There was a time when conservative intellectuals raised the level of American public debate and helped to keep it sober. Those days are gone. As for political judgment, the promotion of Sarah Palin as a possible world leader speaks for… — Mark Lilla Copy Share Image
Writing recently in the New York Times, David Brooks noted correctly if belatedly that conservatives disdain for liberal intellectuals had slipped into disdain for the educated class as a whole, and worried that the Republican Party was alienating educated voters.… — 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
