Hannah Arendt’s message on freethinking is as relevant as ever

IN 1975 A young senator named Joe Biden heard of a lecture that Hannah Arendt had recently given at Faneuil Hall in Boston, on America’s need for a reckoning after the Vietnam war, now that the “big lie” about the extent of the country’s powers had been exposed by a humiliating defeat. He wrote to her saying that, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he would be most keen to receive a copy of her paper. Such interest says something about the future president’s curiosity—and a lot about the then 68-year-old Arendt’s formidable reputation as a public intellectual.