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Power Politics

Roger Berkowitz

In an essay “Power Politics Triumphs” from 1945, Hannah Arendt argues that the “obsoleteness of this book” is a  “consequences of the author’s pathetic faith in the validity of economic arguments.” Over and again, in modern politics, it has been shown that “nobody cares” about economic arguments and that politics is not driven by economics.

“I’m With the Young On This”

Roger Berkowitz
In a passionate, honest, and brilliant interview with Bill Moyers, Bill T. Jones is asked if he is more politically inclined now than previously in his life.  Jones invokes Hannah Arendt to affirm the necessary confluence of politics, intellectual honesty, and spiritualism. 

Justice and Vigorous Debate

Roger Berkowitz
The weakness of a group letter—and I have never signed one before and hope not to have to sign one again—is that it never fully captures one’s own views. It is by necessity a compromise. And I feel strongly that in a group letter, no person should be attacked. That is one reason why the letter took a positive and quite abstract approach. 

Scaling Moderation

Roger Berkowitz

In an Interview with Kevin Roose, Steve Huffman explains his decision as CEO and co-founder of Reddit to ban a series of groups on the platform including “The Donald,” a group populated by many supporters of President Trump that has become “a source of countless memes, slogans and conspiracy theories that made their way into the broader online conversation.

Loneliness and Solidarity

Barbara Taylor writes about the epidemic of loneliness that preceded the pandemic that has forced so many of us to isolate ourselves. And yet Taylor argues that within the pandemic we have begun to find practices of care and kindness that are actually working to make us less lonely and building a global solidarity.

Hannah Arendt’s Politics for Crises

Roger Berkowitz
Ned O’Gorman argues that what makes Hannah Arendt so meaningful in our divided, highly partisan, and post-truth age is her embrace of politics that avoids claims to truth. While some may recoil from the intensity of politics and seek to restrain political excess, Arendt insists that the only way to protect ourselves from democratic tyranny is by expanding rather than constricting democratic powers.

What Are We Fighting For?

The Philosopher asked a wide range of  political thinkers to answer the question: What Question Should We Be Asking? Building upon Hannah Arendt, Roger Berkowitz answers that we need to ask: What Are We Fighting For?

The New Orthodoxy

Roger Berkowitz
Right wing governments in Hungary, India, Turkey, Brazil, and to some degree even in the United States have increasingly embraced Viktor Orbán’s claim of “illiberal democracy.” These governments remain democratic even as they reject liberal safeguards for personal freedom such as freedom of speech and association, independent courts, a non-partisan professional civil service, respect for constitutional limitations on political power.

The Language Remains

Roger Berkowitz
On September 16, 1964, Hannah Arendt sat for an interview on German TV with Günther Gaus. Arendt and Gaus are both chain smoking through the interview in which they talk about the Holocaust, philosophy, feminism, Jewishness, exile, and of course her book on Adolf Eichmann.