Roger Berkowitz: ‘Why Arendt Matters: Revisiting “The Origins of Totalitarianism”’

On the rejuvenation of local governance as a defense against totalitarianism:  “A unified and sovereign government combined with a disempowered citizenry poses the greatest danger of totalitarianism. The best way to protect ourselves is, perhaps, to turn back to our roots in local self-government. We cannot turn back the clock. But we might begin to engage in the activity of politics and the multiplication of local power structures that can resist the totalizing impulses of sovereign states. In doing so, we would seek to rediscover the Jeffersonian project of local self-government that Arendt calls the lost treasure of the American Revolution.”