Hannah Arendt

Bullet Points00:50 - Start (after one false start)00:55 - Hannah Arendt and the Origins of Totalitarianism01:20 - Europe in the lead-up to WWII01:45 - Something more insidious even than the militarized state02:15 - Attend makes a narrow escape from Nazi Germany02:30 - A case of the Gestapo “just doing it’s job”03:05 - Interned as “alien enemy” in Paris03:35 - The question on everyone’s mind, then and since04:05 - Life in Hobbes’s nature: “nasty, brutish and short.”04:25 - Post Enlightenment, Uber-Industrialized Germany04:55 - Enter Messers Marx and Engels05:40 - Communism and Nazism as fraternal twins06:15 - A parasitoid infecting unthinking hosts on the right AND left06:40 - Nazism favors neither the right nor the left, says Hitler07:20 - Hitler’s extensive socialist programs and the rise of the Brownshirts07:30 - Something more than collectivist dogma alone08:05 - The source of evil, residing within man himself08:40 - Totalitarianism as it “spreads like a fungus”09:20 - An unholy alliance: Terror, meet Ideology09:30 - The Atomization Bomb09:55 - “A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” Joseph Stalin10:25 - The citadel of the mind - Man’s last stand against propaganda11:25 - Totalitarian tactics of the abusive spouse12:20 - Classic double blinds - The unhappy plight of the Russian clerk13:05 - Eichmann in Jerusalem13:30 - “A curious, quite authentic inability to think”13:55 - Cliches, stock phrases and the making of the perfect totalitarian tool14:35 - Terrorized individuals as fertile matter for mass propaganda14:55 - The three primary ways we are primed for totalitarianism15:15 - The mass media factor and the advent of choose your own adventure reality17:15 - The deleterious impact of Social Media bombardment17:55 - Critical Race Theory - A devastating doctrine of division18:20 - An extreme contempt for facts19:10 - The oppressive legacy of facts, rationality and evidence20:00 - The grand irony of Critical Race Theory20:35 - Projection and bigotry in its most primitive form21:30 - The staggering hubris in demanding the cancelation of history22:00 - CRT proponents - by their clichés you shall know them23:05 - Mandatory, taxpayer funded Critical race Theory training in the USA23:40 - Enter COVID-19 and the atomization of man in 202024:05 - A look at what did not happen during the ongoing pandemic24:55 - Alone together - the unusual commonality of being apart25:30 - The social circuit breaks that keep us civil, sane and harmonious26:05 - What lies beyond the biological toll of COVID-19?26:30 - Standing shoulder-to-physical-shoulder against the totalitarian creep

Much has been written recently about Arendt's political observation that totalitarian masses would "believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true," but her views on space exploration and astronomy have attracted less attention, even if she ranks "the invention of the telescope" alongside the Protestant Reformation among the decisive events of the modern era. As entrepreneurs and nations alike race toward the Moon, Mars, and beyond, what moral and political questions surrounding space exploration might emerge? How does Arendt's unease with our "conquest of space" invite us to reconsider the achievements of Galileo, Descartes, and other early scientific thinkers?This is a Living the Core seminar with Charles McNamara, who received his PhD in Classics from Columbia in 2016 and his AB from Harvard in 2007. He is an instructor of Contemporary Civilization at Columbia, and received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2016. This seminar took place at the Morningside Institute on April 8, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Episode 1: The inaugural episode explores Hannah Arendt's book The Origins of Totalitarianism.  This is the only monologue in the series. Every other episode features a guest interview. It focuses on the distinction between the law and the state. Arendt loosely defines totalitarianism as the presence of the state in absence of law.  

In 1971, the New York Times published leaked versions of what became known as the Pentagon Papers. The papers were part of a 7,000 page report commissioned by Defense Sec. Robert McNamara that looked at the history of the American involvement in Vietnam. Later that year, political theorist Hannah Arendt published an essay in the New York Review of Books called “Lying in Politics” that focused on issues of deception and self-deception as revealed in the Pentagon Papers. In this episode we talk with Dr. Celestino Perez about Arendt’s essay and what it can teach us about decision making. Perez is a colonel in the U.S. Army and a professor at the Army War College.

Nobody should feel excited about the renewed relevance of Hannah Arendt's work today. Her foresight about the fragility of democratic life is relevant for the worst possible reasons: populism, white supremacy, mass deception, the rise of fascism around the world, the coordinated assault on serious journalism, academia and any kind of responsible thought. Really, there's no reason to celebrate why the great analyst of totalitarianism, fascism, and anti-democratic forces and a thinker "in dark times" is so timely today.But Arendt also insisted, in the preface to her 1968 collection of essays, “Men in Dark Times”: “Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination.”The philosopher Richard J. Bernstein is the author of Why Read Hannah Arendt Now (Polity, 2018). He met Arendt first in 1972, when he was a young professor and three years before her death. He explained to me why Arendt’s work should be read today with renewed urgency, because it provides illumination into the forces that shape our present. Instead of a dry academic exposé, I got a moving anecdote about his first meeting with Arendt ("the most intellectually exciting and erotic meeting") and a lucid yet impassioned explanation of Arendt's analysis of politics and of the human condition.Bernstein is an American Philosopher who teaches at The New School in New York City, and has written extensively on American pragmatism, political philosophy, the Frankfurt School thinkers, the question of evil, on Jewish identity, and other topics. He is a public intellectual in the best sense of that word by taking thoughtful and principled positions on a range of issues that concern us all. His Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? is a succinct introduction to key themes in Arendt's work.Uli Baer is a professor at New York University. He is also the host of the excellent podcast "Think About It" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Nobody should feel excited about the renewed relevance of Hannah Arendt's work today. Her foresight about the fragility of democratic life is relevant for the worst possible reasons: populism, white supremacy, mass deception, the rise of fascism around the world, the coordinated assault on serious journalism, academia and any kind of responsible thought. Really, there's no reason to celebrate why the great analyst of totalitarianism, fascism, and anti-democratic forces and a thinker "in dark times" is so timely today.But Arendt also insisted, in the preface to her 1968 collection of essays, “Men in Dark Times”: “Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination.”The philosopher Richard J. Bernstein is the author of Why Read Hannah Arendt Now (Polity, 2018). He met Arendt first in 1972, when he was a young professor and three years before her death. He explained to me why Arendt’s work should be read today with renewed urgency, because it provides illumination into the forces that shape our present. Instead of a dry academic exposé, I got a moving anecdote about his first meeting with Arendt ("the most intellectually exciting and erotic meeting") and a lucid yet impassioned explanation of Arendt's analysis of politics and of the human condition.Bernstein is an American Philosopher who teaches at The New School in New York City, and has written extensively on American pragmatism, political philosophy, the Frankfurt School thinkers, the question of evil, on Jewish identity, and other topics. He is a public intellectual in the best sense of that word by taking thoughtful and principled positions on a range of issues that concern us all. His Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? is a succinct introduction to key themes in Arendt's work.Uli Baer is a professor at New York University. He is also the host of the excellent podcast "Think About It" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Nobody should feel excited about the renewed relevance of Hannah Arendt's work today. Her foresight about the fragility of democratic life is relevant for the worst possible reasons: populism, white supremacy, mass deception, the rise of fascism around the world, the coordinated assault on serious journalism, academia and any kind of responsible thought. Really, there's no reason to celebrate why the great analyst of totalitarianism, fascism, and anti-democratic forces and a thinker "in dark times" is so timely today.But Arendt also insisted, in the preface to her 1968 collection of essays, “Men in Dark Times”: “Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination.”The philosopher Richard J. Bernstein is the author of Why Read Hannah Arendt Now (Polity, 2018). He met Arendt first in 1972, when he was a young professor and three years before her death. He explained to me why Arendt’s work should be read today with renewed urgency, because it provides illumination into the forces that shape our present. Instead of a dry academic exposé, I got a moving anecdote about his first meeting with Arendt ("the most intellectually exciting and erotic meeting") and a lucid yet impassioned explanation of Arendt's analysis of politics and of the human condition.Bernstein is an American Philosopher who teaches at The New School in New York City, and has written extensively on American pragmatism, political philosophy, the Frankfurt School thinkers, the question of evil, on Jewish identity, and other topics. He is a public intellectual in the best sense of that word by taking thoughtful and principled positions on a range of issues that concern us all. His Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? is a succinct introduction to key themes in Arendt's work.Uli Baer is a professor at New York University. He is also the host of the excellent podcast "Think About It" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 brought new readers to Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism (published in 1951). Pete and I talk to Samantha Hill, assistant director of Bard College's Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities, about the insights Arendt's thought offers us today.

"One of the quotes that Hannah Arendt said that I kept over my desk as I was writing is "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."

The philosopher Richard J. Bernstein met Arendt first in 1972, when he was a young professor and three years before her death. He explained to me why Arendt’s work should be read today with renewed urgency, because it provides illumination into the forces that shape our present. Instead of a dry academic exposé, I got a moving anecdote about his first meeting with Arendt and a lucid yet impassioned explanation of Arendt's analysis of politics and of the human condition. Uli Baer teaches literature and photography as University Professor at New York University. A recipient of Guggenheim, Getty and Humboldt awards, in addition to hosting "Speaking of…” he hosts (with Caroline Weber) the podcast "The Proust Questionnaire” and is Editorial Director at Warbler Press. Email ucb1@nyu.edu; Twitter @UliBaer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices