Escapes from politics invariably end in rule and obedience.

Evidence

AS ARTICULATIONS OF retreat, both Thiel’s essay and Walden Two seem almost to have been reverse-engineered by Hannah Arendt’s classic 1958 work The Human Condition, in which she diagnoses the age-old temptation to substitute design for the political process. Throughout history, she observes, men have been driven by the desire to escape “the haphazardness and moral irresponsibility inherent in a plurality of agents.” Unfortunately, she concludes, “the hallmark of all such escapes is rule, that is, the notion that men can lawfully and politically live together only when some are entitled to command and the others forced to obey.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 194

Categorization

• DEFINE: Arendt’s diagnosis gives the precise definition of ‘retreat’ Odell is critiquing: withdrawal that substitutes design for plurality — key to defending her real argument.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that every escape from political plurality collapses into command/obedience is paradigm-level and resists easy summary.
• XREF: connects to: Politics loses its freedom once Capital becomes a new transcendent master. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 29