Editor’s Note

Openness is a fundamental commitment of Public Seminar. The editors, contributors and, I hope, the readers all are committed to “Confronting fundamental problems of the human condition and pressing problems of the day, using the broad resources of social research, we seek to provoke critical and informed discussion by any means necessary,” as we put it on our “About” page. Among our contributors and readers, there are very significant differences of opinion and judgement. We have no specific political or theoretical profile. That said, I would like to emphasize that when it comes to responding to perceived challenges to democracy, which is now sadly an escalating global development, we especially welcome all and competing points of view.  I am adding this note today because even though many agree with today’s post on the crisis in Brazil, I know of members of the larger New School-Public Seminar community who strongly disagree, as is suggested by an earlier post we published on the unfolding crisis in Brazil. PS is a place for such debate, about the prospects for democracy in Brazil, as well as many other places, including the United States, where, as I have indicated, I believe that there is a need for a united front against anti-democratic challenges, while others think quite differently.