--- title: "3 Common good Quotes By Mark Lilla" description: "3 Common good quotes by Mark Lilla. Plus more from Mark Lilla and more Common good sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9a5/mark-lilla-13300_affirmative-action_the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-poli_755425.jpg" --- > [“The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal; they encourage factions and interests to come together to work out common…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-politics-are-centripetal-they/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9a5/mark-lilla-13300_affirmative-action_the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-poli_755425.jpg) > [“The most important lesson is this: that for two generations America has been without a political vision of its destiny. There is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-for-two-generations-america/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg) > [“The politics of identity is nothing new, certainly on the American right. What was astonishing during the Reagan Dispensation was the development…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new-certainly-on-the-american/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg) ## Other authors on Common good - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b019/author-pope-francis-75890.jpg) Pope Francis 20 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/common-good/pope-francis/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b019/author-pope-john-paul-ii-75898.jpg) Pope John Paul II 8 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/common-good/pope-john-paul-ii/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b004/author-ayn-rand-15943.jpg) Ayn Rand 6 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/common-good/ayn-rand/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b016/author-marcus-aurelius-63282.jpg) Marcus Aurelius 5 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/common-good/marcus-aurelius/) ## More by Mark Lilla > [“Democratic politics is about persuasion, not self-expression. I’m here, I’m queer will never provoke more than a pat on the head or a roll…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/democratic-politics-is-about-persuasion-not-self-expression-i-m-here/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The other component was to build cadres through political education. Republicans sought out wealthy donors to set up foundations and think tanks as safe…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-other-component-was-to-build-cadres-through-political-education/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The romantic wants to create a world where he or she will possess a fully integrated, unconflicted identity—where the answers to the questions Who…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-romantic-wants-to-create-a-world-where-he-or-she-will-possess-a/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“How we react to the presidency of Donald Trump will be the first test of our preparedness. His administration in its infancy is already…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/how-we-react-to-the-presidency-of-donald-trump-will-be-the-first-test/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The universities of our time instead cultivate students so obsessed with their personal identities and campus pseudo-politics that they have much less interest in,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-universities-of-our-time-instead-cultivate-students-so-obsessed/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The Republicans have successfully persuaded much of the public that they are the party of Joe Sixpack and Democrats are the party of Jessica…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-republicans-have-successfully-persuaded-much-of-the-public-that/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Mary McCarthy, though, had it wrong when she wrote that “Madame Bovary is Don Quixote in skirts.” Emma’s suffering is Platonic: she searches, in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/mary-mccarthy-though-had-it-wrong-when-she-wrote-that-madame-bovary/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“You might have thought that, faced with a novel anti-political picture of the nation, liberals would have countered with an imaginative, hopeful vision of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a-novel-anti-political-picture/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The Stillborn God is not a fairy tale. It is a book about the fragility of our world, the world created by the intellectual…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-stillborn-god-is-not-a-fairy-tale-it-is-a-book-about-the/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal; they encourage factions and interests to come together to work out common goals and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-politics-are-centripetal-they/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Martin Luther King Jr. was the greatest movement leader in American history. But, as Hillary Clinton once correctly pointed out, his efforts would have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/martin-luther-king-jr-was-the-greatest-movement-leader-in-american/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Like any other political doctrine, liberalism makes assumptions about things human and divine, and these assumptions are, and ought to remain, open to disinterested…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/like-any-other-political-doctrine-liberalism-makes-assumptions-about/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Better the self-torture of a godless Protestant conscience than the fantasies of a modern Prometheus.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/better-the-self-torture-of-a-godless-protestant-conscience-than-the/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Identity is not the future of the left. It is not a force hostile to neoliberalism. Identity is Reaganism for lefties.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/identity-is-not-the-future-of-the-left-it-is-not-a-force-hostile-to/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [Whoever takes it upon himself to write an honest intellectual history of twentieth-century Europe will need a strong stomach. But he will need something…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/whoever-takes-it-upon-himself-to-write-an-honest-intellectual-history/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/common-good/mark-lilla/#itemlist", "name": "3 Common good Quotes By Mark Lilla", "numberOfItems": 3, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal; they encourage factions and interests to come together to work out common goals and strategies. They oblige everyone to think, or at least speak, about the common good. In movement politics, the forces are all centrifugal, encouraging splits into smaller and smaller factions obsessed with single issues and practicing rituals of ideological one-upmanship. So the New Left's legacy to liberalism was a double one. It spawned issue-based movements that helped to bring about progressive change in a number of areas, most notably the environment and human rights abroad. And it spawned identity-based social movements -- for affirmative action and diversity, feminism, gay liberation -- that have made this country a more tolerant, more just, and more inclusive place than it was fifty years ago. What the New Left did not do was contribute to the unification of the Democratic Party and the development of a liberal vision of Americans' shared future. And as interest slowly shifted from issue-based ones, the focus of American liberalism also shifted from commonality to difference. And what replaced a broad political vision was a pseudo-political and distinctly American rhetoric of the feeling self and its struggle for recognition. Which turned out to be not all that different from Reagan's anti-political rhetoric of the producing self and its struggle for profit. Just less sentimental and more sanctimonious.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-politics-are-centripetal-they/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9a5/mark-lilla-13300_affirmative-action_the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-poli_755425.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9a5/mark-lilla-13300_affirmative-action_the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-poli_755425.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9a5/mark-lilla-13300_affirmative-action_the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-poli_755425.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal; they encourage factions and interests to come…” — Mark Lilla", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The most important lesson is this: that for two generations America has been without a political vision of its destiny. There is no conservative one; there is no liberal one. There are just two tired individualistic ideologies intrinsically incapable of discerning the common good and drawing the country together to secure it under present circumstances. We are governed by parties that no longer know what they want in a large sense, only what they don’t want in a small sense. Republicans don’t want the programs and reforms that are the legacy of the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. Democrats don’t want Republicans to cut them. But what are the parties’ ultimate aims, whatever the size and shape of government? What are they fundamentally after? What sort of image of the future governs their actions? They seem no longer to know. So the public can hardly be expected to. We find ourselves in a post-vision America.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-for-two-generations-america/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The most important lesson is this: that for two generations America has been without a political vision of…” — Mark Lilla", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The politics of identity is nothing new, certainly on the American right. What was astonishing during the Reagan Dispensation was the development of a left-wing version of it that became the de facto creed of two generations of liberal politicians, professors, schoolteachers, journalists, movement activists, and officials of the Democratic Party. This was not a historical accident. For the fascination, and then obsession, with identity did not challenge the fundamental principle of Reaganism. It reinforced that principle: individualism. Identity politics on the left was at first about large classes of people -- African-Americans, women -- seeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions to secure their rights. But by the 1980s it had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow and exclusionary self-definition that is now cultivated in our colleges and universities. The main result has been to turn young people back onto themselves, rather than turning them toward the wider world. It has left them unprepared to think about the common good and what must be done practically to secure it -- especially the hard and unglamorous task of persuading people very different from themselves to join a common effort. Every advance of liberal identity consciousness has marked a retreat of liberal political consciousness. Without which no vision of America's future can be imagined.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new-certainly-on-the-american/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The politics of identity is nothing new, certainly on the American right. 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