Jonah Goldberg: Trending quotes

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Jonah Goldberg: 178 quotes0 likes

“Africa is a mess. It is a mess by any civilized measure of human progress. It is a mess by most uncivilized measures of human progress.”

Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2000, A Continent Bleeds (2000)

“[S]egments of the Right, who denounced phrases like “economic patriotism” when it passed Barack Obama’s lips but nod and cheer when similar phrases come out of the mouths of “nationalists.” They see the state as the key to fostering a new social solidarity because it alone speaks for their new idol — or “strong god” — of the Nation. Passionate nationalists, like passionate socialists, ultimately believe that the State can love you, and if the right people take it over, the divisions that are inevitable in a free society will be knitted together by some government initiative. But that is not love, it is lust. It is a lust for power and victory for your vision over all others.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, The Government Can’t Love You (2018)

“The way you sustain and improve upon a culture is by fostering a sense of gratitude for what is best about it. You celebrate the good in your story while putting the bad in the correct context. Conservatism is gratitude…”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2019, What's So Great About Western Civilization (2019)

“But the weird thing is that many of the people who are outraged by benign nationalism or the benign pan-nationalism that is pride in Western civilization take no umbrage when someone from Iran or China says they think their civilization is best. This of course is a manifestation of the ancient cult of identitarianism, which the best traditions of the West have battled internally at great cost for thousands of years. Saying Western civilization is great hurts the feelings of some people invested in some other source of identity. And it hurts the feelings of some Westerners because they think it’s a sign of enlightenment to get offended on other people’s behalf or to denigrate the society that gave them their soap box.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2019, What's So Great About Western Civilization (2019)

“Keeping Germany from acting too German (or at least too Prussian) is an important lesson of history.”

Jonah Goldberg

"Nationalism and Nationism" https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/nationalism-debate-nation-states/ (3 April 2019), National Review <br class="br">2010s, 2019

“The rifts between Shia and Sunni, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic, Israelis and Palestinians, Tibetans and Chinese, obviously have real political, theological, or economic substance behind them, but they are often reduced to symbolism. If you study the history of nationalism, it is often a story of symbols. What flag shall we fly? What icon shall we mount? What books will we revere — or burn?”

Jonah Goldberg

"The Border Wall Is a Symbol of Our Symbolic Politics" https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/border-wall-immigration-debate-political-symbol/ (28 December 2018), National Review <br class="br">2010s, 2018

“Both flag burners and flag wavers can agree on one thing: The flag has meaning beyond the merely instrumental necessity of having a piece of cloth that identifies a legal jurisdiction.”

Jonah Goldberg

"The Power of Symbols in Our Politics of Digust" https://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/power-of-symbols-politics-of-disgust/ (28 December 2018), National Review <br class="br">2010s, 2018

“The piece was opinion, the news was fact captured on film.”

Jonah Goldberg

Twitter post https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/1159984641962631170 (9 August 2019) <br class="br">2010s, 2019

“The porkbusters fight is fun now, but not since early cave men tried to train grizzly bears to give them tongue-baths has a project seemed more obviously doomed to end in disappointment. Expecting Congress — of either party — to give back pork which has already been approved and passed into law is like expecting crack whores to give refunds days after services have been rendered.”

Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2005, Unhappy Warrior (2005)