Latest news with #Arendt
Boston Globe
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
‘American Masters' explores the origins of Hannah Arendt
Or this: 'If everybody always lies to you the consequence is not that you believe the lies but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. And the people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.' Advertisement Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem, attending the trial of Adolf Eichmann, 1961. Wikimedia Commons In one sense, Arendt makes for a poor documentary subject. The title of her final, posthumously published book is 'The Life of the Mind' (1977). The library and seminar room were where she was most at home. Advertisement At the same time, she's a terrific subject. While Arendt's words and moral example are what matter about her and why she's remembered, her appearance was striking. Early photographs show a radiant earnestness that's breathtaking. In later photographs (Arendt died in 1975), her face has a grave, seamed majesty: a mirror to the life of the mind. In addition, Arendt led a life of almost operatic tumult and upheaval. Born in 1903, she grew up in a secular Jewish family in East Prussia and Berlin. While in graduate school, she had an extended affair with Martin Heidegger. Three things about that relationship matter: neither party ever quite got over it; Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century; and he was a Nazi. After Hitler came to power, Arendt was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo. She fled to Czechoslovakia, then Paris. When the war broke out, the French put her in an internment camp. Escaping, she reached the United States in 1941. Another bit of implicit commentary? The word 'refugee' recurs throughout the documentary. Advertisement However indirectly, Arendt is back in the news. She's among the 250 selections for President Trump's proposed Mark Feeney is a Globe arts writer . Mark Feeney can be reached at
Daily Maverick
10-06-2025
- Daily Maverick
Small Boat — a devastating novel about a migrant shipwreck and the cruelty of indifference
The deadly results of detached officialdom are made painfully clear in this harrowing novel. There's a particular kind of story that's rarely executed well – one without heroes, without lessons, without even the cold comfort of a villain you can confidently point at and say: there, that's the evil. Vincent Delecroix's Small Boat – a slim, bruising novel translated from its original French with quiet precision by Helen Stevenson – is that kind of story. Small Boat, which was shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize, centres on a real horror: the drowning of 27 people in the English Channel on 24 November 2021. They were crowded into an inflatable dinghy in the dark, reaching out over crackling radio lines, asking – in French, in English, in Kurdish – for help. They didn't get it. What is known and not imagined in Delecroix's pages is that both the French and British coastguards received their calls. And both hesitated, passing responsibility back and forth like a poisoned parcel. People died while operators discussed jurisdiction. The Cranston Inquiry, established to examine the failures of that night, is continuing, its transcripts and testimonies peeling back the layers of bureaucratic neglect. Delecroix doesn't give us the migrants' stories directly. He focuses instead on a fictional French coastguard operator, a woman who spent that night on the radio doing (or not doing) what her training, her weariness, her own justifications allowed. In the aftermath, she is questioned – not in a court, but in a room filled with mirrors. She faces a policewoman who looks like her, thinks like her, speaks with her same clipped, professional cadence. She listens back to recordings of her own voice on the rescue line, promising help that would not come, offering assurances she did not believe. She is left to reckon with the unbearable fact that someone, somewhere (was it her?) spoke the words: 'You will not be saved.' She isn't especially monstrous. She's tired. She's professional. She has a young daughter at home and an ex-partner who sneers at her work. She runs on the beach to decompress. In one of the novel's most arresting turns, she compares herself to a mass-produced tin opener: efficient, functional, affectless. Delecroix draws her with enough delicacy that we cannot quite hate her. And that, of course, is far more unsettling. Reading Small Boat, I thought – as one inevitably does – of Hannah Arendt's banality of evil. Not evil as grand spectacle or ideology, but as administration, the quiet conviction that one is simply fulfilling a role. Arendt coined the phrase watching the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief Nazi organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann organised the trains but claimed never to have hated the passengers. What Arendt saw was not a monster but a functionary – and that, of course, was the point. I thought, too, about my own work as an anthropologist researching forced displacement across Ireland, Turkey and Australia. I've sat with people whose lives are shaped not by violence in its cinematic form, but by violence as policy: the hotel room without a kitchen, the letter that never arrives, the bed that's taken away with no warning. I've heard a senior Irish official describe the state's provision of housing and support for asylum seekers as 'sufficient'. Meanwhile, people, stateless and waiting, are asked to prove their vulnerability again and again until even their grief is suspect. Institutional indifference The institutionalisation of indifference: that's the real story here. The smugness of protocols. The liturgy of duty rosters and shift reports. It wasn't evil that let those people drown in the Channel – it was ordinary people in warm offices citing rules, filling forms, following scripts. We can see the birth of such indifference in policies like the UK's abandoned Rwanda plan, which casually proposed outsourcing asylum itself, as if refuge were a commodity. Delecroix's brilliance lies in showing how violence at the border is carried out not by villains, but by workers. By women with mortgages, men on night shifts, people who've learnt to sort calls for help by urgency, credibility, accent. 'Sorting,' the narrator explains, 'is perhaps the most important part of the job.' Not all distress calls are equal. And the assumption – always lurking, never spoken – is that some lives are more likely to be saved. At one point, the narrator's colleague, Julien, answers calls from migrants by quoting Pascal: 'Vous êtes embarqués.' You are already embarked. A fatalist shrug disguised as wisdom. As if to say: you should have thought of all this before you left. The shrug does the work of a policy, the quotation the work of a wall. And yet, the narrator cannot fully perform indifference. She is haunted by the sea. She remembers loving it as a child. Now, it terrifies her. She feels it watching her, pursuing her, wanting to surge past the shore and swallow the continent whole. She runs along the beach to quiet her mind – a run that is almost the same length as the journey those on the dinghy tried to make. If Small Boat has a flaw, it's that it sometimes flirts with making guilt into its own form of lyricism. But this too may be deliberate. It is easier, perhaps, to feel sorry than to feel implicated. And far easier to narrate moral confusion than to prevent its causes. What Delecroix has written is not a redemption story. It's not a psychological thriller. It is a chamber piece for one voice and many ghosts. There are no grand gestures here, just small refusals, small failures. And the small, flickering boats of each human life, drifting towards – or away from – one another in the dark. In a world ever more brutal towards those who flee war, hunger and despair, Delecroix's novel is a necessary and merciless indictment. It reminds us that the shipwreck is not theirs alone. It is ours too. DM First published by The Conversation. Fiona Murphy is an assistant professor in refugee and intercultural studies at Dublin City University in Ireland. This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
Scientific American
16-05-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
Loneliness Is Inflaming Our Bodies—And Our Politics
Hannah Arendt has been on my mind a lot lately. The 20th-century German-Jewish political philosopher escaped the Nazi Holocaust, and won regard as one of the world's greatest public intellectuals at a time when few women were appointed to university faculties. She drew on history, literature and her own life to identify the conditions under which open and liberal societies turn into authoritarian states. Seven decades ago she made observations that still offer powerful insights today. In The Origins of Totalitarianism,Arendtemphasized one primary factor in the rise of authoritarianism that has little obvious connection to politics: loneliness. While we usually think of loneliness as not having our social needs met, Arendt defined the word as something deeper. Loneliness happens when there are no shared objective facts and no potential collective action to solve shared challenges. It's a state of being where you can't trust others. Loneliness, in Arendt's telling, inflames the connective tissues of a society. It weakens the body politic so that demagogues and despots can prey. 'What prepares men for totalitarian domination,' she wrote, '… is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience.' Arendt—as far as I know—didn't use the word 'inflammation' to describe the effects of social isolation on a country or culture. But it's the metaphor that, to me, gets to the essence of her warning. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Inflammation is the body's response to a sense of threat—a protective, contractionary response that can extend even to the cellular level. It's a response that can inhibit healing. A community or society that faces a deficit of meaningful connectedness is similarly in a state of perpetual threat; people are unable to listen to one another, to trust each other, to maintain trust in shared institutions, or to collectively overcome divisions. This might sound familiar. From 2003 to 2022, face-to-face socializing among U.S. men fell by 30 percent. For teenagers, it was a staggering 45 percent. An estimated 12 percent of Americans report having no close friends, a fourfold increase since 1990. While social media was supposed to amplify human connection, the rise of comparison culture, social sorting into echo chambers and the rapid decline of in-person social connection have instead coincided with unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression and distrust. It should therefore come as no surprise that, in America, we're seeing democratic backsliding like Hannah Arendt warned of—including mass polarization, intentional disinformation and a politics of fear, retribution and rage. Loneliness inflames societies. It just so happens that loneliness inflames the body, too. Two decades ago, researchers Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago demonstrated in a landmark study that loneliness acts as a chronic stressor that triggers the body's innate stress-response systems. Social isolation keeps the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in a constant state of arousal, driving persistent cortisol release. This hormonal imbalance heightens inflammation. And this can, in turn, weaken the immune system, compromise cardiovascular health and worsen vulnerability to mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. In short, the absence of meaningful social bonds can literally recalibrate the body's physiological mechanisms toward greater stress and illness. Over the past two decades, further studies have only reinforced the link between loneliness and inflammatory pathways. George Slavich of the University of California, Los Angeles, underscores that experiencing social disconnection can mimic physical threats in how our brains and immune systems respond—magnifying the release of inflammatory agents. From an evolutionary standpoint, sustained isolation disrupts our primal need for social integration—leading to inflammation and a whole host of downstream consequences. It's easy to downplay the loneliness problem. When former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy warned of the dangers of social isolation and proposed solutions, no meaningful government interventions ensued. Likewise, when the U.K. government appointed a minister for loneliness in 2018, many likened the move to a Monty Python sketch rather than seeing it as a serious policy intervention. But the medical, social and even political costs of growing social isolation mean that we can no longer afford to ignore it. Some solutions are straightforward. Medical innovators are now addressing social isolation through practices like ' social prescribing '—wherein health professionals connect patients who are lonely with nonmedical community services, volunteer programs, exercise groups and arts activities to improve their well-being. Instead of writing prescriptions for pills, doctors can prescribe a free pass to a museum, an invitation to join a gardening club, or a support group for people facing similar struggles. A recent multiyear evaluation of nature-oriented social prescribing in the U.K. found that programs significantly helped participants reduce anxiety and improve happiness. Other solutions are more systemic. When Pete Buttigieg ran for president in 2020, he laid out an agenda for ' belonging and healing '—emphasizing new funding and policies around mental health and addiction as well as national service to rebuild community institutions and promote environmental restoration. Leaders should propose scaling up 'belonging infrastructure'—transit, green spaces, cultural venues, and mental health centers—while expanding purpose-driven national service programs like Americorps and investing in local journalism through public grants or tax incentives to restore trusted information sources and restore important foundations of community life. This should be a bipartisan cause. Conservatives and liberals alike have an opening to address the crisis by leveraging faith and veterans' groups–for example, granting tax incentives or small federal matches that could help churches, synagogues, and veterans' groups build mentoring initiatives, addiction recovery support and efforts to revitalize parks, libraries and civic spaces. There's also growing bipartisan recognition of the role of social media in the crisis. In tackling big tech's impact on youth, leaders across the ideological spectrum should push toward full algorithmic transparency, restrictions to exploitative design features, and mandates for robust digital well-being protections for children. Like inflammation in the body, social isolation weakens our civic 'immune system,' fueling polarization and making us more susceptible to authoritarian impulses. But Hannah Arendt emphasized that the condition is reversible. By investing in the foundations of shared belonging, we can restore our adapt to adapt to the challenges we face—from wildfires to pandemics to misinformation. It's time to get serious about our healing.
Boston Globe
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
A girl and her father wash up in mysterious shelter by the sea, where they meet a trio of philosophers
Over the next few years, Lina's timeless neighbors become a chosen family. From their home in Foshan, Lina's father has brought only three volumes of a 90-book series named 'The Great Lives of Voyagers.' The books tell the life stories of historian Hannah Arendt, best known for her work ' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up With a setting as fascinating and surreal as The Sea, it's slightly disappointing that the alternating biographies of Arendt, Spinoza, and Du dominate the book. Lina's narration takes a distant backseat to the philosophers' trials, tribulations, and travels. These biographies are supposed to be instructive to Lina's quest to learn why she and her father have come to The Sea without her mother and brother. But this plotline feels largely inert because while readers are reminded of the dangers of totalitarianism and the tragic toll of forced migration and exile, Lina is like us: a passive receiver of familiar messages. Advertisement Arendt and Spinoza, in particular, take center stage. We follow Arendt through the formative traumas of her life, including her imprisonment by the Gestapo for researching antisemitism, and eventually, her perilous escape from Nazi-controlled France into Spain. Once in Spain, she travels to Lisbon and boards a ship to America, where she eventually settled and became renowned as an author and thinker. Spinoza's life story follows a similar arc. His pantheistic opinions lead to his expulsion from the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. Spinoza's philosophies cross over into Arendt's storyline, because her work was strongly influenced by his. The backstory of Lina's father's involvement in the creation of The Sea is delivered to the reader whole, via flashback, again without Lina having to do very much. This revelatory section happens in a futuristic China where hundreds have died in a Tiananmen Square-like 'catastrophe.' Lina's father finds himself working for a company named Days and Months Technology Corp Ltd., and with a name like that, it's easy to tell that this firm is up to no good. Advertisement Lina's father's backstory only makes The Sea more fascinating, and this reader wanted to understand the mechanics of its construction. The payoff, however, stops well short of explaining the science fiction, and Lina's father's betrayal will feel expected for anyone familiar with the Cultural Revolution. The Lina storyline, already hampered by a lack of movement, gets bogged down by repetition and a penchant for mysterious philosophical statements from her neighbors that, unfortunately, recall the musings of Yoda. 'You must let go of your fear ,' Du Fu's father tells himself at one point. Meanwhile, one of the scholars instrumental to the design of the Sea says, 'The deeper you fall into the architecture of the system…the closer you come to reality.' It's a sentiment Bento and Lina will repeat. 'Time never goes missing,' Bento proclaims. 'I think the structure of reality can be no other way.' While the musicality of such sentences is pleasing, their meanings remain elusive. Fans of books like Mohsin Hamid's ' Though one can't help but admire the breadth of Thien's imagination, it's the child's story by the sea that this reader wanted more of. Advertisement Leland Cheuk is an award-winning author of three books of fiction, most recently ' THE BOOK OF RECORDS By Madeleine Thien Norton, 368 pages, $28.99
Business Recorder
23-04-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
Path to inclusive growth and innovation
In a rapidly digitizing world, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has emerged as transformative force, behind regional and global progress by fostering innovation, connectivity, and efficiency across various sectors. The growing importance of digital technologies and the emergence of the digital economy in the advancement of societies and economies has been broadly acknowledged. From the industrial revolution to the digital age, technology has consistently propelled social change (Nawaz, H., 2023). The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals emphasize the role of (ICT) in realizing universal identification, promoting efficient governance and enhancing financial inclusion, Likewise, a body of literature supports the idea that digital adoption influences economic growth (Arendt, 2015; Eberhard et al., 2015), efficiency (Bygstad & Hanseth, 2019), and job creation (Chege et al., 2020), healthcare opportunities (Haluza, D., & Jungwirth, D., 2015), social inclusion (UN, 2012), and enhances individuals' capacity, mobility, accessibility, and affordability (Yang, Y., et al., 2013). In fact, advancements in digital adoption have influenced all facets of human life (Mitrovic, Z., et al., 2013). For developing nations, such as Pakistan, digital adoption, literacy, transformation and integration are indispensable for bridging the socioeconomic disparities, creating job opportunities for youth, and enhancing inclusive growth and development. With its transformative potential, ICT remains a key pillar in building a more connected, knowledgeable, and progressive Pakistan. However, despite its vast potential, in Pakistan, ICT adoption remains uneven across different segments of society. Our upcoming paper for the 38th AGM and Conference of PSDE, revels that in Pakistan, digital literacy remains alarmingly low at just 4.2%, digital usage is comparatively better at 20.1%, but not satisfactory and a majority 93% of individuals have not experienced ICT transformation. Additionally, the findings reveal gender divides in digital adoption, with male outperforming female in all matrices; with 27% of men use digital tools compared to 14% of women. Men also lead in digital literacy (4.3% vs. 2.3%) and transformation (10.1% vs. 3.4%). Region-wise, marginalized areas like Baluchistan and underprivileged communities experiencing lower ICT adoption rates Consequently, ICT Development Index (ITC 2017) ranked Pakistan at 148 out of 175 countries in the - the lowest among South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries. On the Digital Evolution Index, Pakistan was ranked 56th out of 60 countries. Furthermore, the state of internet accessibility in Pakistan is well below international standards and considerably lower than other regional countries. Pakistan has been ranked 90th out of 120 countries on the inclusive internet index. Our study reveals that in Pakistan's ICT adaptation, literacy and transformation is shaped by demographic characteristics, socio-economic factors, and infrastructural access. Education is the key determinant, with higher educational level increasing the probability of ICT usage and literacy and literacy. Gender divide persist, as males are more likely to adopt ICT. Age is another important factor, with younger individual exhibiting greater ICT adoption compared to older age groups. On the socio-economic front, higher household earnings enhance ICT usage and literacy by enabling access to technology, although remittances do not show a significant effect on digital skill development. Access to ICT and internet at home significantly boosts all three aspects of ICT adoption, creating conducive environments for skill-building and digital engagement. Moreover, individuals living in urban areas and big cities benefit from better infrastructure, connectivity, and competitive environments, which collectively promote ICT transformation. On the supply side, ICT infrastructure at the stratum level plays a significant role in driving ICT adoption. Given the poor performance in ICT adaptation, literacy, and transformation, and the growing youth population, there is significant potential for positive change, and the good news is that the government is committed to harnessing the digital change, through the 5 Es framework, with a focus on the second pillar—E-Pakistan. The objective is to drive Pakistan into the digital era by ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, and high-quality ICT services. The focus this initiative is on: Digital Infrastructure, which seeks to provide high-speed internet nationwide, especially in rural and underserved areas; Digital Skills, through initiatives like the DigiSkills programme to boost digital literacy and enhance employment opportunities; Digital Governance, aiming to streamline government services via e-governance platforms; Digital Innovation, fostering a culture of innovation to support startups and research and development; and Digital Inclusion, ensuring that marginalized groups, including women and people with disabilities, are not left behind in the digital revolution. These efforts demonstrate the government's seriousness in addressing ICT barriers and creating new opportunities for all citizens, especially the youth, by unlocking the vast potential of the digital economy. Additionally, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) is leading the national conversation in this regard. Its upcoming 38thAnnual General Meeting (AGM) and Conference on 'URAAN Pakistan' is bringing together policymakers, researchers, and development experts to explore solutions to pressing challenges, with a particular focus on economic growth and the integration of technology in various sectors of Pakistan. To sum up, digital adaptation is no longer a choice but it is a necessity for Pakistan's future. If we are to create an inclusive, resilient, and competitive Pakistan, we must treat digital access as a fundamental right. The path forward lies in synergizing research insights, grassroots realities, and policy ambition. The Five-Es initiative is a bold start. Now is the time to operationalize it with urgency, equity, and evidence-based planning. (The writer is a Research Associate at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). He can be reached via Email: [email protected]) Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
