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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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Leviathan Wakes
Roger BerkowitzThe pseudonymous N.S. Lyons provides 20 reasons why the woke revolution, for want of a better term, has a long way to run.
02-13-2022
Judgment and the Public world
Roger BerkowitzSeyla Benhabib reviews a series of new books on Hannah Arendt and in the process offers a strong interpretation of Arendt’s thinking about Judgment. As we prepare to read Hannah Arendt’s writings on judgment in the Virtual Reading Group, Benhabib’s account rightly sees judgment as an essential political activity of building a shared world.
02-06-2022
Artificial Intelligence and Total Domination
Roger BerkowitzGeorge Soros asks why it is that the chances for war between the United States and China have increased so markedly in recent decades. His answer is the rise of technology and specifically artificial intelligence.
02-06-2022
Consequences for Private Speech
Roger BerkowitzThe Academic Freedom Alliance has written a letter protesting the suspension and investigation of Professor Ilya Shapiro by the Georgetown University Law Center. Shapiro tweeted: “Because Biden said he’s only consider black women for SCOTUS, his nominee will always have an asterisk attached. Fitting that the Court takes up affirmative action next term."
02-06-2022
The HAC Dialogue Project:
Exercising Plurality and Good Will
Susan Oberman and Christine Gonzalez StantonWho could have predicted that in 2021, in the midst of a pandemic, the Virtual Reading Group would become a centerpiece in the lives of Arendt readers around the world? Lifelong connections and friendships have been forged through the Arendt Center's efforts to bring people together to think about the most pressing issues in our political world. A brief history of the VRG.
02-06-2022
Does Harvard Discriminate Against Asians?
Roger BerkowitzJay Caspian Kang believes in affirmative action and racial preferences. But when he dives into the Harvard case coming to the Supreme Court, Kang argues that Harvard’s approach to affirmative action reveals “a profoundly broken system that relies on obfuscation and misdirection, especially when it comes to the treatment of Asian applicants.”
01-30-2022
The 2020 Election
Roger BerkowitzThe Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) has issued what the Wall Street Journal calls the best report on what really happened in the 2020 elections.
01-30-2022
Socrates and the Culture Wars
Roger BerkowitzPeter Minowitz writes about how teaching Socrates’ Apology can push us past the binaries of our culture wars.
01-30-2022
The Right Danger
Roger BerkowitzJonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner argue that the real danger to American Constitutional democracy comes from the failure of conservatives to stand up to former President Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine a presidential election.
01-22-2022