Christopher Caldwell quotes

One moves swiftly and imperceptibly from a world in which affirmative action can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too weak to a world in which it can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too strong. (Christopher Caldwell)
[Y]ou see evidence in the united Europe-in which there is free circulation of people and ideas-of a much more homegrown European-style antisemitism. You see a sort of waning of vigilance. You see a rise of the kind of clubby, dinner-party type antisemitism in England, where it is very strong. So I do think there is a new antisemitism, but I'm afraid it hasn't so much replaced the old antisemitism as exists alongside of it. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
[T]he escalation of the radicalization of Muslims in Europe, I think, has, in the past 2 or 3 years – and you know the incidents – the Nice truck bombing, the Berlin Christmas Fair bombing, those sorts of incidents, I think, have really worried Europeans. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
[L]aws against Holocaust denial have done more harm than good. On a practical political level, I think that they give very intolerant mischief makers a cheap and easy way to pose as something more exalted than what they actually are, as sort of martyrs of free speech. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
The thing I worry about in Europe is that there is a logic of escalation in some of this. That the people whose voices aren't heard have to do things to make their voices heard. Do you know what I mean? They'll have to, you know, like, demonstrate and that kind of thing. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
Europe can be the scene of world history even if it's not the protagonist in world history, but it seems to show very little sign of being the protagonist. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident and strengthened by common doctrines, it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
If one abandons the idea that Western Europeans are rapacious and exploitative by nature, and that Africans, Asians, and other would-be immigrants are inevitably their victims, then the fundamental difference between colonization and labor migration ceases to be obvious. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
Bizarrely, as immigration began to change Europe at its economic and cultural core, the political vocabulary remained the same as when immigration had been a fringe phenomenon. People kept talking about restaurants. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
In no country in Europe does the bulk of the population aspire to live in a bazaar of world cultures. Yet all European countries are coming to the wrenching realization that they have somehow, without anyone's actively choosing it, turned into such bazaars. View quote
Christopher Caldwell
Dual citizenship is a great convenience for certain favored people and those who serve them. But it shakes loose the wider society's understanding of itself as a people - and thus shakes loose the basis on which it can secure its own rights. Citizenship rights are not just an abstract but a practical thing. They have to be not just dreamed up and proposed, but also administered and defended. They are most likely to produce a stable and just society when the people who are asserting them are the same people who are defending them. (Christopher Caldwell)