"A lot of our brothers are missing. At least 100. We don't know where they are."
A New York firefighter, describing how most of the firefighters in his company had gone into the World Trade Center before the collapse-and not come out again
"I saw about 15 people jump out [of the windows]. You'd hear a gasp in the crowd, and you'd look up, and the person would still fall for about 10 or 15 seconds. Some flailed their arms, some kept them straight."
Eyewitness Jeremy Davids

Is Arendt useful for interpreting today's society?
According to the opening paragraph of Arendt's The Human Condition, men are looking for the next "step toward escape from men's imprisonment to the earth." (Arendt 1) Arendt proposes a model of the human condition here on earth in which she describes citizenship as freedom that can only be attained once necessity has been conquered. This essay will examine how useful Arendt's model is for us today, although the answer in reality certainly cannot be definitely yes or no.
Arendt originally proposes three aspects of the human condition; this essay will focus on two and the changes they undergo with time as discussed by the author. The first condition is labor, "bound to the vital necessities produced and fed into the life process" (Arendt 9), which was confined to the private sector. Politics, or action, existed in a different, public sector, " a second life . . . bios politikos" (Arendt 25). Freedom as a citizen came when one had conquered the private sector of necessity and freely chosen to become a part of the public sphere of action, or politics. The two spheres of private and public blended to form society, which is "neither public or private" (Arendt 27). This occurred as the public sector was called upon to protect private interests (i.e. wealth), which resulted in private issues becoming part of the public interest. Wealth and property had been immovable in the private sector, but as the public sector become involved, the "transformation of immobile into mobile property" (Arendt 61) took over these aspects to generate wealth and capital. The focus of this new society then became "the common wealth" (Arendt 60). This new society, known as capitalism, thrived by "expropriation . . . [which] created both the original accumulation of wealth and the possibility of transforming this wealth into capital through labor." (Arendt 231) Arendt's theory here may offer an explanation concerning the hatred of certain Middle Eastern countries facing the U.S. Politics ceased long ago to act solely in the public sphere; it is now a part of society, whose goal is wealth. By acting in society's interests, the U.S. government exploits poorer countries in the Middle East in order to generate wealth and capital via labor.
Although Arendt's model and its progression into one sphere may explain one problem, the model falls short in explaining what it means to be a citizen in the U.S. today. As mentioned earlier, the political sphere no longer falls under the condition of action; it has moved into the private sector and thus under the condition of labor. Politics is now seen as a necessary job rather than as the pursuit of freedom from necessity. U.S. citizens realize that politics has joined society in "an activity whose deepest motivation is worry and care about self" (Arendt 231). Freedom is no longer found in politics; it is found in personal expressions and our individual rights as Americans. The new meaning of being a citizen in a capitalistic society is the exercising of these rights and expressions. This activity seems to be the only truly private sphere left, although this may not be the best way to describe it because the expressions are often public. Perhaps the best way to express modern freedom is as the last remaining private property, under "indisputable ownership" (Arendt 62) of the citizen himself.

This essay begins to sort out Arendt's philosophy and attempt to situate it in our own modern world with the intention of finding some possible cause or solution to our ignorance of the Arab world.