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Our Friend/Enemy Politics

Roger Berkowitz
In my seminar on “Truth and Politics” this semester we are grappling with the pure weaponization of claims to truthfulness and lying. And this this weekend I’m at colloquium on federalism where one theme is how federalism is embraced by whichever party or group doesn’t control political power. Principled ideas of governance and politics are fully sacrificed to the overriding goal of winning. These ideas are grounded in a larger nihilist worldview, and one thinker who understood the full implications of nihilist politics was Carl Schmitt. 

Impartiality and Objectivity 

Roger Berkowitz
Hannah Arendt reminded us of the importance of impartiality in history, journalism, and scholarship. For Arendt, every selection of facts is, as a selection, partial. Bret Stephens writes about the crisis of confidence in journalism.

The Lost Power of the Press

Roger Berkowitz
Louis Menand asks what happened to the power of the press? He argues that the culprit is simple: the breakdown of a white, liberal, internationalist mainstream ideology that united the government and the press for decades in the 20th century.

Managing the Shock

Roger Berkowitz
The apparent murder of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers has once again thrust the issue of racialized policing into the spotlight. Juliette Kayyem argues that “because of the sheer number of times Americans have now confronted videos of police officers killing Black citizens, public officials have gotten better at managing the shock.”

Love and Hate at the Movies

Roger Berkowitz
Wyatt Mason revisits the 1987 action movie Predator and finds, to his horror, that it is a masterpiece and that he, in spite of himself, loves action movies. Amidst a tour de force romp through the history and structure of action movies and a romp through his personal history as a failed script writer, Mason reflects on the role of violence in film.

Your Silence Will Not Protect You

Roger Berkowitz
Clem Cecil translates the speech by the Russian Poet and editor Alla Gutnikova at her trial at which she was accused and convicted of “encouraging minors to take part in demonstrations in support of Alexei Navalny last spring.”

The Gift of Dangerous Thinking

Transcendence and Finitude: In Memory of Drucilla Cornell

Roger Berkowitz
Drucilla Cornell died on Monday, Dec 12, 2022. Drucilla was one of the most unique and self-possessed people I’ve met, someone who could laugh and cry unapologetically, often in quick succession. Her friends whom she collected and loved included academics, trainers, and people she encountered daily in shops and on the street. Her annual Christmas party was a place to witness her loving community. It was to be held this year on Dec. 16th. Sadly, we must instead mourn Drucilla’s passing. Those who knew Drucilla miss her; we all are richer for her work. 

The Pillars Have Shattered

For Hannah Arendt, the rise of science, and the loss of civilization's pillars- religion, customs, and traditions- helped lead to the loss of a shared world. This process turned us inside ourselves, towards a radical subjectivization that she termed world alienation, which left us only with our own subjective truths, sealed off from any shared common sense. In a new essay, Marilynne Robinson argues for a reconciliation between science and religion. She writes that it is not simply that science deals with facts and religion with meaning; there are seeming facts of the world such as time and space that are impervious to scientific knowledge. And religion, while it offers traditions of meaningfulness, must grapple with the meaning of a scientific world aimed at progress.