Ned O'Gorman Boeken

In this age of nearly unprecedented partisan rancor, you’d be forgiven for thinking we could all do with a smaller daily dose of politics. In his provocative and sharp book, however, Ned O’Gorman argues just the opposite: Politics for Everybody contends that what we really need to do is engage more deeply with politics, rather than chuck the whole thing out the window. In calling for a purer, more humanistic relationship with politics—one that does justice to the virtues of open, honest exchange—O’Gorman draws on the work of Hannah Arendt (1906–75). As a German-born Jewish thinker who fled the Nazis for the United States, Arendt set out to defend politics from its many detractors along several key lines: the challenge of separating genuine politics from distorted forms; the difficulty of appreciating politics for what it is; the problems of truth and judgment in politics; and the role of persuasion in politics. O’Gorman’s book offers an insightful introduction to Arendt’s ideas for anyone who wants to think more carefully

The book explores the strategic debates within the Eisenhower administration during the early Cold War, highlighting the need for a new American approach to global politics. It presents the formation of teams tasked with developing competing policies that reflected differing visions of America's role in the world. Through extensive archival research, it delves into the cultural and intellectual contexts of these debates, offering a rigorous analysis of American security discourse and its foundational ideas during this pivotal period.

Bloody, fiery spectacles—the Challenger disaster, 9/11, JFK’s assassination—have given us moments of catastrophe that make it easy to answer the “where were you when” question and shape our ways of seeing what came before and after. Why are these spectacles so packed with meaning? In The Iconoclastic Imagination, Ned O’Gorman approaches each of these moments as an image of icon-destruction that give us distinct ways to imagine social existence in American life. He argues that the Cold War gave rise to crises in political, aesthetic, and political-aesthetic representations. Locating all of these crises within a “neoliberal imaginary,” O’Gorman explains that since the Kennedy assassination, the most powerful way to see “America” has been in the destruction of representative American symbols or icons. This, in turn, has profound implications for a neoliberal economy, social philosophy, and public policy. Richly interwoven with philosophical, theological, and rhetorical traditions, the book offers a new foundation for a complex and innovative approach to studying Cold War America, political theory, and visual culture.

Ein zeitgemäßer Zugang zu Hannah Arendts Denken - In der heutigen Zeit denken viele, dass wir mit weniger statt mehr Politik besser dran wären. Ned O’Gorman sieht das anders. Mit Hannah Arendt argumentiert er für ein Mehr an Politik. Politik ist für Arendt nicht die letztgültige Lösung für das gedankenlos Böse, doch stellt sie ein wichtiges Gegenmittel dar – weil sie uns dazu aufruft, mit anderen, die sich von uns unterscheiden, zu reden. Politik besteht in der Auseinandersetzung mit Menschen, die anders sind als wir, in der Einbeziehung anderer Sichtweisen und Bedürfnisse und in der Vermeidung von gedankenlosen Vorurteilen und instinktiven Reaktionen. Was machen wir aus der Tatsache unseres Zusammenlebens? Eben dies ist laut Arendt die entscheidende politische Frage. O’Gorman macht Hannah Arendts Gedankengänge allen verständlich und setzt sie dabei gewinnbringend in Bezug zur heutigen Zeit.