of wishes in fairy tales, comes at a moment when it can only be
self-defeating. It is a society of laborers which is about to be liber-
ated from the fetters of labor, and this society does no longer know
of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake
of which this freedom would deserve to be won. Within this so-
ciety, which is egalitarian because this is labor's way of making
men live together, there is no class left, no aristocracy of either a
political or spiritual nature from which a restoration of the other
capacities of man could start anew. Even presidents, kings, and
prime ministers think of their offices in terms of a job necessary
for the life of society, and among the intellectuals, only solitary
individuals are left who consider what they are doing in terms of
work and not in terms of making a living. What we are confronted
with is the prospect of a society of laborers without labor, that is,
without the only activity left to them. Surely, nothing could be
worse.
To these preoccupations and perplexities, this book does not
offer an answer. Such answers are given every day, and they are
matters of practical politics, subject to the agreement of many;
they can never lie in theoretical considerations or the opinion of
one person, as though we dealt here with problems for which only
one solution is possible. What I propose in the following is a re-
consideration of the human condition from the vantage point of
our newest experiences and our most recent fears. This, obviously,
is a matter of thought, and thoughtlessness—the heedless reckless-
ness or hopeless confusion or complacent repetition of "truths"
which have become trivial and empty—seems to me among the
outstanding characteristics of our time. What I propose, therefore,
is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing.
"What we are doing" is indeed the central theme of this book.
It deals only with the most elementary articulations of the human
condition, with those activities that traditionally, as well as ac-
cording to current opinion, are within the range of every human
being. For this and other reasons, the highest and perhaps purest
activity of which men are capable, the activity of thinking, is left
out of these present considerations. Systematically, therefore, the
book is limited to a discussion of labor, work, and action, which
forms its three central chapters. Historically, I deal in a last chap-
[ 5 1
The Human Condition
ter with the modern age, and throughout the book with the various
constellations within the hierarchy of activities as we know them
from Western history.
However, the modern age is not the same as the modern world.
Scientifically, the modern age which began in the seventeenth cen-
tury came to an end at the beginning of the twentieth century;
politically, the modern world, in which we live today, was born
with the first atomic explosions. I do not discuss this modern
world, against whose background this book was written. I confine
myself, on the one hand, to an analysis of those general human
capacities which grow out of the human condition and are perma-
nent, that is, which cannot be irretrievably lost so long as the hu-
man condition itself is not changed. The purpose of the historical
analysis, on the other hand, is to trace back modern world aliena-
tion, its twofold flight from the earth into the universe and from
the world into the self, to its origins, in order to arrive at an un-
derstanding of the nature of society as it had developed and pre-
sented itself at the very moment when it was overcome by the
advent of a new and yet unknown age.
[ 6 ]
