On Friendship
Montez Press Radio: The Politics of Friendship with Uday Mehta | Bonus Episode
from Reading Hannah Arendt with Roger Berkowitz (2025)
This week we're sharing a recording from our friends at Montez Press Radio, an experimental broadcasting and performance platform founded in 2018 with the goal of fostering greater experimentation and conversation between artists, writers, and thinkers through the medium of radio. In the first of their new series, Love Thy Network, one of three excellent new segments on friendship, gossip, and public discourse, Roger Berkowitz and Uday Mehta, a scholar of political philosophy, engage with Hannah Arendt's insights on the intersection of friendship and politics.
Arendt, known for her "genius for friendship," believed that true friendship is where we reveal both our joys and our sorrows, and where our hearts are open, untouched by the demands of the world. The conversation explores the relevance of Arendt’s thoughts on friendship as a key political force and its importance in creating a 'unity of a plurality.' Berkowitz and Mehta discuss Arendt’s belief that true politics is driven by conversation and mutual respect rather than agreement on truth, and reflect on the crisis of friendship and polarization in contemporary society. They also discuss Berkowitz's upcoming book on friendship, which examines Arendt's extensive correspondences and develops a theory of how friendships can sustain political communities. And they look ahead to the Center's upcoming annual conference on JOY and its vital role in facing dark times.
Friendship and Politics: Roger Berkowitz / Student Poetry Reading: Zarina Dawlat
from Friendship and Politics: The 15th Annual HAC Fall Conference (2023)
Friendship. Politics, and Human Meaningfulness
in Amor Mundi (2023)
In the wake of the Alpine Fellowship on Human Flourishing in Fjallnas, Sweden last week, Iʼve been reading Lisa Millerʼs book The Awakened Brain. Miller makes what my daughter says is an obvious argument, that mental illness and especially depression and anxiety can be prevented and also helped by having a rich spiritual and inner life. This may seem obvious to some, but it goes against the practice of modern psychotherapy that imagines the only and best way to treat mental illness is to focus on past traumas. Miller marshals scientific and experimental evidence to show, instead, that when people feel connected to others, when their lives have purpose and meaning, and when they believe in a world of meaning beyond themselves, they are less likely to suffer mental illness.