefictionof a "nationalwill" (such as thepouvoirconstituantof the French theoristSieyes), the "ever-changing" atureof which,Arendtargues, s such that"astructurebuilt on it as its foundation s builton quicksand" OR, 162). TheAmericans were able to avoid invokingsuch a concept in partbecause thecolonies werealreadyorganizedntomanydifferent"self-governing odies,"or sourcesof power,andthuswereneverfacedwith thetheoreticaldilemmasof the stateof nature;"thereneverwasanyseriousquestioningof thepouvoirconstituantof those who framed he stateconstitutions,and, eventually, heConstitutionof the United States" OR, 164).Therewas no need to "consti-tute" power; the already existing power, rather,had to be regulated andstructured s theengine of foundation.

Thepower thatflowed throughout he colonieswas thatpower originallygeneratedby acting togetherand maintainedby apromise-specifically, themutualpromiseof theMayflowerCompact.Theoriginalpromisorson boardthe Mayflowerhad confidence

in their own power, grantedand confirmedby no one and as yet unsupported y anymeans of violence, to combine themselvestogether nto a "civilBody Politick"which,heldtogethersolely by the strengthof mutualpromise"inthe Presenceof God and oneanother," upposedlywaspowerfulenough o "enact, onstitute,and rame" llnecessarylaws and instruments f government. OR, 166-67)

The Revolutionmerely "liberate[d]hepowerof covenantandconstitution-making,as it had shownitselfin the earliestdaysof colonization" OR, 167),whichhadthus,as anexperienceof the foundationof freedom,alreadybeenunderway on the Mayflower:

bindingand promising,combiningandcovenantingare the meansby which power iskeptinexistence;whereandwhen men succeed nkeeping ntact hepowerwhichsprangupbetween themduring he course of any particular ct ordeed, they arealready n theprocessof foundation, f constitutinga stableworldlystructure ohouse,as itwere,theircombinedpowerof action.(OR, 174-75)

Much of the Revolution'swork had been done even beforeit occurred.



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The Americanscouldavoidthevicious circles of pouvoir thatplagued heFrench Revolution because power was alreadyalive in the colonies andmaintainedby various forms of mutualpromising. Yet such power andpromiseswere inadequate o the taskof devisinga lastingfoundation-thatis, an effectiveauthority-for a new nationalpoliticalsystem. "Power, ootedin a people that had bounditself by mutualpromisesand lived in bodiesconstitutedby compact,was enough 'to go througha revolution' . . " but

it was by no meansenough to establish a "perpetualunion,"that is, to found a newauthority.Neithercompactnorpromiseuponwhichcompactsrest aresufficient o assureperpetuity, hatis, to bestow uponthe affairsof men that measureof stabilitywithoutwhich they would be unableto build a world for theirposterity,destinedanddesignedto outlasttheir own mortal ives. (OR, 182)

Despite her argumentthat promises move beyond the action and powerthatthey institutionalizeor memorialize,Arendtnow arguesthatpromises,like the power they maintainandpreserve,are not strongenoughto consti-tute a lastingfoundation.The foundationof a republic,whichwould be thefoundation of freedom, requires something more stable than power andpromising.The Americanfounderswere finally able to avoid the violence and theinstability hatplagued heFrenchRevolutiononly by deliberately eparatingthe source of law andauthority rom thatof power:

the framersof Americanconstitutions,although hey knew they had to establish a newsourceof law and to devise a new systemof power,were never even tempted o derivelaw andpowerfrom the same origin.The source of powerto them was the people,butthe source of law was to become the Constitution,a writtendocument,an endurableobjective thing, which, to be sure,one couldapproach rommanydifferentanglesanduponwhich one could impose manydifferent nterpretations, hich one could changeand amend in accordance with circumstances,but which nevertheless was never asubjectivestateof mind, ike the will. It has remainedatangibleworldlyentityof greaterdurability hanelections orpublic opinion polls. (OR, 155-56)

Rather hanput the source of law,or authority,n somethingas changeableas thepeople'swill (assuming omething ike it could ever befound),or eventheirveryrealpolitical power,theAmericansplaced authorityn an entirelyseparate,andmorereliable,sphere: t was located n atext-the Constitution-and aninstitutiondesignedto interprethattext-the SupremeCourt.Theauthorityof a republicanconstitution ies in its resistance to change:it isthere,a "tangible"unchangingartifact; t forms the boundaries or free ac-tion but is not itself, at least at this point in Arendt'sargument,subjectto



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the law of freedom,or the possibilityof an absolutelynew beginning. n otherwords, what such authorityresists is power. Instead, the American repub-lic has its foundationin the authorityof a written text. That text can beinterpreted,of course, but even the most radical reinterpretationwouldalways be in the termsof the original document and thus confined withincertain boundaries,boundariesthat act as a brake on the ever-changingexpressionsof the "will" or opinions, or even the power, of the politicalcommunity.AlthoughArendtmakes much of this separation f authorityrompower-for it is whatgrants authoritya firmerfoundation hanpromising-theirrelationships in fact significantlymore complicated hanthe word "separa-tion" might imply, for it is clear that authority'scapacity to serve as afoundationcannotbe entirely separate romthepowermaintainedn prom-ises (especially given Arendt'sown claim that the foundationof Americanfreedomwas only the continuationof the experiencebegunwith the powermaintainedn theMayflowerCompact).Instead,"authority"hould be seenas Arendt'snamefor the nextstage n theattemptofoundfreedom-anotherlink in the chain-that beginswith "thespaceof appearance,"hengoes onto "power," hen to "theforce of promise,"and now finally to "authority."Although promising was supposed to enable power to "create its ownremembrance,"he stability huslentto powerandto freedom s insufficientfor a surefoundation;the capacityof promisesto "memorialize" ower isnot lasting enough. Authority, hen, is called in to solve the problemnowplaguing promising that promising itself was to solve for power: it mustsomehowsustainthe "free"andundetermined haracter f promising-andalong with it, power-even as it gives them, and ultimately freedom, alasting,durable oundation.This solutionwaspossible,Arendtexplains,only on the basis of aradicalinsightintothe natureof freedom and foundation eachedby the men of theAmericanRevolution.This insightwas theirrealization

that it wouldbe the act of foundation tself, rather hanan ImmortalLegislatoror self-evidenttruthor any othertranscendent,ransmundaneource,whicheventuallywouldbecome the fountainof authority n the new body politic. From this it follows that it isfutile to search or an absolute o break he vicious circle in which allbeginning s inev-itably caught,becausethis "absolute" ies in the veryact of beginning tself. (OR, 205)In much the same way that promising-on the model of energeia-was said to be the way thatpower generates,out of its own free action, ameans of self-remembrance, uthorityherefinds its stability(or absolute) nthevery activityof founding.Viewedfromanotherangle,freedomcan resist



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Keenan PROMISES,PROMISES:THEWORK OF ARENDT 313

absolutes-foundations or sources or causes that violate its logic of begin-ning, contingency,anduncertainty-only by beingitself "absolute."Arendtexplainsthis in more detail:

what saves the act of beginningfrom its own arbitrariness s that it carries its ownprinciplewithin itself, or, to be moreprecise, thatbeginningandprinciple,principiumand principle,are notonlyrelated o eachother,butarecoeval. The absolute romwhichthe beginningis to deriveits own validityand which mustsave it, as it were, from itsinherentarbitrarinesss theprinciplewhich,togetherwithit, makes ts appearancen theworld.Thewaythebeginner tartswhateverhe intends o dolaysdownthe law of actionforthosewho havejoinedhim inorder o partakentheenterprise ndto bringabout tsaccomplishment.As such,theprinciple nspires hedeedsthatareto follow andremainsapparent s long as the action lasts. (OR, 214; my emphasis)

What lends thebeginning-or constitution-of the newAmericanRepublicits authority or "validity")s theprinciplecontained nthatbeginning, nthemomentof foundation.But when it comes to the foundationof freedom,notjust any principlewill do. It has,of course,to be theprincipleof freedom: ffreedom foundsitself, it canonly be on the basis of its own law.What,then,is the law,orprinciple,of freedom n this case? Arendtexplainsthat

theprinciplewhich came to light during hose fatefulyearswhen thefoundationswherelaid-not bythe strengthof one architectbutby thecombinedpowerof the many-wasthe interconnectedprincipleof mutualpromiseandcommondeliberation. OR, 215)Theprinciple hatserves as the foundationorAmericanauthority ndthatsaves the American oundation romviciouscircles,absolutes,andquicksand

is "the interconnectedprincipleof mutualpromiseand common delibera-tion." The "authority"oundedby the AmericanRevolution,then, is some-thing like the textualization,or institutionalization, f mutualpromising.Promising s madelastingwhen it is transformednto the textof the Consti-tutionand heinstitution f theSupremeCourt.There, inally,promising andalongwith itpowerandfreedom) inds itsremembrance:he lawof freedom,as the practiceof promising, s laid down.

4Despite Arendt'sargument hatpowerandpromisingmust be separatedfrom aw andauthority,t turnsoutthat, nfact, authoritys based, n acertainway, on the "principle" f promising.As Arendt'sconcern hereis with thefoundationof freedom, authoritymust remaintrue to freedom's logic of



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impermanence nd "actuality";t does so by acting astheinstitutionalizationof promising,which is itself the self-remembrance r textualization f powerandfree action.As such, authority oldspromising o its own lawoffreedom,continuing he promise of promising,rather han ockingthepromise nto anunalterable orm.Yet it is clearthatsomethingdoes happen n the move frompromising oauthority: he "principle"of promising,while obeying the fundamentallyunstable temporalityof all free action,is neverthelesssupposedto possess,in the form of authority, stabilitythatpromisesalone have provennot to.Promising,as instituted n the form of authority,s different hanpromisingtoutcourt.Arendtattempts o cometo termswith,if notexactly solve, theseeminglyparadoxical elationof freedomandfoundation ontainedwithin"authority"by introducing he notionof "augmentation,"erived from her readingofRoman auctoritas. Describingthe influence of auctoritason the Americanfounders,Arendtexplainsthat

authoritynthis context is nothingmoreorless thanakind of necessary"augmentation"by virtueof whichall innovationsandchangesremain ied backto the foundationwhich,at the sametime, they augmentandincrease.Thusthe amendmentso the Constitutionaugmentand ncrease heoriginal oundations f the American epublic;needlessto say,the very authorityof the AmericanConstitutionresides in its inherentcapacityto beamendedandaugmented. OR, 203)

Authority-as-foundation,s the text of the Constitution or more generally,of the promise), cannot be separated from authority-as-freedom, s thepossibilityof revisingthetext,of adding o andreworking he clausesof theConstitution, he materialout of whichthepoliticalrealmis made. The text(or foundation)grants he possibilityof the politicalaction(or freedom) ofrevision;freedom is only possible on the basis of this text, or contract,orinstitutionalizedpromise. But in the same way, such foundation, to be apolitical foundation, equires hat t be revisable, hat t be subject o the lawof augmentation,ratherthan an absolute that lies beyond the freedom ofpolitical action.Authority, n short, s producedout of this interpenetrationof freedomandfoundation;tdependson the"coincidenceof foundationandpreservationby virtueof augmentation,"n which "the 'revolutionary' ct ofbeginning somethingentirelynew, andconservativecare,which will shieldthis new beginning throughthe centuries,are interconnected"OR, 203).Authorityas "augmentation,"hen, is anotherversionof Arendt's ideal ofenergeia, nwhichfreedomandfoundation esidetogetherandreinforceeachother.



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To the extent, though,that thisprocessof "interconnection"nd "coinci-dence" s understoodbyArendt o preserve heindependenceand dentityofthe two terms nvolved ("beginning" nd"conservation,"r "freedom"and"foundation"), augmentation"emains oo simplea conceptto describe herelation of freedom and foundation.Indeed, authorityas "augmentation"attempts o haveit bothways:to insulate hepoliticalfrom thethreat hat he"necessity"of foundationposes to freedomand from the loss threatenedbyits lack of foundation.Arendt's"augmentation,"hat s, presentsasasmooth,evolutionary process what is instead a much less stable,even conflictual,relationshipof freedomto foundation.Andalthough heconceptof augmen-tation might at first sight seem to be an exampleof her ideal of "thinkingtogetherandcombiningmeaningfullywhatourpresentvocabularypresentsto us in terms of oppositionandcontradiction,"t actually smooths over thepossibilitiesand difficulties that such a "thinking ogether" houldprovoke.A theoryof authority saugmentation,hat s, takes noaccountof thewayin which the political "space"markedoff by the foundational romisealwayshas both too much freedomand too much foundation conditions hatare,infact, merelytwo sides of the samedangerbuilt into the natureof freedom).To the extent that Arendt's"authority"onforms to the law of freedom,thepoliticalrealm thatit "founds"mustalwaysremainonly apromisedrealm,aliveperhaps nthe momentof actionbutwithoutsecurityagainst uture oss.Suchafoundation anneverguaranteehepoliticalrealmagainst hedangersinherent to freedom itself: the dangerof being lost, for example, throughhabit, insecurity,or forgetfulness.

Butthissamedanger,n fact,is present ntheverymeansArendtsuggeststo alleviate it: to lay down the law of action,or promising,can only be toviolate,in theverysamegesture, he law of action (orfreedom).Authority'sinstitutionalizationf theprincipleof mutualpromising just ikepromising'smemorialization f power) must,to functionas afoundationand a law, placelimits on the freedomof all that follows it, on thevery politicalaction that thelps makepossible, for it is alwaysaparticular aw of freedom:authority,like the promiseon which it is based,is always specific to "anagreeduponcommonpurpose,"whether his is enshrined n a verbalpromise,a writtencompact,a founding "principle," r the text of a constitution.Freedomcanonly gain a foundationor a space,orbecome a law for a particular roupofpeople, by takingon a specific,limitedform; hefoundation, o makecertainoptions possible, will haveto close down certainothers: uturepossiblenewbeginnings will be restrictedand others ruled out entirely.And whatever"augmentations"hat aremade,to "augment" ather hanrejectthe founda-tion,must takeplace withinthe limits set downin the foundation.Therealm



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of freedom-seen as a logic of indeterminacy, penness,plurality,andthepossibilityof new beginnings-is inevitablycompromised n the attempt ofound it, even as some suchfoundation s necessaryfor its survival.(Itthusshould come as no surprisewhen, in the final chapterof On Revolution,Arendtexplains that even the American Revolutionfailed, in the end, toestablisha lastingfoundation orfreedom.)

As aresultof thisparadoxical elationof freedomandfoundation, he lossof "thepolitical"(as the realm of openness,plurality,and new beginnings)thatArendtregularly aments is a loss that cannotfail to happen.The verymeans of saving it from being forgotten-the text of the promise or ofauthority-inevitably involves it in the workingsof necessity andnonfree-dom against which its freedom is to be protected. Caught within, andproducedout of, a dialecticof freedom andfoundation hat leaves neitherterm ntact, hepoliticalcanonlybe found withinandthroughts constitutiveloss, within and throughits fall into the nonpolitical.To search for thepoliticalin lightof the impossibilityof sheltering t from the "nonpolitical,"however,requiresaccepting hepoliticalas itselfa spaceof conflict.DespiteArendt'sefforts to wall off the realm of politics and freedom from thatofviolence and rule,the way in which the politicalspace is constitutedout oftheconflictbetween reedomandfoundationhas theeffect of lodgingconflictand violence withinthe heartof thepoliticalitself.

To defend this claim in the detail that it deserveswould requirea closereadingof Arendt'snumerousdiscussions of violence, which is, unfortu-nately,beyondthe scope of the presentessay.7 t can nonethelessbe shown,from within the terms of Arendt's own analysis, that in the face of theopennessandpluralityof politicalfreedom,the specific andlimitingnatureof political foundationsbringswith it a constitutivethreatof conflict andviolence. One way this is so becomes apparentwhen we examine moreclosely an aspectof promisingaboutwhich Arendthas little to say: the factthat once it has been "performed" r agreedon, the promiseimmediatelybecomes atext in need of interpretation.8s we have seen previously,Arendtarguesthatpromising s to be valued in partforthe way in which it protectsthepluralityof politicalaction,refusingto subsumeall thepromisorsundera single will. Nonetheless,Arendtalso arguesthatit produces"a body ofpeople boundandkept together .. by an agreedpurpose for which alonethe promises are valid and binding"(THC, 245; my emphasis); it holdstogether hepowerthat s generated ut of the"temporarygreementof manywills and intentions" THC,201; my emphasis).Thepromisecan bind onlybecause of the commonpurposethat the promisorshave agreedto pursue.AlthoughArendtmakes much of the way in which promisespreservethe



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pluralityessentialtopolitics,shenonetheless reatseachpromiseas if it wereat all moments ust a single promise.For thepromiseto functionas the kindof foundation hatArendtwants,its meaning,andthe purposewith whicheveryone expressestheiragreement hrough hepromise,must n somesensebe evident to and identicalfor all the promisors.Arendt'sassumptionnotwithstanding,what each memberof thepoliticalbody has "agreed" o in the mutualpromiseof foundation s nevermerelyself-evident: for the promise to be "free," t, too, must be subject to thecontingentplay of politicalcontestation hat is themarkof freedom. Prom-ises, that is, are subjectto the law of freedom not only in theirrevision oraugmentationover time but as texts whose meaningis found only in theirinterpretation,which renders hemsusceptible o asmanypotential nterpre-tations as there are promisors.The freedom enshrinedin the text of thepromise, which makes it both so ideal as a political foundation and sounstable as a politicalfoundation, can be found in the way in which the"single" promise serves as the common site for a multitude of different,potentiallyconflicting purposes. (Thereis no guaranteeof unanimity, orinstance, aboutwhatcounts as "augmenting"r "continuing"he foundingact and theprinciple[s] t enshrines.)Apromise, ike any agreement,s at besta point of conjuncture,a site at which conflictinggoals, intentions, orces,andprojectsfind a commonexpressionorformulationbut never anidentityof meaning.Toassume hefoundingpromisecan belimitedto asingle, fixed,meaningwould be to denyanaspectof the interpretabilityhat s at thebasisof Arendt'sown ideal of augmentation. ndeed,for a promiseto be trulyanagreement,for it to be free, it must emerge out of, and continue to bethreatenedby, thepossibilityof realdisagreement, f a real"differend"hathas no guaranteeof peaceful resolution.Thus whatever oundational upport hepromiseoffers(whetherdirectlyor in the formof Arendt's"authority")omes from the single,authoritativeinterpretationhat must at certaincrucial momentsbe established,more orless forcefully.Toargue hatthepromiseoffers a siteforcompeting nterpre-tations,and thus for a certain orm of freedom, n no way reducesthe extentto which the promise also serves to limit the very freedom it enshrines.Although the necessitythatthepromisebe interpreted pens the space for apluralityof interpretations,talso involvestheopposingnecessityof decidingon one interpretationather hananother. It is this requirement f decidingbetweeninterpretationshattransforms heirplurality ntoconflict.) Rulingsabout how the law is to be interpreted, bout what countsas "augmenting"orcontinuing hefoundingprinciplesof a document ike theConstitutionorother such collectively binding decisions that rework the meaningof the



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"agreeduponpurpose"of the mutualpromise(andwith it the identityof the"body"of promisors),are all integralaspectsof the reedomof any politicalcommunity.But thismeans,inturn, hat tsveryroleas a foundationodgeswithinthepromise a certainkindof violence (a violence, however,that is inextricablefrom freedom itself). Despite Arendt's desire to banish from the politicalrealm the violence involved in ruling (as it substitutes he singularityof acommandor decision for the pluralityof the moment of promising),rulingis neverthelessboth unavoidableandfully political.A politicalcommunityfounded on promising cannot avoid such moments of decision, in whichthe promise that all make and to which all are bound is given an inevit-ably limited, particularnterpretation eterminedby only some.All pledgethemselves-as membersof theone "bodyof people"brought ntobeing bythe promise-to the "same"promise,or foundational aw, even as the po-litical decisions thatspecify the scope or applicationof the law redefinethe(practical)meaning of the promisein ways not agreedto by all. By puttinganend,at leasttemporarily,o thefreedomfound n the existence of varyinginterpretations f the founding promise,collective decisions bind membersof the community o promises hatthey maynot even agreetheyhave made.Accepting that the promisewill always enshrinea particular urposeinneed of interpretation,hen,involvesrecognizingthatthepromise s consti-tutivelydividedbetweenpluralityandsingularity.This new back-and-forthof freedomandfoundationrenders he promiseonce againboth less stablethanArendtwouldhave it-because it is a siteof conjuncture ndconflict-and less free-because it functionsas a foundationonly to theextent that asingle, limitedinterpretations imposedon it by some act of decision.As aresult, it also entails recognizing once more that the political realm offreedom can never simply be separated rom the "nonpolitical" ealm ofsovereigntyandrule.Theveryopennessandfreedomof thepoliticalrealm-the fact that the foundationalpromise is without self-evident meaning,independentarbiter, r anyotherabsoluteand is thussubjectto a multitudeof possible interpretations nd to the necessity of constantredefinition-leads to a continualprocessof decisionmaking,ruling, andclosure thatvio-latesitslaw of plurality,nonviolence,andopenness.This tearwithin he heartof the political realm lies within the act of decision itself, divided as it isbetweenthe freedom of reconstitutinghe political realmby redefiningthepromiseand the violence of imposing thatdefinition n ways thatall do notaccept and that exclude other possible communities and other possiblefutures.(The potential orconflict andviolence thatcomes withthe need tointerprethe promise s only one exampleof the violence thatattachesmoregenerallyto the particularandexclusive characterof political foundations.



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Arendt'speaceful metaphorsof building walls and makingpromises, to-getherwith the essential but never statedassumption hat such foundationtakesplacein a vacuum, n anempty,notyet political space,deflect attentionfrom the way in which thesingular, imiting,anddecisive natureof politicalfoundationentails a more or less violent displacementof other,existing orpotential,communities.)9To acceptthe possibilitiescontainedwithinsuch freepoliticalaction, hen,one must also accept the costs that action entails for freedom itself. Theparticularcomplexityof the relationshipbetween freedomand foundationthatthisessayhasexploredshouldteach us thatthequalitiesof freedomandaction thatArendtvalues mosthighly-those of openness,plurality, nd ackof absolute ground-necessarily involve political action in some of theprocessesand actionsthatmostendanger t. Thisrefersnotjust to freedom'sunavoidablereliance on foundations hat will limit futurefreedom norjustto thewayin whichthepluralityandopennessof actionwillalwaysculminatein(evenastheycontinue oresist)asingularanddecisiveactof closure.Mostimportant, nstead, s how thevery conditionof freedom-the fact that suchdecisions(intheirsingularity,imitation,andclosure)are ree acts rather hannecessaryones and thatthey takeplace, therefore, n the face of a pluralityof opinions, perspectives,andcriteria,withoutany guaranteeof agreementor "absolute" o act as aground-implicates politicalaction n thesupposedly"nonpolitical"world of sovereignty,rule, and violence. One cannot,then,mourn herepeated"loss"of "therevolutionary pirit"-when "freedomandpowerhavepartedcompany,andthe fatefulequationof powerwithviolence,of the political with government,andof governmentwith a necessaryevilhas begun"(OR, 134>-as if one could someday resurrectanexperienceofthe politicalfree fromthat oss. Therecan simplybe no political actionfreefrom the loss of the political and the tendencyto forget the freedomthatmakesit possible.

Nor, for similarreasons,can politicalactionsimplybe equatedwith thework of resistingthe inevitable oss of thepolitical,with the constanteffortto renewthespiritof foundationand to remember he freedomof beginning,as if the moment of action-of deciding,or founding,or resisting-couldsimply be separated rom the moment when freedom is violated or forgot-ten.10As freeacts,of course, promisesand decisions arealwaysprovisional,andwaysmustbedevised tocontinually eexamine heparticular promises"and decisionsof a politicalcommunity.But this cannotbe doneas if it werea more pure act of political intervention,or in the name of a freedom orpolitical practicesomehow able to avoidits own fall intounfreedom,ntothemore or less violent closure thatcomes withhavingto decide one wayortheother, n the absence of unanimityor anyabsolute.



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To argue, however, that within the very political action that freedommakes possible thereis an unavoidableviolation of freedom s not to arguefor its simple impossibilityor absence. It is, instead, to suggest that thepromised,or free,character f the politicalcan only be preservedby remem-bering its impurityand incompletion,and with it the fact that politicalfreedom always comes at a cost-the cost of being implicated n variousforms of violence and unfreedom.To deny this conditionis to forget thefreedomof the political in the name of another reedom,one so pure that itcan never be enjoyed.

NOTES1. HannahArendt,"What s Freedom?" n Between Past and Future:EightExercisesin

Political Thought New York;1961), 169. Citations o thisessay will hereafterbe notedin thetext by the initials WF. Other exts to be cited are "What s Authority?" lso in Between PastandFuture,abbreviated s WA;On Revolution New York;1965),abbreviated s OR;TheLifeof the Mind,vol. 2, Willing New York; 1978), abbreviated s LM;and The HumanCondition(Chicago; 1958),abbreviated s THC.

2. For a very helpfuldiscussion of this and otheraspectsof Arendt'saccount of politicalaction-one which,like thepresentessay, emphasizes heimportance f contingency,plurality,and nonsovereignty see Dana Villa, "BeyondGood and Evil: Arendt,Nietzsche, and theAestheticization f PoliticalAction,"PoliticalTheory20:274-308, esp.277-81. Villa'sargumentfor the deep connectionsbetween Arendt'sprojectof revaluingpoliticalaction andNietzsche'scritique of Platonism and against Arendt's "colonization"by either Habermasianor post-structuralist eadings s bothconvincinganduseful.My essay, however,takes a very differentapproach:by exploringthe natureand effects of the tension between freedom andfoundationwithin Arendt'sown texts, I arguefor the inevitablefailureof any projectaimedat recoveringanexperienceof politics purifiedof "unfree" r "nonpolitical"lements.

3. One of thecentralconcernsof thepresentessayis to complicateArendt'sargumenthatviolence is "essentially nonpolitical."Arendt's most extensive treatmentof violence and itsrelationto powercanbe foundin "OnViolence," n Crises of the Republic New York, 1972),105-98, esp. sec. 2 and appendix11.She argues here hat power s, in its essence, distinctfromviolence. Generatedand maintainedby thejoint action andsupportof manypeople, power hasno purposeotherthan tself; indeed, poweris "thevery conditionenablinga groupof people tothink and act in terms of the means-endcategory" CR, 150). Violence, on the otherhand, ispurely nstrumental;t can commandobedience,but it can nevergeneratepower;at best it is atemporary, nd nessential,supplement ora lackof power. tthus follows that Arendtholds thatlaws are not essentiallycommands,resting n the final analysis on coercion, but rathermerely"directhuman ntercourse s therulesdirect hegame"(CR, 193). AlthoughArendt s right hatviolence alone cannotreplace power as the foundational ource for political communities,Iargue n the concludingsection of thisessay thatbecause the foundation hatpower itself turnsout to need inevitablyhas particular,nonneutralpurposes attached o it, instrumentality ndviolence are notessentially separable romthepoliticalrealm.Or, notherwords, although aws



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are not merely commands, t is nonethelessof the essence of law thatit be able at times to actas a command.

4. For an illuminating accountof the importanceof speech to Arendt's conception ofpolitical action, see George Kateb,HannahArendt, Politics, Conscience,Evil (Totowa,NJ:Rowman & Allanheld,1983), 15.

5. Central o Arendt's laim for the effectivenessof promisingas a foundation orfreedomis the fact that it acknowledgesthe pluralityof those who make up the political community.Promisingresists theviolent, totalizingpretensions f asovereignandgeneralwill, andthusthevicious circles of foundationas well, in partbecause it does not claim to be theexpressionof asingular will; it is, rather,no more thana temporary, lways revisable, agreementof manydifferentwills and ntentions.Although romthispointon I concentrate n Arendt'sdescriptionof the temporality f theact of promising, t is importanto note thisadditionalargument f hersfor the free natureof promising.I return o the issue of promising'srelation o pluralityat theend of the essay.

6. This solution is the only one that does not violate Arendt'sunderstandingof thedistinctively noninstrumental atureof politicalaction. Unlikelabor,which struggleswith thenecessities of life, andwork,whichproduces"products" esigned o achieve a preexistingend,political action has only itself as an end. Action has no otherpurpose han the continuationofaction and the preservation f the conditionsfor futureaction.For a sympathetic reatmentofthe difficulties that this conceptionof political action raises, see the first chapterof Kateb'sHannahArendt,esp. 10, 12-13,and 16-22. See also Villa, "BeyondGood andEvil,"277-81. Asevidence, however,that Arendt also maintaineda more purposiveunderstanding f politicalaction,there s thispassagefrom"OnViolence":"Whatmakesmanapoliticalbeingis hisfacultyof action;it enables him to get togetherwith his peers,to act in concert,and to reachoutforgoals and enterprises hat would never enterhis mind,let alone the desires of his heart,had henot been given this gift-to embark on somethingnew." Crises of the Republic, 179, myemphasis;see also 150.

7. For a brieftreatment f some of the relevant ssues, see note 3.8. To argue his is not to disregardhe statusof a promiseas a performative peech-actor

to ignorethe distinctionbetween performatives nd constatives.It is meantto suggest, instead,thatbecause, according o Arendt, he act of mutualpromisingcreatesa monumentor mark owhich a groupwill be bound into the future, he performative mmediatelybecomes a text inneed of interpretation,boutwhich claims are made and aroundwhicharguments nddisputescirculate.Withoutdenyingits statusas a performative, ne can recognizethat it also becomesthe site for constativespeech-acts,and withthem,a whole set of possibleconflicts. For a helpfulandprovocativediscussionof the relevanceof speech-actanalysis o thestudyof Arendt's exts,see Bonnie Honig's "Declarationsof Independence:Arendtand Derridaon the Problem ofFoundinga Republic,"AmericanPolitical Science Review 85 (Winter 1991): 97-113. For acritiquesimilarto the one I proposeof Arendt's need for the meaningof the promiseto be"relativelyunproblematic,"ee esp. 104. And for Derrida'sargumenthat the strictseparationof performative nd constative s impossibleto maintainat the momentof political foundation,see "Declarations f Independence,"New Political Science,no. 15 (Summer1986):7-15.

9. Arendt'ssilenceon this aspectof foundation s a particular roblem n hertreatment fthe American ounding, nvolving as it did the violentdisplacementof an entirecivilization.Itis a trait hatArendt'sworkshareswiththetradition f social contractheory,whosepractitionerswere fascinated n their own ways with the "emptiness" f "theNew World" s a modelforthe"stateof nature."



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10. This equationof politicswith the act of "resisting"oundation s the debatableconclu-sion to Honig'sexcellent"Declarations f Independence:ArendtandDerridaon the ProblemofFoundinga Republic."Despitehercritiqueof Arendt's endency oequatepoliticalfreedom ooeasily with performanceand "performatives"nd her neglect of the inevitablerole of "con-statives" n politicalaction and foundations,Honig'sconcludingattempt o findsomecommongroundbetween Derrida'spolitical"strategyof intervention" nd Arendt's heory of politicalauthorityas augmentation nds up soundingremarkablyArendtiann its faithin "practicesofaugmentation ndamendmentthat]make[the]beginningourown- not merelyourownlegacybut our own constructionandperformative"p. 111).The suggestionthat politicalactionandauthority onsists in the constantrenewal of the beginningas one's own, in a processwhereby"wetreatthe absolute [or antipolitical onstative]as an invitation or intervention, . . declareourselvesresistant o it, [and]refuse ts claim toirresistibility y deauthorizingt" (p. 112),stillequatesthe politicalwithonly the first side of theperformative/constativeorfreedom/founda-tion) division. Even thoughHonig accepts Derrida'spoint that the performativenecessarilyinvolves a constativemoment orthesupportof somethingwhose existence and authority s notquestioned),she still sees theessentiallypolitical act as the resistance o and deauthorizationf"the constative" o preventus fromforgetting he free andthus revisablenatureof ourpoliticalfoundationsor institutions.Althoughsuch resistance s certainlypolitical,so too is its apparentopposite:the "constative"nsistencethat certain hingshavebeen decided and are no longertobe debatedor resisted(howeverdebatable uch decisionsmightsoonbecome).

Alan Keenan teachespolitical and legal theory in the Departmentof Rhetoricat theUniversityof California,Berkeley.His dissertation s titled"TheDemocraticQuestion:Political Theory, he 'People,'and the DifficultLaw of Freedom."

Abyss of Freedom, Promises Promises _ Alan Keenan

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