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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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To The Editor:
I attended the conference on ‘Racism and Anti-Semitism’ at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. Let me state at the outset that 1. I am not in any way affiliated or employed by the college. 2. I attend this conference annually as a community member who is interested in learning about complex political issues of timely relevance and 3. I am a Jew who has lived in Israel and who holds political views that are probably similar to those of your Opinion Editor, Batya Ungar-Sargon.10-18-2019
On the Hannah Arendt Center’s Conference: “Racism and Antisemitism”
Batya Ungar-Sargon, Reverend Jacqui Lewis, Shahanna McKinney-Baldon, Amy SchillerAfter the 12th Annual Hannah Arendt Center Conference, this year on “Racism and Antisemitism,” the journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon posted an editorial in the Forward claiming she was protested at Bard College for being Jewish. She said she was prevented from continuing to speak, and that Bard College had no plan to deal with the protesters.10-16-2019
When We Don’t Know What She Would Say
By Roger BerkowitzJosh Rogin in the Washington Post asked readers to choose the public figures they would most like to hear comment on our present era. Tanner Greer published his answer: Hannah Arendt. What Greer welcomes above all in Arendt is her independence. That she approaches every issue fresh. And that before you read what she writes, you don’t know what she will be arguing or how she will get there.
10-12-2019
Not Just Racism
By Roger BerkowitzOn the eve of the Hannah Arendt Center’s Conference Racism and Antisemitism, it is worth thinking about Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Talking To Strangers. Gladwell seeks to understand what happened to Sandra Bland that led to her hanging in a Texas prison. It is known that Bland was pulled over in the Prairie View, Texas by officer Brian Encinia.
10-06-2019
What We're Reading: The History of Antisemitism
By Samantha HillJudith Butler reviewed Bari Weiss’s new book How to Fight Anti-Semitism for Jewish Currents. Butler’s book review is notable for a couple of reasons and worth reading whether one finds oneself politically closer to Butler or Weiss. The primary reason being: It’s rare to read a real book review these days that systematically works through the arguments in a text. Butler, a pro-BDS supporter, argues that Weiss lacks an historical understanding of antisemitism.
10-02-2019
In the Archive with Hannah Arendt
By Samantha HillWhen Hannah Arendt arrived at the German Literature Archive in Marbach Germany in June 1975 to organize Karl Jasper’s papers, she stood up in the cafeteria and began reciting Friedrich Schiller by heart. She was fond of “Das Mädchen aus der Fremde”, but this is pure speculation. As Arendt said to Günter Gaus in her last interview, she carried German poems around in her hinterkopf. I’d wager she knew more than one.
09-25-2019
Jaspers and Heinrich Blücher’s Common Course
By Roger BerkowitzAs World War II came to an end, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers republished a revised edition of his 1923 book The Idea of the University. Jaspers saw universities as essential to the maintenance of a vibrant democracy. He was worried that the universities in Germany had become overly specialized and technical and that they had lost their true calling as institutions dedicated to communication and truth.
09-19-2019
What We're Reading: Wendell Berry
Jedediah Britton-Purdy chronicles the life and work of Wendell Berry in The Nation. Berry’s writing, which won him a National Humanities Medal in 2011, has now been gathered in two volumes. The focus of Berry’s writing which reflects his agricultural lifestyle, has always spoken to larger political issues like environmentalism, violence, and economic inequality.09-17-2019
The State Courts Fight Back
By Roger BerkowitzIn June the United States Supreme Court in Rucho v. Common Cause refused to intervene in two cases that considered constitutional challenges to political gerrymandering in North Carolina and Maryland. The Court found the Congressional maps to be “highly partisan, by any measure,” and “blatant examples of partisanship driving districting decisions.” And the Court held...
09-09-2019