Intellectuals Running the Institutions
What We Are Listening To
10-06-2024 Over at the Quillette Podcast, Zoe Booth interviews Roger Berkowitz about Hannah Arendt, Zionism, and political truths. Listen to the full episode here.
Zoe: She believed there was no political truth, but what about moral truths? Did she believe in objective truth?
Roger: She wouldn’t call herself a post-structuralist but a post-metaphysical thinker. She doesn’t believe in metaphysical truths. There are logical and mathematical truths, but she doesn’t believe in objective moral or political truths. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t moral and political truths. For her, they emerge through conversation in a shared world. We build a shared ground and sky above us, which she calls truth. We need common ground to live, and a lot of her work addresses the increasing precarity of the common world.
Zoe: So relevant to today.
Roger: Yes, she thought the scientific revolution contributed to this. Science casts doubt on shared sense experience, moving us into a world of theories rather than observations. Science alienates us from the world. Unlike Marx’s view of alienation through labour, Arendt saw alienation through the distrust of our senses. She was suspicious of intellectuals because they build theories disconnected from reality. She famously distrusted intellectuals more than any other class and preferred talking to dock workers or ordinary people.
Zoe: Did she really think the entry of intellectuals into politics was dangerous?
Roger: Yes, she thought intellectuals could take us away from the common world into these theories that create a consistent fictional world, which is what she calls totalitarianism. Her thought is so original and relevant, even though she was writing about a different time.
Zoe: It’s hard to label her. But when you explain this, words like “anti-science” and “populist” come to mind.
Roger Berkowitz: She was not anti-science or a populist. Science is essential in its domain, but scientists shouldn’t tell us what to do politically. Science can give us facts, like the Earth warming, but deciding what to do about it is politics, not science. Scientists enter politics as citizens, not experts, and shouldn’t dictate policy based on their expertise.
Zoe: So, stay in your lane?
Roger: Exactly. Scientists provide facts, but political decisions are not science—they’re subject to debate. There are no right answers in politics.
Zoe: Trump talks a lot about intellectuals overrunning institutions. But isn’t he talking about social sciences, not hard sciences?
Roger: Trump doesn’t like bureaucrats or intellectuals, including hard scientists like those in the EPA. Arendt would agree that bureaucrats have too much power. She called bureaucracy the rule of nobody, where no one takes responsibility, leading to a disempowered people. This critique is often seen as conservative, but it also has a left tradition, like Thomas Jefferson’s focus on self-government. Arendt was a Jeffersonian in that regard.
Roger: She wouldn’t call herself a post-structuralist but a post-metaphysical thinker. She doesn’t believe in metaphysical truths. There are logical and mathematical truths, but she doesn’t believe in objective moral or political truths. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t moral and political truths. For her, they emerge through conversation in a shared world. We build a shared ground and sky above us, which she calls truth. We need common ground to live, and a lot of her work addresses the increasing precarity of the common world.
Zoe: So relevant to today.
Roger: Yes, she thought the scientific revolution contributed to this. Science casts doubt on shared sense experience, moving us into a world of theories rather than observations. Science alienates us from the world. Unlike Marx’s view of alienation through labour, Arendt saw alienation through the distrust of our senses. She was suspicious of intellectuals because they build theories disconnected from reality. She famously distrusted intellectuals more than any other class and preferred talking to dock workers or ordinary people.
Zoe: Did she really think the entry of intellectuals into politics was dangerous?
Roger: Yes, she thought intellectuals could take us away from the common world into these theories that create a consistent fictional world, which is what she calls totalitarianism. Her thought is so original and relevant, even though she was writing about a different time.
Zoe: It’s hard to label her. But when you explain this, words like “anti-science” and “populist” come to mind.
Roger Berkowitz: She was not anti-science or a populist. Science is essential in its domain, but scientists shouldn’t tell us what to do politically. Science can give us facts, like the Earth warming, but deciding what to do about it is politics, not science. Scientists enter politics as citizens, not experts, and shouldn’t dictate policy based on their expertise.
Zoe: So, stay in your lane?
Roger: Exactly. Scientists provide facts, but political decisions are not science—they’re subject to debate. There are no right answers in politics.
Zoe: Trump talks a lot about intellectuals overrunning institutions. But isn’t he talking about social sciences, not hard sciences?
Roger: Trump doesn’t like bureaucrats or intellectuals, including hard scientists like those in the EPA. Arendt would agree that bureaucrats have too much power. She called bureaucracy the rule of nobody, where no one takes responsibility, leading to a disempowered people. This critique is often seen as conservative, but it also has a left tradition, like Thomas Jefferson’s focus on self-government. Arendt was a Jeffersonian in that regard.