Amor Mundi

The Joy of Arendt Center Conferences

Arendt Center member Neil Gussman writes about his experience attending Hannah Arendt Center Conferences, most recently our conference Between Power and Authority. 

What we are reading: The Shoah After Gaza

Pankaj Mishra, who spoke at the 2022 Arendt Center Conference Rage and Reason, reflects on how to think about the Shoah in the wake of the war in Gaza and Israel.

What we're listening to: Victims, Villians, and Settler Colonialism

Mike Cosper explores why the West requires Israel to play by different rules when it comes to defense and modern warfare.

"Mafioso Politics"

Roger Berkowitz
Hannah Arendt insists that we look reality in the face and seek to understand even what is most strange, difficult, and horrific. In a new essay, Timothy Snyder analyzes the context of how Trump is seeking to normalize criminality and violence. Snyder’s essay reminds us of Arendt’s worry in her final essay, that “Public opinion is dangerously inclined to condone not crime in the streets but all political transgressions short of murder.”

Liberalism and Liberal-Democracy

N.S. Lyons interviews Polish philosopher and politician Ryszard Legutko about Polish politics and liberal democracy. Asked about the difference between liberalism and progressivism, Legutko answers, "As I see it, liberalism is not about freedom but about power and social engineering . . . liberals always assume a dominant position, claiming to know how to distribute freedom in the optimal proportions, therefore, deserving to be the irrevocable referees."

Chilling Pro-Palestinian Speech

Eyal Press, has written about my Bard College colleague and collaborator, Ken Stern, who has become a critic of the chilling effect of using the the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (I.H.R.A.) definition of antisemitism to shut down criticism of Israel on college campuses. Stern was one of the original creators of the definition, which was intended to help quantify incidences of antisemitism. But he has always opposed the use of the definition to shut down or regulate speech.

Check out our new Hannah Arendt Personal Library Website

Over the last few months, we have been improving our online navigation for the Hannah Arendt Personal Library (HAPL). The Stevenson library’s new Archives & Special Collections site was launched last week and with it, a new page for the HAPL!

The End of The Golden Age

Franklin Foer has an essay arguing that “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending.” What Foer calls the Golden Age was not only good for Jews; the emergence of Jewish-Americans helped define a new American liberalism, one the shed the assimilationist metaphor of the melting pot for the hyphenated-identity of the mosaic. But that Golden Age is ending. Antisemitism, once relegated to the fringes of American society, is back with a vengeance.

The Supreme Court Between Power and Authority

Last week, the Court agreed without dissent to decide whether a former president of the United States is immune from criminal prosecution. But even amidst a unanimous judgment, the justices couldn't present themselves as a body above politics. For Hannah Arendt, the authority of the American Supreme Court was an essential aspect of the country’s foundation of freedom. Without it, all laws appear simply as means of power and politics.