For Arendt, the individual gains a real pleasure in speaking and acting in public and debating issues of common concern. The fact that most people now don't experience meeting as pleasurable is due a social circumstances that emphasizes privacy not publicity.
There is no necessary conflict between family time and public activities, if the necessities of life could be guaranteed by the community, thus allowing for greater leisure, that is, time spent in public activities.
Arendt points to jury service as an example of public life, and why not? I found my time in jury deliberation and both frustrating and also rewarding, a discussion of a serious public matter with others. I think a serious problem with "liberal democracy" is it extreme disregard for this type of public life.
Jacob Segal
>Kelley goes on at some length about how meetings will be different after
>socialism, and how people will be different, among other things, in coming
>to love meetings. I think this is a projection of a minority taste for
>politics and decisionmaking. It is true that this can be fun and
>fulfilling. It is also true that it is so mainly for those who are
>articulate and/or manipulative, which will always be a minority, even if
>we can increase the general level of articulateness. No me, I am pretty
>articulate and I enjoy politics more than most people, but really truly I
>would rather be reading or writing or playing with my kids of listening to
>music or having sex, and I think so would most people.
>
>I have been around the block as a college activist and have had more tha
>my share of young people discovering themselves at long meetings. I do
>meetings becase I have to, and I want them to be absolutely no more
>frequent than necessary and absolutely no longer than they have to be.
>Moreover, I don't even want to be the kind of person who goes in for long
>meetings that are exercises in self-discovery and self-expression more
>than they are ways to coordinate activity and make things hapen. And I
>think most people would agree. So even if it is true taht we could make
>ourselves into, basically, 19 year old college students, why would we want
>to? I mean, once for a few years is enough for that.
>
>Finally, apart from the issue of whether a society based on too many
>meetings is desirable, there is the point that it favors a different kind
>of lack of democracy, favoring those with stamina and big mouths, setting
>aside time; we can assume that the four hour day will give us time, but
>stamina and big mouths are mere natural gifts. There is no particular
>reason people who have them should have a disproportionate say in our
>society. Maybe Kelly would say that we can break up the bog meetings and
>have lots of little ones. Then we favor those who have patience for lots
>of little meetings and big mouths.
>
>I don't find direct democracy to be an attractive ideal. Hurray for
>representative government!
>
>--jks
>