While reading Collective Responsibility by Hannah Arendt, I found the most interesting topic she brought up was the conflict between the responsibility of one’s self versus the responsibility of their community. I feel this is a conflict that every person struggles with. This is why organizations like MarinLink are so important. MarinLink lends a hand to local nonprofit organization to offer them legal and business advice so these positive organizations can flourish. MarinLink and the organizations that it helps allow citizens to fulfill that responsibility to their community to create a better environment for their neighbors and family. One aspect of this that really got my attention is when Ardent discusses how it a right for citizens to NOT participate in politics and their community, and that this is a right that most people take for granted. In the reading she states:
“…in free countries a certain group of citizens may not want to participate… simply because they have chosen to take advantage of one of our liberties, the pone usually not mentioned when we count our freedoms because it is so much taken for granted, and that is freedom from politics” (154).
I find this quote so powerful because it puts into light how much Americans take for granted the right to speak out against a politician or simply not walk down to the voting booth. Ardent brings up examples such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union when under the power of Stalin. When faced with this type of situation, members within these communities face a death sentence for something that anyone living in the United States would not think twice about doing. This reading opened my eyes to on going conflict within each member of a community and the fact that they have a choice at all to decide whether or not to participate is freedom unacknowledged.
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