What ideas about “double-talk” and “fake news” will you take to heart as in your civic role as a citizen (or if you’re not a citizen, as a person with an interest in shaping the future of our society)? What ideas did you find challenging to accept? What connections can you draw between your work in our course and Dr. Berkowitz’s ideas about the “practice of thinking”?

 

Basic overall concept: How justice is made present in the world.

• “As dark as the times have been; the last week has seen them darken in some way” (Dr. Berkowitz)
• I find it challenging to accept the fact that the chance the United States will be in a civil war in the next fifteen years is roughly thirty five to forty percent (35% – 40%)

Poem

“Truly, I live in dark times!

An artless word is foolish. A smooth forehead

Points to insensitivity. He who laughs

Has not yet received.

The terrible news  

What times are these, in which

A conversation about trees is almost a crime

For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!

And he who walks quietly across the street,

Passes out of the reach of his friends

Who are in danger?” (Breck)

• Extremely powerful
• SIDE NOTE: this is probably the most powerful piece of writing I have ever read in my life.

“Dark times are not limited to genocides, racisms, antisemitisms, sexims, purges, hungers.” (Arendt)

 

A common theme that keeps coming up in the talk is the “loss of the common world”. With hearing this it made me think of connections and readings we have read/made in our English 120 class. I connect this directly to an article I read called The Hunted. The first thing that popped into my head while listening to the repetition of “loss of the common world” was that article; due to the poor choices made by people.

This speech also ties directly to what we do in english class because of the overall recurrence of the many themes talked about that directly correlate to most of the pieces of literature and podcasts we listen to and read.