Home to Roost | Responsibility and Judgment

Host Roger Berkowitz closes our discussion of Hannah Arendt’s Responsibility and Judgment with her final public speech, “Home to Roost” (1975), presented as Arendt’s last assessment of the crisis of the U.S. republic. He highlights her claims that republics are fragile, that McCarthyism began a constitutional crisis by attacking due process and the civil service, and that Vietnam, foreign-policy failures, domestic turmoil, and Watergate signaled a swift decline of political power. Arendt warns against social-scientific “deeper causes” that rationalize events and blunt the shock of facts, arguing that modern PR and political image-making drove both economic “progress” toward waste and Vietnam-era policy. She distinguishes ordinary lying from “lying as a way of life,” rooted in totalitarianism, and argues Nixon showed how criminality flourishes when only terror seems beyond the pale; discussion connects these themes to present polarization, corruption, institutions’ resistance, and the need for public reckoning rather than amnesia.

Our next read is Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition. Join us here on the podcast beginning September 11th, or become a member of the Arendt Center to join the Virtual Reading Group and attend the live recordings!

ABOUT:

Produced by the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, this podcast offers close readings of Arendt's books alongside engaging interviews and thought-provoking conversations. Released weekly, each episode provides listeners with a deeper understanding of Arendt's philosophy and its relevance to contemporary issues. Available on all major podcast platforms, listeners join us on a captivating intellectual journey through the mind of Hannah Arendt.

New episodes every Friday morning! Join Roger Berkowitz, Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, as he discusses the works of German Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975).

THE HANNAH ARENDT CENTER:

The Hannah Arendt Center provides an intellectual space for passionate, uncensored, and nonpartisan thinking that reframes and deepens the fundamental questions facing our nation and our world. Become a member and enjoy several benefits including live access to our Virtual Reading Group that takes place most Fridays, and upon which this podcast is based: https://hac.bard.edu/membership/

More information can be found on our website: https://hac.bard.edu/ Follow us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com