I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is the road to now.

Hannah Arendt witnessed the rise of Nazism in Germany, and her groundbreaking works, including the origins of totalitarianism, sought to understand how regular people could be seduced by horrendous ideologies such as anti-Semitism and fascism.

In this episode, we learn all about it because I speak with documentarian Jeff Bieber,

whose new film Hannah Arendt facing tyranny, documents Arant's life as an intellectual, refugee,

and eventually an American citizen whose concerns about power, yeah, they're going to sound familiar

to you. The documentary Hannah Arendt facing tyranny is currently streaming on pbs.org, and I think

if you guys are as into this conversation as I was, you're going to want to check it out. The link

for that is in the episode description. Happy July 4th this week,

everybody. Special thanks to all the patrons who keep us going. We hope you guys travel safe or

stay at home safe or whatever you do. We just hope that you take some time to appreciate this

republic, this constitution we have. And, hey, instead of just celebrating all the people who birthed it into this world,

let's be good stewards to it so we may pass it along to our children.

Thank you for listening and enjoy the show.

The documentary is about Hannah Arendt, who is this larger than life intellectual figure,

who really lives the mid-20th century, early to mid-20th century.

Right.

And out of that develops, I think, a deep sense of wisdom, a deep sense of empathy. And what I think, it's very controversial,

but I think that she understands people in a way that no one wants to hear. And we see this later on

in her career. And she got a masterclass in it just by being born when, well, she's got a master

class in it for all those things you can't control.

When you're born, where you're born, who your parents are, how people perceive you in a broader sense.

And so for folks who are listening who don't know Hannah Arendt, could you just start off by telling us who she is?

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