PERSPECTIVES: Censured For Not Taking the “Right” Position?

That’s what Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) faces in the U.S. House. In response, Jeffrey C. Isaac, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, writes in The American Prospect, reminding us of what Hannah Arendt wrote in 1948 in To Save The Jewish Homeland:Unanimity of opinion is a very ominous phenomenon and one characteristic of our modern age. It destroys social and personal life based on the fact that we are different by nature and conviction. To hold different opinions and to be aware that other people think differently on the same issue shields us from that Godlike certainty that stops all discussion and reduces social relationships to those of an ant heap. A unanimous public opinion tends to eliminate bodily those who differ, for mass unanimity is not the result of agreement but an expression of fanaticism and hysteria.” Read Professor Isaac’s full commentary here.

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