“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… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“There can be no liberal politics without a sense of we—of what we are as citizens and what we owe each other. If liberals hope ever to recapture America’s imagination and become a dominant force across the country, it will… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“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 of the eyes. Accept that you will never agree with people on everything—that’s to be expected in a democracy. One effect of engaging in social movements tied to identity is that you’ve been surrounded by the… — Mark Lilla Copy Share
“The other component was to build cadres through political education. Republicans sought out wealthy donors to set up foundations and think tanks as safe spaces outside the university for elaborating the Republican catechism, a document that grew from a cocktail napkin to a vast library of popular books and academic policy studies. They set up summer camps where college students… — Mark Lilla Copy Share
“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… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“How we react to the presidency of Donald Trump will be the first test of our preparedness. His administration in its infancy is already… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“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,… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“The Republicans have successfully persuaded much of the public that they are the party of Joe Sixpack and Democrats are the party of Jessica… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“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… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“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… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“The Stillborn God is not a fairy tale. It is a book about the fragility of our world, the world created by the intellectual… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal; they encourage factions and interests to come together to work out common goals and… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“Martin Luther King Jr. was the greatest movement leader in American history. But, as Hillary Clinton once correctly pointed out, his efforts would have… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
“Like any other political doctrine, liberalism makes assumptions about things human and divine, and these assumptions are, and ought to remain, open to disinterested… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
