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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
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On Walter Benjamin’s Legacy: A Correspondence Between Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno
THE 1967 CORRESPONDENCE between Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno followed Walter Benjamin’s death by nearly 30 years. The acrimony that grew between Arendt and Adorno during the intervening decades is present in these letters. Who had the right, ethically and intellectually, to edit and publish Benjamin’s work? — Susan H. Gillespie and Samantha Rose Hill write in the L.A. Review of Books.12-10-2019
What We're Reading: Arendt on the Political
By Samantha HillIn an Interview with the Cambridge blog fifteen eightyfour, David Arndt discusses his new book Arendt on the Political. The book addresses the questions of politics and the political sphere while thinking about the underlying problems of democratic politics.
12-10-2019
Walter Benjamin's Last Work
WHEN HANNAH ARENDT escaped the Gurs internment camp in the middle of June 1940, she did not go to Marseilles to find her husband Heinrich Blücher — she went to Lourdes to find Walter Benjamin. — Samantha Hill writes this week for the L.A. Review of Books12-09-2019
Roger Berkowitz on the Hannah Arendt Center
Roger Berkowitz, academic director and founder of the Hannah Arendt Center discusses the Center's origins and continuing mission in Rural Intelligence.12-06-2019
Fake News
By Roger BerkowitzFake news is everywhere these days. The “fake news” claim was first made by President Donald Trump a few weeks after his election. As the New York Times observes in a major editorial statement alongside graphical images, over 40 world leaders have now employed the President’s “fake news” meme to discredit press reports of their corruption or abuse of power.
12-04-2019
Giving Tuesday
By Samantha HillHannah Arendt Center fellow Amy Schiller writes about what happens when only rich people give to charity for the Washington Post. On “Giving Tuesday”, which follows “Cyber Monday” each year after Thanksgiving, Schiller highlights how up to thirty percent of all charitable gifts in the United States are made in December. And while charity has always been a part of the American mythos, who gives has changed over time, and giving on average has declined.
12-04-2019
Totalitarianism and Loneliness
By Roger BerkowitzMartha Minow recently spoke accepted the Leo Baeck Medal at the Leo Baeck Institute on November 19, 2019. Minow describes what she calls “upstanders,” those who stand up to dehumanizing and oppressive systems and have the courage to act against bureaucratized evil. “To be an upstander,” Minow writes, “may seem daunting especially if it implies solo, heroic action.
11-27-2019
Child Chef
By Samantha HillAdam Shatz writes about his life as a child chef for the New Yorker magazine. Shatz’s adolescent cooking career was provoked by early experiences with bullying and antisemitism. Turning to the kitchen, he went from baking chocolate cake, to starting a catering company at age 11, to being the subject of his art teacher’s documentary for a local cable-access channel, to studying in France, and eventually writing about culture and politics...
11-27-2019
What Goebbels Could Do With Facebook
By Roger BerkowitzThe Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen [who became famous playing the character Borat in movies] gave the Keynote Address to the Anti-Defamation League last week. His speech was deadly serious about the real danger of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and social media. I wrote recently about the “increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale” of information and misinformation on social media.”
11-23-2019