Quotations

"Brexit will alter Britain irrevocably. Any project that presupposes close alignment with the EU – such as Scottish independence – belongs in the past." English philosopher John Gray

"Gramsci’s belief that the working class makes history has turned out to be right, at least in Britain, but not in the way he and his disciples imagined. Somewhere in the heavens, the gods are laughing." John Gray

"According to Jay Keyser, professor emeritus of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, [George] Steiner was told at a seminar in the 1970s that, while he had written at length on Dostoevsky's use of the definite article, there was no such thing in Russian. "It was as though a fly had landed on his shoulder," says Keyser. "A criticism that should have been devastating made no impact."
Maya Jaggi, The Guardian, 17 Mar 2001



"...as Craig Raine pointed out in his illuminating essay Conrad and Prejudice, it is no good complaining about the fact that Conrad portrays some Africans as cannibals when some Africans were cannibals." Ben Sixsmith

"Conservatism is based on love and fear: love of what one has, or has had, and fear of its destruction." Ben Sixsmith


“In the twenty-first century, anarchical protest movements join in a friendly tussle with global oligarchy, in which neither side can be hurt since both see the real enemy as the state.” American historian Timothy Snyder, in 'Black Earth' (this is not true - both sides want to use the state for their own purposes)

"Since 1947 America has been the chief and pioneering perpetrator of 'preemptive' state terror, exclusively in the Third World and therefore widely dissembled."
American Marxist historian Arno J. Mayer, after September 11, 2001


"I think the priest from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov highlights the difference here. Conservatism is love in action - trying to provide a living for your family, being a responsible member of your community, trying to improve things within your self, family and local community first through harsh realism and responsibility. Leftism is love in dreams - believing that you can deliver cosmic justice on a cosmic scale. The intoxicating romanticism of allying yourself with the causes of nations on the other side of the world. You never have to face the unglamorous and humbling reality that the biggest struggle is against your own vices and trying to be the best son, brother, husband, coworker, friend, etc that you can be by choosing the right thing, choosing self-denial over easy, quick pleasures." Anonymous comment on an article headed '18% of social scientists are Marxist. Far less are Republican' on this site.