Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

Since [the Enlightenment], the passion of compassion has haunted and driven the best men of all revolutions, and the only revolution in which compassion played no role in the motivation of the actors was the American Revolution. If it were not for the presence of Negro slavery on the American scene, one would be tempted to explain this striking aspect exclusively by American prosperity, by Jefferson’s ‘lovely equality’, or by the fact that American was indeed, in William Penn’s words ‘a good poor man’s country’. As it is, we are tempted to ask ourselves if goodness of the poor white man’s country did not depend to a considerable degree upon black labour and black misery. [...] We can only conclude that the institution of slavery carries an obscurity even blacker than the obscurity of poverty; the slave, not the poor man was ‘wholly overlooked’.

To be sure, each deed has its motives as it has its goals and its principle; but the act itself, though it proclaims its goal and makes manifest its principle, does not reveal the innermost motivation of the agent. His motives remain dark, they do not shine but are hidden not only from others but, most of the time, from himself, from his self-inspection, as well. Hence, the search for motives, the demand that everybody display in public his innermost motivation, since it actually demands the impossible, transforms all actors into hypocrites; the moment the display of motives begins, hypocrisy begins to poison all human relations.