TO BE EXPELLED FROM A STATE IS TO BE EXPELLED FROM HUMANITY
Hannah Arendt:
The basic issue involved is the following: As long as mankind is nationally and territorially organized in states, a stateless person is not simply expelled from one country, native or adopted, but from all countries — none being obliged to receive and naturalize him — which means he is actually expelled from humanity. Deprivation of citizenship consequently should be counted among the crimes against humanity, and some of the worst recognized crimes in this category have, in fact, and not incidentally, been preceded by mass expatriations. … It seems absurd, but the fact is that, under the political circumstances of this century, a Constitutional Amendment may be needed to assure American citizens that they cannot be deprived of their citizenship, no matter what they do.
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LITTLE TIME FOR REFLECTION, BUT STILL HOLDING OUT HOPE
Karl Jaspers:
It is not easy to describe things here. It is a life of irreality. I’m eaten up by day-to-day chores. Reflection withers. I find myself slipping into a modern life ruled by haste. Things can’t go on this way. There seems to be no place at all for real thought. But we know that life goes on in spite of it all, even in famine, which has not touched us at all yet. Every day I say to myself: Patience, just be patient. Don’t be discouraged, no matter what. If we do what we can, the rewarding moments are bound to return.
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ECHOES OF THE PAST; RESPONDING IN THE PRESENT
I wrote this Saturday afternoon, before reading the news that Trump is sending the National Guard into Los Angeles. I’m posting it unchanged, though I’ll acknowledge here the step forward in the area of force and terror. Perhaps someday we’ll see this as a tipping point, though I wonder how we would recognize that now when the world is so slanted.
It’s become something of a cliché to describe similarities between Germany in the 1930s and the United States in the last few months. Many of those descriptions build on the work of Hannah Arendt — and, more often than not, include pithy quotations from her writings. I’m part of the pack here, having posted multiple Arendt passages on this site as commonplace entries. As important as these allusions to 1930s Germany are, I think we should acknowledge that we in the United States have similar episodes in our own history. I was reminded of one such time this morning by none other than Hannah Arendt. Consider this lengthy passage from a letter she wrote to Karl Jaspers, her mentor and friend in Switzerland:
Read moreMAY 2025 READING REPORT
As I wrap up another month of reading, I’ll pause to celebrate and appreciate the privileges of a comfortable retirement. These are troubled times, and there’s much to be concerned about, but at least I have the time and energy to bury myself in reading and thinking some of the time. I’m grateful.
I’ve now posted some notes about the books I finished reading in May. Some general comments: first, now that I look at the list as a whole I’m surprised at the number of books listed whose authors I knew absolutely nothing about when the month began. I discovered three of them (Craig Mod, Lauren Markham, and Andrea Barrett) while browsing bookstores on our recent trip to Texas and New York City. (Did I mention that one of my favorite pastimes is visiting bookstores?) I checked Solvej Balle’s novel out of the library after reading about it in the list of books shortlisted for this year’s International Booker prize. As I say in my comments, I think it’s one of the best novels I’ve read in quite a while. My wife has been pushing me to read Robin Wall Kimmerer for months, and I’m glad I finally followed her advice. Reading Rebecca Solnit is a treat — her latest collection of essays doesn’t disappoint.
Read moreTHE IRONY OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IN A COMMUNITY OF DRIVERS
Rebecca Solnit:
Driverless cars are often called autonomous vehicles — but driving isn’t an autonomous activity. It’s a cooperative social activity, in which part of the job of whoever’s behind the wheel is to communicate with others on the road. Whether on foot, on my bike, or in a car, I engage in a lot of hand gestures — mostly meaning “Wait!” or “Go ahead!” — when I’m out and about, and I look for others’ signals.
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LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, EVEN IN THE WAKE OF AN ACCIDENT
Hannah Arendt:
…when I awoke in the car and became conscious of what had happened[,] I tried out my limbs, saw that I was not paralyzed and could see with both my eyes, then tried out my memory — very carefully, decade by decade, poetry, Greek and German and English, then telephone numbers. Everything all right. The point was that for a fleeting moment I had the feeling that it was up to me to decide whether I wanted to live or to die. And though I did not think that death was terrible, I also thought that life was quite beautiful and that I rather like it.
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LIVING THROUGH LOSS, SEEING THE LIGHT
Sometimes people are surprised when they learn that I’m typically reading 6 or even 7 books at a time. This practice comes with a cost; I admit that sometimes I have to backtrack a few pages to remind myself where I am in a particular book. But one thing I love about reading multiple texts is the serendipity, the unexpected connections between books that in topic and style seem totally unrelated. (But, really, isn’t everything related somehow to everything?) Sometimes, I find, I recognize the power of a point made in one book only after it’s reinforced by something I read in another book. I encountered such a connection today. Consider the first stanza of a short poem by Maggie Smith, included in her book Dear Writer:
Read moreON THE RECURRENCE OF GENOCIDE
Hannah Arendt:
Whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been. The particular reasons that speak for the possibility of a repetition of the crimes committed by the Nazis are even more plausible. The frightening coincidence of the modern population explosion with the discovery of technical devices that, through automation, will make large sections of the population “superfluous” even in terms of labor, and that, through nuclear energy, make it possible to deal with this twofold threat by the use of instruments beside which Hitler’s gassing installations look like an evil child’s fumbling toys, should be enough to make us tremble.
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ON THE BRINK. HOPE OR DESPAIR?
Earlier this week I finished reading No Straight Road Takes You There, a new collection of essays by Rebecca Solnit. Solnit presents her usual sharp and insightful criticism of so much that’s happening these days. At the same time, she insists that anyone looking at developments over the long haul has reason to hope that things could be better. She insists that such hope is strategically important. Anyone who is convinced that all is lost has little reason to work toward creating a better future. Moreover, she argues that engaging in work for a better world is particularly important for those of us with privilege.
Read moreBEZOS'S AMAZONIAN GRANDIOSITY
Craig Mod:
A couple of points for context:
- A torii is the gate at the entrance to a Shinto temple that separates the sacred from the secular.
- This story is presented as true; I have no reason to doubt it, but I also have no way to verify it. Still, even if it’s fiction, I think it’s the sort of fiction that has a ring of truth to it.
I once took Jeff Bezos (he had been knocked down a rung to the world’s second-richest human at the time) on a little walk around these parts (don’t ask; long story). As we approached the grand torii, I relayed the facts, told him it was the biggest in the world, and he turned to me with the widest eyes I’ve ever seen and said in his singular Jeff Voice: LET’S BUILD A BIGGER ONE!
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