The New Criterion.
“Progressives do seem especially concerned for their own virtue. But I think the concern is more oftenfor being seen as virtuous. Being good is a great deal harder than appearing to be good, if only because the course of real goodness is diabolically difficult to chart. Real goodness is often private and unacknowledged, because it’s not pursued for acknowledgment’s sake. Genuine virtue isn’t anything you might feel a need to signal….
Most of us enjoy feeling important. So the political distinction here is why we want to feel important—that is, what we seek recognition for. I registered long ago that I have little interest in plaudits for being good—but I’m thrilled to be recognized as being good at. I’m happy to be called a good writer. Yet I don’t covet a designation as “a good person,” which means that temperamentally I could never be other than a crap progressive…
Do progressives sincerely want a utopia, in the same way that the Islamic world looks forward to a caliphate? Are they continually putting the finishing touches on a radiant vision of comity, fairness, racial harmony, and equality for all? A better world of ease, mutual understanding, universal wellness, and brotherly love, in which all needs are fulfilled, all frustrations soothed, all animosity neutralized?I won’t speak for the Islamists, but I’m not convinced that most progressives nurture fantasies of a sunny Valhalla, where hot tubs run on wind turbines and congenial citizens strum lyres and pop grapes. I’m afraid the progressive mind is a darker place…
“Old” bookstores are never old.
+ David Starkey on the French and Their Riots. “All bad ideas are French!”
