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A Carnival of Destruction
The elite's complicity in mass movements lies in their thrill at unmasking societal hypocrisy, yet this descent into shamelessness fuels a carnival of destruction that empowers mob rule. Straddling the line between boldness and brazen disregard, figures like Trump and Musk embody the seductive but corrosive allure of totalitarian nihilism.All Categories
“It Doesn’t Really Matter”
Ethan Porter and Thomas J. Wood argue that empirical studies show that when Americans of both parties are confronted with corrections to factual misstatements, they overwhelmingly change their opinion of the facts. — Roger Berkowitz“We are more” and “We can do it”
By Marion DetjenI am aware of the fact that the last German who stood here in a Hannah Arendt conference to speak to you about Germany was Marc Jongen, the so-called party philosopher of the AfD, the German extreme right-wing party. While I am not going to apologize for my bad English, one could easily get the impression that Jongen and I represent the two opposing and conflicting camps which these days challenge and strain the cohesion of German society...
HAC Podcast Episode 3: Twilight of the Gods, with Antonia Grunenberg
A talk delivered at the Hannah Arendt Center, November 25, 2019, on Walter Benjamin‘s project of founding a political metaphysics in secular times – and Hannah Arendt‘s answerHannah Arendt and World War I: On statelessness and the rise of totalitarian regimes
By Jana Marlene MaderBehind this narrative of the “dangerous migrant” is a disinformation machine that cultivates the powerful climate of anti-immigration. Unlike the scenario 100 years ago, when nationalism was closely linked to the trial of strength between great powers, we can see a trend that is an irony in itself: the globalisation of nationalism. The target audience in this scenario is the “dissatisfied” citizen..
Everything is Fragile: Reading Arendt in the Anthropocene
John D. Macready, professor of philosophy at Collin College, offers this week's Quote of the Week.This essay was originally published in Amor Mundi on July 18, 2019.
Democracy in Name Only
From our 2017 annual conference, Madeleine Rosen asks “Has representative democracy failed?”Racism and Antisemitism
The 2019 Hannah Arendt Center Annual Conference “Racism and Antisemitism” began with Arendt’s insight that antisemitism is a form of racism in that both are ideologies of supremacy and inferiority based on racial difference. Enjoy this video about the conference made by Bard Student and Arendt Center Fellow Jonathan Fine.The Unquestioned Optimism of Futurists
This week, we are republishing an essay from Nikita Nelin, originally published in February, 2019.“How is possible to learn something new from history?”[1]
By Denisse Mendoza JaimesIt is well-known that Hannah Arendt was a German Jewish political theorist who dedicated her life to understanding the meaning of political action in human life. During the interview “Zur person” with Günther Gaus, Arendt points out that her interest in history and politics started in 1933. She took part as a political actor recompiling antisemitic statements...