“Hawley talks again and again about the importance of community and criticizes those on both sides of the political aisle who pay fealty to an individualism that puts the self-creating individual at the summit of what constitutes the good.“
“As Jim Geraghty writes, rather than importing our values, China is exporting its repression into our societies on the back of mass industrial theft and espionage.”
“While material prosperity should be a priority, it shouldn’t be the only priority. Simply possessing the latest consumer goods won’t provide a meaningful life that comes from a sense of dignity, purpose and responsibility rooted in community.”
“Shapiro’s book is a well-written and, at times, moving defense of Western Civilization.”
“The risk in our increasingly polarized and tribally divided times is that these societies —ours among them—are thrashing around in a sea of hopeless liquid modernity and risk coming apart in a storm of violence.”
“The destruction of Notre Dame has shaken our complacent belief in the permanence of things and the ability for our culture to last without care and cultivation. It reveals and reminds us that life is a fragile thing, and even the strongest bastions dedicated to the eternal can still be brought down.”
“[Werner Catel] called for the continuation of the Nazi program of involuntary euthanasia, saying, “…We are not talking about humans here, but rather beings that were merely procreated by humans and that will never themselves become humans endowed with reason or a soul.”
“In our lifetimes, many populations in Europe will age and shrink drastically due to their lack of belief in the possibility of transcending death, a belief that undergirds culture.”
“As such, quiet gratitude rather than arrogant pride is, I believe, the right attitude to take towards the idea of the nation.”
“Like Pelagius, Peterson thinks we can achieve salvation through our own efforts of will, without the grace of God. Like the aforementioned Gnostics, Peterson repeatedly argues that we each have a spark of the divine in us, so can manifest the divine here and now in our damned world of suffering.”
“It may sound trite to say so, but the national state is the worst way of arranging and governing human societies, apart from all the others.”
“Changing the meanings of previously understood words is what ideologues do.”
“No one people, nation or culture has a monopoly on the shadows of human nature. Historians influenced by Zinn and the story he tells should try to remember this.”
“In many parts of the world, the anarchy came, and those like Pinker who insist otherwise should reflect on whether their claims really reflect reality, or whether they are simply bromides used by those thought-leaders who see the horror and turn away, looking to statistics as consolation against the tragedy.“
“As Ross Douthat says, you may have hated the religious Right but wait until you see the post-religious Right.”
