Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
Founding Editor of Public Seminar, Senior Fellow at the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, and chair of the Democracy Seminar
Democracy

The Radical Center as a Utopian Project?

7 notes on the ideal of a free, intelligent and consequential public life

October 12, 2018 • by
1. From a critical point of view, “the center” is the ground of the wishy washy: too attached to the ways things are to commit to the radical change of the left, not sufficiently informed by the wisdom of customs and traditional values to fully embrace the good of the ...
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The Radical Center as a Utopian Project?
Feature

The Tragedy of Professor Christine Blasey Ford / The Folly of Judge Brett Kavanaugh

On the presentation of self and the pursuit of justice

September 30, 2018 • by
I was not intending to watch the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings from beginning to end, but Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony on Thursday morning was so compelling that my writing had to wait. I was mesmerized by a truth-teller. Her testimony was an amazing combination of embodied reason and affect. Clearly very ...
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The Tragedy of Professor Christine Blasey Ford / The Folly of Judge Brett Kavanaugh
Democracy

The Powerlessness of the Powerful

Living in post – truth, seeking alternatives, examining Nicolae Ceausescu and Donald Trump

September 14, 2018 • by
This was most dramatically revealed in the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu on December 21, 1989. As this video documents. A mass rally in support of the leader morphed into a demonstration against the regime, apparently in a flash, though this was not as spontaneous as it appeared at first. In private, ...
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Feature

Seeking Illumination in Dark Times

On the power of art, race and racism, and the limitations of science and politics

September 7, 2018 • by
Reading our series on the arts, provides some hope in our dark times, on this cloudy and humid Friday afternoon in New York. I have long believed that the key to liberation is illumination, that we have to see the ways things are, and see how things might possibly change, ...
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Seeking Illumination in Dark Times
Feature

Two Cheers for Hypocrisy

A gray appreciation of John McCain, thinking about Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump

August 31, 2018 • by
Francois de La Rochefoucauld: “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” I have long been intrigued by this epigram and its political implications. I like its ironic cogency, and think that historic and contemporary hypocrites demonstrate the insight of this pithy observation, but also its limitations. I am thinking about ...
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Two Cheers for Hypocrisy
Feature

Confronting the Human Condition and the Pressing Problems of the Day

An introduction to a course on social interaction (syllabus included)

August 24, 2018 • by
I have been teaching courses on social interaction for my entire career, most often indirectly, most recently, directly. In the past, I taught a wide variety of topical courses: on bureaucracy, the arts, culture, politics, media, publics and much more, and while I reviewed with the students the relevant literatures, ...
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Confronting the Human Condition and the Pressing Problems of the Day
Feature

The View From My Sick Bed

Reflections on an Illness, a Family Photo, the Social Condition and Public Seminar

August 17, 2018 • by
I have not been feeling well recently. I don’t believe it’s serious. But I am moved today, on yet another hot and humid New York Friday, to use my maladies to think out loud about their connection with some of my theoretical concerns, taking advantage of the perspective my mini-health ...
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The View From My Sick Bed
Feature

Answering the Question: What is Socialism?

Gray reflections on a surprising turn in U.S. political culture.

August 10, 2018 • by
Last year, I quite critically raised the question: What Do You Mean When You Use the Term Neo Liberalism? I was, and still am, concerned that the term too often explains too much with too little, and enervates progressive politics. I worry that all the problems of our times are too quickly ...
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Answering the Question: What is Socialism?
Feature

Reflections on the Development of a Post-truth Regime

Donald Trump and the politically correct

July 27, 2018 • by
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; i.e., the class which is the ruling material force in society is at the same time the ruling intellectual force.” Marx and Engels, The German Ideology We sociologists know that each idea, each creative expression, each truth claim appears ...
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Reflections on the Development of a Post-truth Regime
Feature

On Opposing Fascism with a Reality TV Face

“Politics as a vocation,” the social condition and Donald Trump

July 20, 2018 • by
I am waiting, ever more impatiently, for my fellow citizens to wake up, to confront that it is happening here and now, that fascism with a reality TV face is upon us. Even though the situation appears ridiculous and often comic, it’s ominous. I am not ready to declare that “The ...
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On Opposing Fascism with a Reality TV Face
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