Hospitality in the Public Realm: An Arendtian Account of the Role of Action and Forgiveness

Abstract

In the last two decades, we have seen an increasing display of gestures and language of forgiveness in the public realm. Forgiveness has become a secular phenomenon. What do we mean by forgiveness? What is the role of forgiveness in the public place? Does it have the capacity to enhance the political life and well-being of a community? In The Human Condition, first published in 1958, Hannah Arendt offers an unapparelled reading of political forgiveness, described as a quintessential human faculty for the revitalization of the public and political realm. This paper seeks to investigate the implications of Arendt’s understanding of action and forgiveness for the life of the polis, in particular the promotion of a more hospitable public space. Situated within human capacity to act and to love the other in their uniqueness and despite their trespasses and failures, forgiveness contributes, as this paper seeks to demonstrate, to the enhancement of the political sphere by opening this space to “new beginnings.”