Articles

Special Contribution: Our Space 

Dariel Vasquez
Dariel Vasquez is a first generation college graduate from Harlem, NY. Dariel graduated from Bard College (Class of 2017) with a joint degree in History and Sociology, and a concentration in Africana-Studies. He is the founder and director of Brothers@. Youth development and mentorship is Dariel’s passion, and he’s been working with young men of color since he was 16 years old.

A Letter from Roger Berkowitz

Roger Berkowitz
Hannah Arendt cannot solve the problems of our world.  But her bold, provocative, and  fearless  thinking  is a model for how we can think about the problems we confront today. At the Hannah Arendt  Center we don't worship Hannah Arendt. But we seek to nurture the kind of worldly, humanities-based  thinking about ethics and politics that Arendt so fully embodied. 

The Canceler in Chief

Roger Berkowitz
There is an apparent myth going around that cancel culture is a phenomenon of the political left. One sees this in the reaction to the Open Letter in Harpers that I signed last week. There was in that letter no mention of “the left.” The letter explicitly mentioned the danger from illiberalism from both the political right and Donald Trump as well as from cultural intolerance for curiosity and experimental thinking.

What We Are Reading:
The Universal Editor

Samantha Hill
Bari Weiss resigned from The New York Times this week in an open letter, citing the effect social media has had on traditional publishing platforms.

Whiteness Talk and Class Talk

Roger Berkowitz
Daniel Denvir interviews Barbara Fields and Karen Fields, the sisters who wrote the extraordinary book Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. The Field sisters coin the word “Racecraft” to name the magical process through which the fiction of race is made real. When a police officer who is black is conjured as a black man, this conjuring trick is what allows that officer to be discriminated against or even killed

A Jewish Home

Roger Berkowitz
Peter Beinart acknowledges what he calls “the painful truth” that there is not going to be a two-state solution in the Middle East. Given that reality, Beinart asks, what is the path forward? Growing numbers of Palestinians embrace a one-state solution. But in Israel and amongst Jews, the one-state solution crosses a red line, since it would likely mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

National Security and Suppression

Roger Berkowitz
Lily Kuo writes about the impact of the new National Security Legislation that is being imposed by China on Hong Kong. The law defines national security crimes broadly, allows suspects to be sent to China for trial, permits Chinese state agents to work in Hong Kong, expands police powers, and allows secret trials without juries.

What We Are Reading:
The State of Culture

Samantha Hill
In the new issue of Salmagundi,Thomas Chatterton Williams, Margo Jefferson, Darryl Pinckney, John McWhorter, and Orlando Patterson debate “The Black Intellectual & The Condition of the Culture.”

Innocent Victims

Roger Berkowitz
Yascha Mounk discusses three recent instances in which individuals have been fired or punished for expressing opinions (or being thought to have expressed opinions) that were said to have been inconsistent with perceived pieties. Mounk looks deeply into these cases and shows that while the effort to use this political moment has good intentions and is rightfully seeking to root out racial injustice, overreactions that punish people...