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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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When Society is Not a Relation Among Persons
Roger BerkowitzIt is craziness to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory, as many states have done. But it is also bad pedagogy to make children feel guilty about the color of their skin or their religion. David Bromwich on how the parents of all races are rebelling against essentialist antiracist discourse in schools.
11-05-2021
Racism and The Great Replacement
Roger BerkowitzAt the 2019 Arendt Center Conference, Ian Buruma moderated a panel on The Great Replacement, a popular right-wing theory in France that immigrants and other minorities are replacing the Catholic French. Now, one of the leading French presidential candidates, Eric Zemmour is embracing the theory.
11-05-2021
Who is Guilty?
Roger Berkowitz and Philip LindsayWen Stephenson embraces Hannah Arendt’s rejection of collective guilt in order to argue that in thinking about climate change we should resist the idea that we are all equally guilty.
10-31-2021
The Dawn of Freedom
Roger Berkowitz
David Graeber’s books have become an increasingly important part of my intellectual life. His searching and restless exploration of what it means to live in freedom is at the forefront of his last and posthumously published book The Dawn of Everything, co-written with David Wengrow. Review by William Deresiewicz.
10-28-2021
Thinking Less
Roger BerkowitzIn writing about one of the many recent efforts to de-platform a speaker because of that speaker’s political views, John McWhorter rightly emphasizes the anti-intellectual and simplistic arguments of those who justify such acts.
10-28-2021
What we are watching: The Closer
Roger BerkowitzThis week I screened Dave Chappelle’s The Closer for some of my students. It was optional. But I was heartened that they were eager to see the Netflix special that has generated so much controversy.
10-28-2021
What we will be watching: Speer Goes to Hollywood
Join us for a live screening of the documentary Speer Goes to Hollywood, on Friday, October 29th at 7 pm. Roger Berkowitz will be leading a Q&A session with Vanessa Lapa and Tomer Eliav about the documentary about "Hitler's Architect"10-28-2021
Revitalizing American Democracy
Roger BerkowitzOn Hannah Arendt’s 115th birthday on October 14th, the Hannah Arendt Center convened its Annual Fall Conference, Revitalizing Democracy: Sortition, Citizen Power, and Spaces of Freedom. The effort was to explore the movement for citizen assemblies from a wide plurality of perspectives from activists, artists, public intellectuals, business persons, and students. Watch a recording of the webcast here.
10-22-2021
On the Removal of Bright Sheng
Roger BerkowitzProfessor Bright Sheng showed a movie of Othello in his music composition class at the University of Michigan. Because Laurence Olivier appears in blackface in the movie, students called for his removal and colleagues denounced him.
10-22-2021