How Loneliness Can Lead To Totalitarianism →
Philosopher Samantha Rose Hill Argues We Face An Epidemic Of Loneliness, With Far-Reaching Consequences
Where loneliness can lead →
Hannah Arendt enjoyed her solitude, but she believed that loneliness could make people susceptible to totalitarianism.
Read MoreHannah Arendt and the politics of truth →
We can shout truth to power and it will never be heard, because truth and politics don’t stand on common ground.
Read MoreWalter Benjamin's Last Work →
WHEN HANNAH ARENDT escaped the Gurs internment camp in the middle of June 1940, she did not go to Marseilles to find her husband Heinrich Blücher — she went to Lourdes to find Walter Benjamin. For nearly two weeks they played chess from morning to night, talked, and read whatever papers they could find.
Read MoreOn Walter Benjamin’s Legacy: A Correspondence Between Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno →
THE 1967 CORRESPONDENCE between Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno followed Walter Benjamin’s death by nearly 30 years. The acrimony that grew between Arendt and Adorno during the intervening decades is present in these letters. Who had the right, ethically and intellectually, to edit and publish Benjamin’s work?
Read MoreIn the Archive with Hannah Arendt
When Hannah Arendt arrived at the German Literature Archive in Marbach Germany in June 1975 to organize Karl Jasper’s papers, she stood up in the cafeteria and began reciting Friedrich Schiller by heart. She was fond of “Das Mädchen aus der Fremde”, but this is pure speculation. As Arendt said to Günter Gaus in her last interview, she carried German poems around in her hinterkopf. I’d wager she knew more than one.
Read MoreReading Arendt Now →
People often ask me, “Why Arendt?” The honest answer is that I fell in love with her writing my freshman year of college, reading The Human Conditionon a brown leather sofa in the library, between the stacks. I found her by accident while looking for Erich Fromm, and there was no turning back when I read: “In 1957, an earth-born object made by man was launched into the universe, where for some weeks it circled the earth according to the same laws of gravitation that swing and keep in motion the celestial bodies — the sun, the moon, and the stars.”
Read MoreWhat kind of people might become ‘extremists’? →
In November 2016, a few days after Donald Trump’s election, some political scientists, critical theorists and other academics gathered for a conference in New York. Some of their papers and discussions on the timely theme of ‘The Authoritarian Personality Revisited’ have now been developed into contributions to a special issue of the American journal South Atlantic Quarterly / SAQ…
Read MoreThinking Itself Is Dangerous →
What is the relationship between thinking and politics?
Donald Trump’s political rhetoric relies upon brevity and repetition. Slogans like “Make America Great Again,” “Lock her up,” “Drain the swamp,” “Build the wall,” “America first,” and “fake news” fill his speech. His canned language paints an unflattering portrait of a person unable to think past himself. Even his knack for dominating media cycles with manufactured crisis and boorish morning tweets is beginning to seem routine in its predictability. Like a script he is unable to sway from, he moves between self-flattery and disparaging anyone he finds outside his favor…
Read MoreCrises in Academia Today →
The epigraph above comes from a panel discussion titled “Values in Contemporary Society” in Thinking Without a Banister. The discussion took place on July 13, 1972 between Hannah Arendt, Paul Freund, Irving Kristol, and Hans Morgenthau; it was organized by Kenneth W. Thompson, the vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation…
Read MoreJudging the Private Lives of Others →
Why do people go along with behavior that makes them feel uncomfortable and violated?
Read MoreDebates when the private becomes political →
I think that there is a lot of good that can come from the #metoo campaign, but at the same time I am wary of the way this conversation about sexual politics is unfolding in the United States. On the one hand, it is good that we are addressing the ubiquity of sexual assault and harassment women face. On the other hand, I’m not sure the #metoo campaign can ultimately shift the status quo for reasons I want to discuss here…
Read MoreAnti-Semitism →
Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, which was published in 1951, reversed the then conventional wisdom about the emergence of fascist and totalitarian regimes. While many saw fascism and totalitarianism as the historical apotheosis of the nation, Arendt argued that fascism and totalitarianism emerged in the middle of the 20th century as the nation-state system began to collapse. Put simply, totalitarianism is not the triumph of the nation-state, totalitarianism is what emerges when the nation-state system falls apart…
Read MoreSex, Lists, & The New McCarthyism →
In 1956, toward the end of McCarthyism, a concerned father wrote the FBI about his daughter’s professor. He was worried that she was being corrupted by a teacher, and that the teacher posed a threat to national security…
Read MoreStop and Think →
The level of public discourse in America continues to sink as journalistic integrity is continuously sacrificed for likes, hearts, and viral fame. Factual truth is under assault from the right and left, negating the common ground of dialogue and understanding. Instead of lifting up the public realm in this dark moment, finding higher ground to report on the facts and events of life, columnists are swallowed up by the media tide foregoing truth, integrity, and a sense of ethical obligation. Whether it is Rachel Maddow whipping up media frenzy over finding two pages of Trump’s tax returns, or the BBC reporting that Trump was snubbed by Poland’s first lady (she did shake his hand), I find it difficult to muster hope for the future of American democracy. There are far too many examples of bad reporting to list. So, I want to focus on a recent one that has some direct relevance to Hannah Arendt…
Read MoreWhy the Hallmark Channel Is Completely Dominating in 2017 →
"Baby It's Cold Outside" begins to play as the camera sweeps over a snow-dusted town. The opening scene alternates between two women, identical twin sisters, moving through their morning routines in different settings worlds apart. As an alarm sounds, the first twin climbs out from under Christmas-themed flannel sheets, flanked by her dog, while the second twin is already awake in her city apartment, sitting up in a gray silk robe with an iPad on her lap, working away. The iPad-beholden twin makes her way through an immaculate high-rise condo, blending a green smoothie while wearing a dress and heels, reading emails on her phone. Meanwhile, the first sister happily throws on jeans and a flannel sweater, does the laundry, wakes up her kids, and cooks eggs and bacon for breakfast.
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