POLS 018. Politics in Dark Times (TH)

“We no longer hope for an eventual restoration of the old world order with all its traditions, or for the reintegration of the masses of five continents who have been thrown into a chaos produced by the violence of wars and revolutions and the growing decay of all that has still been spared. Under the most diverse conditions and disparate circumstances, we watch the development of the same phenomena-homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth. Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest-forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”

So begins the Hannah Arendt’s Preface to her 3-volume work The Origins of Totalitarianism, written shortly after the end of World War II. Perhaps we should be surprised that, 75 years later, it still resonates; perhaps not.

“POLS 18: Politics in Dark Times” aims to understand past historical periods of political/ social/ economic disruption and reorientation. It will be centered on Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, with readings from Alexis de Tocqueville, Antonio Gramsci, and Michael Sandel’s (1995) book Democracy’s Discontent as well as short selections from contemporary scholarship and journalism. Students can expect approximately 60-70 pages of reading per week, with the additional expectation that certain historical events and figures will need to be researched and summarized briefly in order to understand the authors’ meaning. (We will share those tasks and pool our summaries so that we are helping each other to understand the readings’ context.) The course will be primarily discussion-based, so careful preparation and participation will be important.
NOTE: POLS 18 is an elective political theory course which cross-pollinates with all of the political science subfields, but students still need to take one of POLS 11, 12, 100, or 101 to satisfy the department’s theory requirement.
Social Sciences.
1 credit.
Spring 2025. Berger.
Catalog chapter: Political Science
Department website: swarthmore.edu/politicalscience

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