Page - 76 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 2:2

77 | www.limina-graz.eu Isabella Guanzini | Ideas of Freedom ern society. Starting with the decline of polis, in fact, Arendt notes how “ac- tion” has been replaced by “labour” and “work”. She divides vita activa into three fundamental forms: labour (animal labo- rans), work (homo faber), and action (zoon politikón). The first dimension refers to the realm of biological necessity, of life itself in its pursuits of self-preservation, which is maintained through labouring activities (the ancient slaves). Labour does not result in the fabrication of enduring ob- jects, but is energy that is consumed for the fundamental needs of nutrition and reproduction, taking charge of the conservation of the domestic com- munity. The second dimension corresponds to the non-natural activities of human existence, namely to that ensemble of human activities that are not absorbed in the life cycle, but are rather directed towards the production of an “artificial world” of durable objects, which transform the given en- vironment and foster technological progress. It is the world of homo faber, who constructs factories and produces technologies, thereby enticing a deep modification of his habitat in order to render it more suitable to the development of work and his being in the world. The analysis of this second human model clearly grasps the actual condition of modern and post-modern subjectivity. One can recognize Nietzsche’s last man, who supports nihilism by working. Indeed, the self-identical and sovereign man is close to becoming a mass reality: there is nothing above him that can tell him who he must be, since he presents himself as the unique master of himself, wearing himself out in an exhausting work activity. Nevertheless, the subject of late capitalist society is not fatally destined to be alienated, as if this chronic tiredness were the last effect of the technico-financial global evolution of species. If the homo faber and homo laborans are subjected to conditions of necessity, constriction and even affliction, Arendt considers a third sphere of life, which corresponds to its properly human dimension, i.  e. a dimension that is not subservient to things and the exigencies of consumption, but that is rather projected into the world of freedom and the relationship with the other within the space of the common. Indeed, there is a primacy of action, whose value was once evident to the Greeks and is deeply disregarded by the (post-)moderns, which must be protected. Three fundamental forms: labour (animal laborans), work (homo faber), and action (zoon politikón)