My friend and colleague Elizabeth Corey:
If there’s anything that could shake the confidence of the conservative warrior, it might be to consider what he’s sacrificing. I would put the question this way: what have you given up in fighting your political battles, in making your shocking and polemical arguments? Have you been calm and open toward your family, receptive toward the people who live alongside you, devoted to your students? Or has your soul changed, such that you no longer speak to old friends or write them off as traitors? Fighting can corrupt the soul. Nobody can be in Ithaka and Troy at the same time. And while you’re in Troy, Ithaka may well be crumbling — especially if nobody is there to tend it.
My disposition is fundamentally conservative, in that I am grateful for the cultural, spiritual, and artistic inheritance I have received and wish to preserve it, contribute to it, and transmit it to later generations. Even my increasing commitment to anarchism arises from my belief that anarchist practices best enable conservation. And like Elizabeth I lament that so many people nowadays call themselves conservatives when they have absolutely zero interest in conserving anything. They’re all fighting like madmen at Troy and have utterly forgotten Ithaka. It’s war for war’s sake.