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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
Oikophilia
By Roger BerkowitzRoger Scruton died earlier this month. In obituaries, he was frequently called a conservative philosopher. The Guardian wrote that he “was a philosopher and a controversial public intellectual’ who “dedicated himself to nurturing beauty, “re-enchanting the world” and giving intellectual rigour to conservatism.”
01-29-2020
What We're Reading: A Monumental Effort
By Roger BerkowitzUlrich Baer writes that three new sculptures by Kehinde Wiley, Wangechi Mutu, and Kara Walker offer a new and important way to engage the debates about what to do with historically meaningful but offensive monuments.
01-29-2020
Whistleblowers
By Roger BerkowitzThis piece was originally published October 27, 2019.
It is still too early to draw the lesson of the whistleblower who came forth this month to report that President Donald Trump has been running a covert and shadow foreign policy aimed at using United States foreign aid to further his personal and political aims.
01-26-2020
How Education Divides Us
By Roger BerkowitzOur societies are coming apart. This is true not only in the United States, but also in Europe and around the world. As technological bubbles enable alternate factual universes, we witness a growing divide amongst people that threatens to undo the common sense that unites us as citizens.
01-22-2020
What We're Reading: Incoherence
From Samantha HillHannah Arendt Center NEH Fellow Thomas Chatterton Williams writes about the need to embrace incoherence against this political moment, which has fallen toward ideological imperatives. Citing Arendt, Williams argues:
01-22-2020
The Need for Analogy
Peter E. Gordon writes a defense of historical analogy in the New York Review of Books. Gordon situates his considered argument against the backdrop of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum issuing a blanket statement, refusing historical comparison to the Holocaust in response to Alexandra Ocasio Cortez calling the detention camps on the U.S. boarder “concentration camps” last year. — Samantha Hill01-15-2020
“It Doesn’t Really Matter”
Ethan Porter and Thomas J. Wood argue that empirical studies show that when Americans of both parties are confronted with corrections to factual misstatements, they overwhelmingly change their opinion of the facts. — Roger Berkowitz01-15-2020
What We're Reading: Antisemitism & Free Speech
By Samantha HillKen Stern, who runs the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College, writes about Donald Trump’s Executive Order that was signed this week. Stern was responsible for drafting the working definition of antisemitism used in Trump’s order when he worked for the American Jewish Committee, and is now worried that it is being used to silence free speech on college campuses.
12-18-2019
A Letter from Founder and Academic Director Roger Berkowitz
The work we do at the Hannah Arendt Center depends on the support of our members. From our diverse group of student and senior fellows to our annual conference, Amor Mundi to the HA Journal, your contributions are vital and deeply appreciated. During this holiday season, we hope you will consider helping us continue to foster bold and provocative events, publications, and academics in the spirit of Hannah Arendt.12-13-2019