Ordinary citizens act politically only when crisis directly summons them

Evidence

Picquart was no hero and certainly no martyr. He was simply that common type of citizen with an average interest in public affairs who in the hour of danger (though not a minute earlier) stands up to defend his country in the same unquestioning way as he discharges his daily duties. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 314

Categorization

• DEFINE: Arendt here defines a category of the ordinary civic actor who is neither hero nor martyr — a typological distinction useful for the scaffolding vocabulary.
• QUESTION: This ‘hour of danger though not a minute earlier’ figure recurs in Arendt; worth tracking how the dutiful citizen relates to her later account of totalitarian fellow-travelers and Eichmann’s banality.
• XREF: connects to: The overwhelming volume of world events rationalizes political nonparticipation for ordinary citizens. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1014; The crisis of democracy grabbed defenders only after measurable warning signs accumulated — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 366