Sunday notes
Facing Tyranny
Dear Reader,
I’m writing from Krakow this week to share a project I’ve worked on for the past five years: Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny.
It was a journey to be a consultant on this project, to say the least, and an honor to be able to narrate some of Hannah Arendt’s incredible life journey.
Hannah Arendt was a storyteller. For her facts were not simple quantitive measures, but rather the stories we shared about our experiences in the world. And she understood the stories we tell to be vehicles for meaning that might help understand the phenomenon we face today.
It is no accident that you’ll hear echoes of our modern times. The rise of antisemitism today, again, the alliance between anti-antisemitism and the new far right, mass migration, forced deportation, the rise of fascism from the executive —
As I say often, though, our world today is not Hannah Arendt’s. And the task she left us was to find new language to tell new stories about our times today.
Because of this, her work can help us to put our feet on the ground and see what we’re looking at now. It’s only when we do that political action becomes possible, and the promise of birth is fulfilled in the principle of natality, which means that as long as new people are born into our world it can always be other than it is.
You can watch the film here. Or click on the poster below.
Until soon,
Sam
I watched the film on PBS Friday evening, its first night of airing. The photos and film clips of the times gave me a deeper sense of the perilousness of her situation and to be "stateless." Sad to know that she stopped writing poetry after the time of Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Wow, thanks for sharing this link! I've been meaning to read Arendt's work for ages, have collected a few of her books. I look forward to viewing this.