Abstract

This chapter addresses the problem of violence in the political realm by focusing on a question that emerges out of several late works by Hannah Arendt: What is history in the time of what Arendt calls “the modern lie”? In “Truth and Politics” and “Lying in Politics”, Arendt reflects on what she considers a profound philosophical conundrum at the heart of politics and the political: an intimate and foundational relation between politics and the lie that has momentous implications for the way we think about political history. Beginning from a reflection on the nature of political action in the context of lying, Arendt ultimately enables a rethinking of the very nature of history around the possibility of its political denial.