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Temptations of Tyranny
Rod Dreher’s conflicted support for President Trump illustrates a broader crisis among intellectual conservatives who fear the "soft totalitarianism" of liberal institutions yet embrace the hard authoritarianism of executive overreach. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s political thought, the essay contends that true freedom is preserved not through charismatic leaders but through the multiplication and decentralization of citizen power. Revitalizing democracy, it argues, requires stubborn, local acts of collective governance rather than the dangerous temptation to concentrate authority in a single figure.04-27-2025
Articles
Intuitionist Mathematics and Common Sense
Roger BerkowitzHannah Arendt worried greatly about the rise of science. She took Niels Bohr seriously when he argued that “causality, determinism, and necessity of laws belonged to the categories of ‘our necessarily prejudiced conceptual frame’.” The new physics “defies description in terms of the ‘prejudices’ of the human mind[and] defies description in every conceivable way of human language.” Which is one reason why Albert Einstein...
04-16-2020
What We Are Reading:
Small Things
Samantha HillIn The Point’s “Quarantine Journal” Dawn Herrera Helphand reflects upon Hannah Arendt’s observation of the “infectious charm and petit Bonheur of the French way of life.” Herrera Helphand argues that Arendt’s reflection is a critique of petit bourgeois materialism to make the case against “coziness” in late capitalism.
04-16-2020
Isolation and Loneliness
Dhruv Khullar writes about the loneliness and solidarity of treating the coronavirus in New York for the New Yorker magazine. Looking at patient’s experiences of the ICU and feelings of isolation, Khullar talks about how doctors are managing the pandemic.04-09-2020
The Loss of the Spoken Word and Distinction in the age of COVID-19
Hannah Arendt Center member Scott McLain writes this week's member submission.04-09-2020
In Memoriam: Dora Amelan
We at the Hannah Arendt Center mourn the death of Dora Amelan (1920-2020). Dora was a remarkable French Jewish woman who worked with the Children’s Aid Society in the French internment camps during WWII, saving many children and adults. Dora was the mother of Bjorn Amelan and mother-in-law to his partner Bill T. Jones, who has long collaborated with the Hannah Arendt Center and Bard College. Dora passed away this week in Paris, from complications associated with Covid-19.04-03-2020
What We Are Reading:
The Plague And the Literary Cure
Roger BerkowitzJill Lepore writes about the literature of epidemics, looking back at great works about plagues by Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, Stephen King, Albert Camus, and Jose Saramago. What all plague literature shares is, first, the knowledge that the plague threatens the human world, that is “cuts away the higher realms, the loftiest capacities of humanity, and leaves only the animal.”
04-02-2020
Corona Loneliness
By Samantha HillBefore the Corona pandemic we were already facing a loneliness epidemic. And now, with mandatory self-isolation, many are worried about what kind of impact this enforced aloneness will have for individuals. Hannah Arendt draws an important distinction between solitude and loneliness.
03-25-2020
Dialogue with One’s Self
Roger BerkowitzKate Bracht turns to Hannah Arendt to find a silver lining to our need to be by ourselves during the Corona Virus pandemic. We are all increasingly spending more time by ourselves. One answer is to reach out for companionship through on-line dinner parties and courses.
03-25-2020
Grimm Lecture 2020: Thinking Itself is Dangerous
Acting Assistant Director and Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Studies Samantha Rose Hill gave the annual Grimm Lecture, the premiere event of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, a research institute at the University of Waterloo. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, Dr. Hill livestreamed her lecture, entitled “Thinking Itself is Dangerous. Reading Hannah Arendt Now.”03-24-2020