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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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University in Exile
By Roger BerkowitzSamantha Hill reviews a new book by Judith Friedlander about the history of the New School for Social Research and the “University in Exile” that saved so many European intellectuals, including Hannah Arendt. (free registration required)
04-28-2019
Thinking Under Siege: Masha Gessen
A presentation and discussion from the Hannah Arendt Center's 10th Annual Fall Conference, Crises of Democracy: Thinking in Dark Times04-26-2019
Democratic Education and the Open Inquiry Imperative
By Elizabeth BeaumontFromn volume III of HA: The Jounral of the Hannah Arendt Center.
04-26-2019
The Conservative Coates
By Roger BerkowitzWil S. Hylton interviews Paul Coates. Coates was a Black Panther Party leader in Baltimore in the late 1960s and early ’70s. He founded a prison literacy program, owned of a bookstore devoted to community service, and established the publishing company Black Classic Press to disseminate the work of...
04-18-2019
Tough Talk: They Mistook a Backlash for a Movement: Black Men and the Doom of Western Civilization
This talk was presented as a part of The Hannah Arendt Center's Tough Talk Lecture Series, organized by Bard student Mark Williams, Jr.. Introductions by Roger Berkowitz, Director and Founder of the Hannah Arendt Center, and Mark Williams, Jr.. Discussion moderated by Bard alum, Dana Miranda '14.04-17-2019
Left Totalitarianism?
By Roger BerkowitzI continually hope that the right-wing narrative about left-wing intolerance (and even left-wing totalitarianism) is overblown. As a professor at Bard College—a liberal arts college that welcomes and relishes difficult conversations—I hope that the trend of censoring right-wing views is overblown and a passing fad.
04-17-2019
Hate
By Roger BerkowitzI am a few years older than Matt Taibbi, but it turns out we both share an encounter with Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s Manufacturing Consent as a formative experience in our encounter with worlds of politics and journalism.
04-17-2019
Fear of Fascism
By Samantha HillJacob Mikanowski profiles Timothy Snyder for The Chronicle Review. Snyder is a historian of the Holocaust and professor at Yale University. His new work, The Road to Unfreedom, chronicles the rise of authoritarianism today.
04-14-2019
The Microbiome
By Roger BerkowitzMatt Richtel and Andrew Jacobs report on one of the greatest threats to our way of life, the rise of bacteria and fungi that are impervious to medications. The culprit, as with so much in our modern health and environmental crises, is the overuse of antibiotics and antifungal medications in farming.
04-14-2019