American - Historian | 1969 -
Social conservatism, business conservatism: the one side constitutes the other, like some infernal Mobius strip.
Rick Perlstein
BusinessSideSocialLikeSome
One of the most important things liberals don't understand about conservatism, obscured by too much lazy talk about conservatism's various 'wings,' is that its tenets form a relatively organic base for its adherents, where 'traditional morality' serves the interests of laissez-faire economics and vice-versa.
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Here's an irony of the history of conservatism's relationship with business and business's relationship with conservatism: 'Wall Street' used to be the right-wing industrialists of the forties and fifties' greatest term of derision. (Wall Street was the place that humiliated them by forcing them, hat in hand, to beg for capital).
BusinessRelationshipHistoryHat
Richard M. Nixon honestly believed in his bones that an organized conspiracy of liberal media insiders had literally been plotting against him ever since he broke Alger Hiss in 1948 (he never shifted course, and lost his soul).
SoulMediaLostNeverHimOrganized
Conservatives are time-biders. And they understand, as Corey Robin explains in his indispensable book 'The Reactionary Mind,' that the direction of human history is not on their side - that is why they are reactionaries - because, other things equal, civilization does tend towards more inclusion, more emancipation, more liberalism.
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When conservatives talk to one another, pay attention: they say what they want to do, and mean it. And will do just about anything to get there - even, or especially, claiming that they don't want to do the thing they want to do, until the time is ripe, and they can do it.
TimeAttentionSayWantTalkMean
I'm a historian. The act of predicting the future discomfits me, in any event - and the bigger the prediction, the more distrusting I am.
FutureI AmMeMoreActBigger
Personally, speaking as a historian and a storyteller, when it comes to inaccuracy in historical fictioneering, I follow the Shakespeare principle: I'm willing to overlook gobs of mistaken detail if the poetic valence is basically correct.
DetailFollowHistoricalPrinciple
The history of American higher education over the twentieth century is an extraordinary one, the story of the creation of a powerhouse set of institutions that are the envy of the civilized world. Once they were the province, both among the student and faculty bodies, of children of privilege, generally WASPs.
EducationChildrenHistoryWorld
I love trade magazines - any trade's magazine: by entering into what is taken for granted in a world not your own, you better recognize the vastness of the social universe - for there are so, so many worlds that are not your own.
LoveWorldBetterUniverseYouOwn
When you're a writer, you never know which of your pieces are going to gain a toehold and which will not, and it's best not to care too much.
BestCareYouToo MuchKnowNever
I feel bound to respect Ronald Reagan, as every American should - not least because he chose a career of public service when he could have made a lot more money doing something else, and not least because he took genuine risks for peace.
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