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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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A Relentless Success Ethic
Hannah Arendt explored what it means to live in a free society. Certain fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of thought, speech, and association are, she argued, foundational to living freely. All of these freedoms are typically thought to be liberal; and yet, unlike many liberals, Arendt did not believe that representational democracy was conducive to freedom.09-10-2020
Reading Arendt
Sumit Chakrabarti reviewed a new book on Hannah Arendt titled, Hannah Arendt: Between Ideologies, by Rebecca Dew for The Telegraph. Chakrabarti argues that Dew’s work is an important caveat for serious readers of Arendt, because it addresses one of the most common mistakes reading Arendt’s work: Attempts to place her within any kind of ideological tradition.09-03-2020
Our Mob Moment
Roger BerkowitzJacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by three police officers as he was reaching into his car with his three children in the back seat. All cautionary rhetoric aside—we don't know the full story, he may have been reaching for a weapon, he was clearly not listening to the police—one fact is not in dispute to anyone watching the video of the attempted murder: Jacob Blake did not deserve to be shot seven times from behind and paralyzed.
08-27-2020
Facebook’s Holocaust Alogrithms
Roger BerkowitzPolitics and truth, Hannah Arendt reminds us, have never been on good terms. "Lies have always been regarded as necessary and justifiable tools not only of the politician's or the demagogue's but also of the statesman's trade." And yet, Arendt raises the question of "what injury political power is capable of inflicting upon truth."
08-20-2020
When Joe Biden Wrote to Hannah Arendt
Roger BerkowitzOn May 28, 1975, then Senator Joe Biden wrote a letter to Hannah Arendt.
Dear Miss Arendt, I read in a recent article by Tom Wicker of a paper that you read at the Boston Bicentennial Forum. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, I am most interested in receiving a copy of your paper. Thank you. Sincerely, Joseph R. Biden Jr. United State Senator.
08-16-2020
Seeing What Is: “White Privilege,” “Antiracism,” The Police – Lessons from a Losing Culture on the Authority of Language at a time of Movement
Nikita Nelin“We got engaged, preparing for a summer wedding, and started talking about kids. Then the pandemic hit. My industry crumbled and hers pressurized. Social distancing left us sheltered in place in our new neighborhood, as we watched the world outside first shudder, and then take to the streets, while we tried to reconcile our place in it with the disappearance our own dream.”
08-13-2020
Disinformation and Democracy
Roger BerkowitzHannah Arendt argues that the distinction between truth and lie can be eroded, over time, by "continual lying." When political leaders, institutions, the press, and respected figures habitually and continually state alternative facts, their lies—even if they are neither intended to be believed nor are believed—attack the very foundations of what Arendt calls the common world.
08-06-2020
Fascist Tactics
Roger BerkowitzThe United States is not currently a fascist country. It is unlikely that it will become one. But Jason Stanley rightly points out that we should not ignore the rise of fascist tactics increasingly being used by the President and his administration while they are also excused by members of the President’s Republican Party.
08-01-2020
On Not Being Silent
Roger BerkowitzGeorge Orwell was one of the greatest anti-fascists of the 20th century. Not only did he satirize and expose fascism and totalitarianism in his novels 1984 and Animal Farm, but also he enlisted and fought fascists in Spain with the Spanish Republicans. Orwell risked his life to oppose and counter fascism wherever he found it. And yet, in 1941, Orwell wrote one of his classic essays defending the English writer P.G. Wodehouse against charges of fascism.
07-30-2020