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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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American Jewish Peace Archive: Julie Iny
In lieu of the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza, the Hannah Arendt Center has decided to publish excerpts from the American Jewish Peace Archive — a project of activist and oral historian, Aliza Becker, that is sponsored by the Center. Today, we’re sharing the story of another U.S. peace activist, Julie Iny, who in 1996 was one of three co-founders of Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that has played a central role in the American movement for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.03-10-2024
Arendt, Michael Denneny, and the Origins of Gay Cultural Activism
Blake Smith writes about Arendt’s influence on the late Michael Denneny, her former student and one of the most influential gay cultural activists of the '70s. Smith writes, "Like Arendt, Denneny came to argue that the best hope for the survival of freedom lay not in traditional ideas of abstract, universal human rights . . . but rather in minority communities devoted to creating new practices, pleasures and identities, in a spirit of political engagement."03-03-2024
In Memoriam Ingeborg Nordmann
Few have done more to enrich Hannah Arendt scholarship than Ingeborg Nordmann. Nordmann worked with her friends and colleague Ursula Ludz to bring out the first edition of Arendt’s Denktagebuch in 2002 and reissued it in its present form in 2016. Their extraordinary edition has deepened and changed Arendt scholarship, offering a path to Arendt’s thought process and to her at times more personal reflections.03-03-2024
Alexei Navalny
Alexei Navalny is dead, his body hidden in a Russian morgue. In all likelihood he was murdered by Vladimir Putin. Navalny was certainly courageous, someone willing to risk his life to speak truth to power. For many, he was a man in dark times. Jonathan Steele describes him as "Russia’s best-known campaigner against high-level corruption" for The Guardian.02-24-2024
What Is Democratic Protest?
Last week in Berlin, I participated in a performance art show by the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera, “Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions (100 Hours Reading of The Origins of Totalitarianism).” One Hundred scholars and artists and activists were invited to read for one hour. Bruguera asked me to read the first Chapter of Arendt’s book “Antisemitism as An Outrage to Common Sense.” The show was imagined as a way to spur civic dialogue.02-18-2024
The Big Lie
Writer Dara Horn writes about the “big lie” of antisemitism for The Atlantic, saying: "The through line of anti-Semitism for thousands of years has been the denial of truth and the promotion of lies. These lies range in scope from conspiracy theories to Holocaust denial . . . These lies are all part of the foundational big lie: that anti-Semitism itself is a righteous act of resistance against evil, because Jews are collectively evil and have no right to exist."02-18-2024
A Place to be Curious
Stephen Carter argues that we have ceased to see universities as laboratories for curiosity and instead imagine them as finishing schools designed to prepare students for successful careers. He argues that we need to return to the university driven by curiosity. To do that, Carter writes, we must think more clearly about what is the meaning of academic freedom and free speech:02-11-2024
Democracy Amidst the Loss of Public Trust
This year, a widespread feeling of disempowerment and anger has mobilized mostly right-wing and nationalist populist movements. In addition, there is the coming-of-age of a new and potentially volcanic new technology that has the potential to wreak havoc with the effort to maintain an informed and rational public sphere. As John Ellis writes, the age of video and audio deep fake technology threatens to radically undermine the coherence of a trustworthy public sphere.02-11-2024
The Truth Dies When Journalism Dies
Sebastian Junger, who will be giving the keynote address at the Hannah Arendt Center’s 2024 Conference on Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism, has recently written: “Journalism is important because reality is important, and reality is something that many generals and politicians have a complicated relationship with.” When journalism dies, Junger argues, “The truth dies with it.”02-03-2024