Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and warnings from Hannah Arendt
10-Minute Talks
English - January 27, 2021 09:16 - 10 minutes - 25 MBSociety & Culture Arts history politics philosophy economics history of art psychology sociology law humanities social sciences Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: Atheism in debate
In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) the political thinker Hannah Arendt warned of the dangers if the distinction between fact and fiction – and between true and false – is lost. Aware of the fragility of democracy, Arendt argued that democracy depends on populations accepting facts about social life; without such shared facts, democracy can be imperilled. What happens though when facts become matters of opinion?
In this 10-Minute Talk Michael Billig discusses the works of Hannah Arendt and why they may help us understand recent events involving President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Speaker: Professor Michael Billig FBA, Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences, Loughborough University