Democracy Archives - Public Seminar

Philosophy

Philosophy in the Time of Techno-Fascism

Longtermism’s story is about how money gives immensely damaging ideas a foothold with philosophers and the public

April 8, 2026 • by Alice Crary

This is an inaugural lecture, delivered at an intense, precarious moment. Staff and faculty at the New School for Social Research, including legacy Schools of Public Engagement, and staff and faculty at parts of Lang and Parsons, have been told many will soon be fired. We are members of a ...

Philosophy in the Time of Techno-Fascism

North America

One Battle After Another

With ICE in Minneapolis: An eyewitness account

January 21, 2026 • by Emily Condon

On Tuesday morning, January 13, I was driving home after dropping my 9-year-old son off at school. There were ICE vehicles everywhere, I was surrounded by them on Park Ave. After a block or two of this, I parked and got out of my car. I saw that there were many ...

Politics

“Things Happen”

On one’s sense of impending doom

January 20, 2026 • by Arthur Goldhammer

Americans have long enjoyed a robust and righteous sense of impunity. No matter how badly our government blundered, we nevertheless clung confidently to the notion that we would always land on our feet. It has been said (allegedly by Bismarck, but there is little evidence to support the attribution) that “there ...

Politics

“Things Happen”

Staging sovereignty

November 19, 2025 • by Arthur Goldhammer

We have become accustomed to the Oval Office ritual by which Trump stages his pugnacious primacy. The protocol of the traditional press conference, in which the president stands and the press remains seated until recognized, is inverted. Trump sits as if enthroned on one of his gilded chairs, though not ...

Democracy

It May Be the Last Time

Lithuanian art and culture resisting a takeover at the height of hybrid warfare

November 10, 2025 • by Edvardas Šumila

Recent developments in Lithuanian politics have produced a decisive, immediate, and spontaneous resistance from culture workers in various fields. The formation of a new coalition government led to the populist political project Nemuno Aušra (NA)—headed by the antisemitic politician Remigijus Žemaitaitis—being given control of the Ministry of Culture. Žemaitaitis has ...

Democracy

A Republic, If We Can Afford It

Our Republic depends on both economic stability and civic participation

November 6, 2025 • by Larry Schwartz

When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government the delegates had created. His reply—“A republic, if you can keep it”—was no mere quip from an aging sage. It was a warning that republics are fragile, rare, and never self-sustaining. What Franklin implied was that ...

New York City

A Mayor Who Promises the Moon

Canvassing for Mamdani

October 29, 2025 • by Mitchell Abidor

In the run-up to this year’s election for New York City’s next mayor, I’ve spent several days canvassing for Zohran Mamdani. On every occasion I’ve been as much as a half-century older than the rest of my young, white comrades. Unlike most of them, I’m also a native New Yorker, ...

Democracy

Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It to Us Good and Hard?

It’s easier to blame the algorithm than the bewildered herd

October 28, 2025 • by Dan Williams

One of our era’s most influential narratives is that social media is destroying democracy and perhaps civilization itself. For the liberal establishment, this story helps to explain the surging success of right-wing populism, as well as collapsing institutional trust, growing polarization, and an apparent explosion of misinformation and deranged conspiracy ...

Democracy

Can Poetry Re-Enchant the Modern World?

The philosopher Charles Taylor goes hunting for cosmic connections

October 27, 2025 • by Sarah V. Schweig

When the protagonist of Miranda July’s recent novel, All Fours, plummets into a crisis, she realizes, at age 45, that she “had entirely misunderstood the assignment, the scale of what life asked of us.” She had “only been living second to second—just coping—this whole time.” Being a writer, the character’s ...

Activism

A Lost Utopia

A review of Göran Rosenberg’s Israel: A Personal History

October 7, 2025 • by Coleson Smith

In a speech delivered to the United States Congress on July 25, 2024, Benjamin Netanyahu issued a sharp retort to protestors against Israel’s genocide in Gaza: They call Israel a colonialist state. Don’t they know that the Land of Israel is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed, where Isaiah and Jeremiah ...

Activism

The Revolutionary Street Art of Bangladesh’s 2024 Uprising

In Dhaka, layers of graffiti offer a timeline of hope

September 29, 2025 • by Rayna Salam

Inspired by a popular insurrection against Sheikh Hasina’s increasingly autocratic 15-year tenure as prime minister of Bangladesh, in July 2024, US-based Bangladeshi artist Debashish Chakrabarty produced and circulated online more than 100 posters illustrating the symbols, martyrs, and demands of the movement. He urged protesters around the world to copy ...

The Revolutionary Street Art of Bangladesh’s 2024 Uprising

North America

The New Political Theology

Disestablishing the Establishment Clause

September 24, 2025 • by Arthur Goldhammer

The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Strictly ...