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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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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
Against Memory
Roger BerkowitzNicolas Tenzer looks at attempts to destroy “Memorial,” a group founded by the dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov that sought to expose Stalin’s crimes.
01-22-2022
The Political Rise of the Family Business
Roger BerkowitzMelinda Cooper argues that the Trump Republican Party represents the "insurrection of one form of capitalism against another: the private, unincorporated, and family-based versus the corporate, publicly traded, and shareholder-owned.”
01-22-2022
Academic Politics
Roger BerkowitzMatt Beard reflects on the academic politics of the early 20th century- and the ideas of Weber and Arendt- in order to draw lessons for our own time, in which politics is infringing on questions of academic integrity.
01-22-2022
Power to the Politicians
Roger BerkowitzThe voting reform agenda seems dead in Congress. One can argue about the quality of the two bills being proposed. And one can argue about the filibuster. Lawrence Lessig reminds us that the real problem is the untethered pursuit of partisan political power that has taken over our political system.
01-16-2022
The Classics for All
Roger BerkowitzWhen Roosevelt Montas immigrated to the Bronx from the Dominican Republic, he found a copy of Plato’s Dialogues in a garbage dump and took it home. It changed his life. Thomas Chatterton Williams writes on the importance of the classics for the underprivileged.
01-16-2022
Why A Mugging?
Roger BerkowitzAdam Shatz, who has taught with me at Bard and spoken at Arendt Center Conferences and events, writes about his being assaulted, beaten up, and mugged in New York last month.
01-16-2022
Gullibility and Cynicism
Roger BerkowitzRebecca Solnit asks why Republican voters keep believing the lies about the election told by Donald Trump. And to answer that question she turns to Hannah Arendt.
01-09-2022