A diverse elite may be good in its own right, as a matter of justice and representation. But nothing about being a woman or a minority makes you immune to meritocracy's ruthless solipsism. — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
That the actual practice of meritocracy mostly involves a strenuous quest to avoid any kind of downward mobility, for oneself or for one's kids, is something every upper-class American understands deep in his or her highly educated bones. — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
Human beings seek community, and permanent openness is hard to sustain. — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
The American intelligentsia has been pretty secular for a long time. There have always been figures like Oprah Winfrey, let's put it that way. — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
On the evidence we have, the meritocratic ideal ends up being just as undemocratic as the old emphasis on inheritance and tradition, and it… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
“The physical vanity of the diet-and-exercise obsessive is recast as the pursuit of a kind of ritual purity, hedged about with taboos and guilt… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
There were times at Harvard when I actually longed to hang out with a few more Trotskyists, rather than yet another set of future… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
Many things about American life, that even secular people consider good, have flowed from the presence of a robust, resilient institutional Christianity. — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
“What he felt during his Spanish encounter with left-wing anti-Christianity was similar to his reactions to the anti-Christianity of the right. The "novelty and… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
“In an age of stagnant or declining birthrates, too, these communities’ willingness to heed the admonition to be fruitful and multiply has led to… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
America's problem isn't too much religion or too little of it. It's bad religion: the slow-motion collapse of traditional Christianity and the rise of… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
I do think you can see, throughout American history, this temptation, and it's both a liberal and a conservative temptation, to take a healthy… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
Where conservative Catholics have the power to resist what seem like false ideas or disastrous innovations they must do so. — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
It is not white nationalism to believe that countries like the United States would be better off with more babies. That belief can be… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
Most people want the convenience of the Internet far more than they want the private spaces that older forms of communication protected. — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
If you live under a system that claims to have high ideals but seems ineradicably opposed to your own people's flourishing, the desire for… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
