Tony Judt
British-American · 1948–2010
British-born American historian and public intellectual, author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 and Ill Fares the Land, known for his defense of European social democracy and the moral obligations of intellectuals.
Wikipedia ↗“The twentieth century is hardly behind us but already its quarrels and its ideals, its hopes and its fears are slipping into obscurity.”
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“If we have learned nothing else from the twentieth century, we should at least have grasped that the more perfect the answer, the more terrifying its consequences.”
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“We have entered an age of insecurity — economic insecurity, physical insecurity, political insecurity.”
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“A society of uncertain, insecure, and anxious individuals — that is what awaits us when the welfare state is dismantled.”
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“In the United States today, the weights are so heavy on the scales of justice that we are in serious risk of forfeiting our national myths.”
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“Why do we experience such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society? Why is it beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage?”
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“Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past. But among the options available to us in the present, it is better than anything else to hand.”
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