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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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Discussion: MLK and the Legacy of Civil Disobedience in America
Kenyon Victor Adams; Amy Schiller; Thomas Chatterton WilliamsSince we are here concerned with citizenship, I want to preface my brief remarks by signaling the relationship between citizenship and national memory, and how the concept of race, as we see in various historical examples, necessarily replaces that of citizenship.
07-04-2020
Innocent Victims
Roger BerkowitzYascha Mounk discusses three recent instances in which individuals have been fired or punished for expressing opinions (or being thought to have expressed opinions) that were said to have been inconsistent with perceived pieties. Mounk looks deeply into these cases and shows that while the effort to use this political moment has good intentions and is rightfully seeking to root out racial injustice, overreactions that punish people...
07-02-2020
Scaling Moderation
Roger BerkowitzIn an Interview with Kevin Roose, Steve Huffman explains his decision as CEO and co-founder of Reddit to ban a series of groups on the platform including “The Donald,” a group populated by many supporters of President Trump that has become “a source of countless memes, slogans and conspiracy theories that made their way into the broader online conversation.
07-02-2020
National Security and Suppression
Roger BerkowitzLily Kuo writes about the impact of the new National Security Legislation that is being imposed by China on Hong Kong. The law defines national security crimes broadly, allows suspects to be sent to China for trial, permits Chinese state agents to work in Hong Kong, expands police powers, and allows secret trials without juries.
07-02-2020
What We Are Reading:
The State of Culture
Samantha HillIn the new issue of Salmagundi,Thomas Chatterton Williams, Margo Jefferson, Darryl Pinckney, John McWhorter, and Orlando Patterson debate “The Black Intellectual & The Condition of the Culture.”
07-02-2020
Demagogic Democracy
Roger BerkowitzDemocracy is the rule of the people. Demagoguery is the people being led by a speaker who sparks and appeals to the people’s passions. Charles Sykes writes about a public hearing in Palm Beach, Florida in which citizens scream and yell at public health experts who argue that wearing masks should be required to help control the pandemic.
06-27-2020
Loneliness and Solidarity
Barbara Taylor writes about the epidemic of loneliness that preceded the pandemic that has forced so many of us to isolate ourselves. And yet Taylor argues that within the pandemic we have begun to find practices of care and kindness that are actually working to make us less lonely and building a global solidarity.06-27-2020
Resistance
From HAC Member Phil BurpeeLiberation is the throwing off of the yoke of tyranny, and liberty its outcome. Freedom is rather the ongoing ability to speak your mind and act openly within the cultural and political life of your community or society. The latter ought to follow the former, and it must be defended in all places, at all times, and in all circumstances. For it is never enough merely to throw off the yoke...
06-26-2020
Hannah Arendt’s Politics for Crises
Roger BerkowitzNed O’Gorman argues that what makes Hannah Arendt so meaningful in our divided, highly partisan, and post-truth age is her embrace of politics that avoids claims to truth. While some may recoil from the intensity of politics and seek to restrain political excess, Arendt insists that the only way to protect ourselves from democratic tyranny is by expanding rather than constricting democratic powers.
06-25-2020