Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Goldberg on Ideology

I have taken up the task of reading through Jonah Goldberg's The Tyranny of Clichés.  I will be posting quotes I find interesting.
"The process of deciding whether something is 'right for the times' is an inescapably ideological one." Goldberg 23
"To date I am aware of no ideological school...that claims it does not work." Goldberg 24
"An ideology, at the most fundamental level, is simply a checklist of ideas you have about the world.  Having an ideology doesn't mean you've been brainwashed, it means you've come to conclusions about how the world works at some basic level." Goldberg 32
"We learn an enormous number of important things from books...If I see a kid fuse his tongue to a frozen flagpole, I don't need to replicate the error myself to learn from the example.  Similarly, we don't all need to fight a land war in Asia or go against a Sicilian when death is on the line to avoid someone else's blunder."  Goldberg 37

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