ABSTRACT
Suffering speaks to the core of human experience. Philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) wrote from personal experience, having escaped from Nazi internment in southern France during the German occupation of World War II. Her writing suggests that within the ether of human reality, there exists a communal understanding of suffering:
To Arendt, the inescapable phenomenon of pain is the motivating impulse for the historical development of philosophical introspection as a mechanism of worldly escape. In short, pain does not allow for misreading: it does not suffer misprision. It has essence without existence.
