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Democracy and Dissent
Today, it is worth recalling Arendt’s foundational defense of public dissent as well as her outspoken resistance to legalized denaturalization based on political opinions.03-16-2025
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The Bureaucratic Danger in Academia
Roger BerkowitzHannah Arendt respected civil servants who brought competence and professionalism to their jobs. At the same time, however, she worried deeply about bureaucracy, which is often associated with civil service. In her early work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt argues that bureaucracy as it developed in India, Egypt, and Algeria was a new form of government of foreign people that sought to rule and dominate them outside of legal restraints. As a non-legal government based on personal power, bureaucracy was intertwined with racism that justified the brutal colonial rule by European powers.
04-03-2022
Arendt as an Epistolary Friend
Madeleine Thien reads Hannah Arendt’s correspondence and finds that they add to her depth as a thinker.03-27-2022
Some Reflections on War
Roger BerkowitzThe Russian war of aggression in Ukraine raises questions about what Hannah Arendt called “the war question.”
03-27-2022
A World Arendt Would Recognize
Roger BerkowitzThe Folio Society has just published the first-ever illustrated edition of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. This two-volume set includes famous propaganda images and documentary photography from the USSR and the Third Reich and also a new introduction by Anne Applebaum.
03-20-2022
The Social Justice Snitch
Roger BerkowitzWhen Laura Kipnis first read about the downfall of Mark Schlissel, “fired after an anonymous complaint about his consensual though “inappropriate” relationship with a subordinate,” she asked herself: Who was the snitch? Amidst her inquiry, Kipnis considers one particular kind of snitching that is rampant today: The Social-Justice snitch.
03-20-2022
The Politics of Inevitability
Roger BerkowitzIn a conversation with Ezra Klein, Timothy Snyder speaks about the politics of inevitability. When pundits and prophets tell us that this or that is going to happen, we are caught up in a means-ends rationality that seduces us to ignore facts that might lead to other conclusions. In such a world, social science analysis can actually influence what happens by making predictions seem inevitable.
03-20-2022
Can the Internet be Kind?
Tobias HessWordle is a simple daily word game that has captivated the internet's attention and fostered an earnest community of players who obsess and bond over the game's unique challenge. Its creator, Josh Wardle, has had a long career trying to foster online communities that promote collaboration, play and kindness rather than division and hate.
03-13-2022
The Independent Legislator Theory
Roger BerkowitzZach Montellaro looks at a theory increasingly embraced by Republican state legislators and four Supreme Court Justices that would allow state legislatures to have near absolute authority to determine which candidate for President to award that states’ electoral votes.
03-13-2022
Putinism
Roger BerkowitzDavid Remnick interviews Stephen Kotkin about Russian History and its influence on Vladimir Putin. He asks, “What is Putinism?” and why do the special characteristics of Putinism lead to the invasion of Ukraine.
03-13-2022