Mark Lilla

Liberties - A Journal of Culture and Politics features new essays and poetry from some of today’s best writers and artists, along with introducing new talent, to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of culture and politics. This inaugural issue of Liberties includes: Michael Ignatieff on liberalism and the environment; Laura Kipnis cheers transgression; David Grossman on literature and peace; Ramachandra Guha on the Indian tragedy; Thomas Chatterton Williams on the real James Baldwin; Mark Lilla on the power of indifference; Helen Vendler on Yeats' The Second Coming; Sean Wilentz on abolition and American origins; Adam Zagajeweski on Gustav Mahler; James Wolcott on America’s modern Jacobins; Andrea Marcolongo on how language defines us; Eli Lake on the birth of American unexceptionalism; Sally Satel on the riddle of addiction; Moshe Halbertal on creating a democratic Jewish state; David Thomson on the wonder of Terrence Malick; Julius Margolin’s memoir confronting hatred; Clara Collier on plague literature; Shawn McCreesh’s personal look at a youthful community of addiction; new poetry from the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Louise Glück, Joshua Bennett, and Hannah Sullivan; and, Leon Wieseltier (editor) and Celeste Marcus (managing editor).

"A wise and wonderfully enjoyable book. Mark Lilla treats weighty matters with a light touch, in an elegant prose style that crackles with dry wit . . . Invigorating." --John Banville, The GuardianA dazzling exploration of our wish to remain innocent and ignorant--and its consequences. Aristotle claimed that "all human beings want to know." Our own experience proves that all human beings also want not to know. Today, centuries after the Enlightenment, mesmerized crowds still follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds out common sense and expertise. Why is this? Where does this will to ignorance come from, and how does it continue to shape our lives? In Ignorance and Bliss, the acclaimed essayist and historian of ideas Mark Lilla offers an absorbing psychological diagnosis of the human will not to know. With erudition and brio, Lilla ranges from the Book of Genesis and Plato's dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, revealing the paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves. He also exposes the fantasies this impulse lead us to entertain--the illusion that the ecstasies of prophets, mystics, and holy fools offer access to esoteric truths; the illusion of children's lamb-like innocence; and the nostalgic illusion of recapturing the glories of vanished and allegedly purer civilizations. The result is a highly original meditation that invites readers to consider their own deep-seated impulses and taboos. We want to know, we want not to know. We accept truth, we resist truth. Back and forth the mind shuttles, playing badminton with itself. But it doesn't feel like a game. It feels as if our lives are at stake. And they are.

‘Wise and wonderfully enjoyable. . . . timely and terrifically witty.’ — John Banville, The Observer ‘Mark Lilla is always a challenging, fascinating mind – alert to all the power, paradox, and dangers of ignorance.’ — Rory Stewart Aristotle claimed that ‘all human beings want to know’. Yet we also want not to know. Centuries after the Enlightenment, mesmerised crowds still follow preposterous prophets; irrational rumours trigger fanatical acts; and magical thinking crowds out common sense and expertise. Where does this will to ignorance originate, and how does it shape our lives today? Acclaimed essayist and historian of ideas Mark Lilla offers an absorbing intellectual travelogue of the human will not to know. He ranges with brio from the Book of Genesis and Plato’s dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, revealing the paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves. Lilla also exposes the illusions that this impulse can lead us to entertain: our belief in the ecstasies of prophet figures as a gateway to truth, the myth of children’s wise simplicity, and the yearning for vanished, allegedly purer civilisations.

“A Meteor of Intelligent Substance”“Something was Missing in our Culture, and Here It Is”"Liberties is THE place to be. Change starts in the mind." Liberties, a journal of Culture and Politics, is essential reading for those engaged in the cultural and political issues and causes of our time. Liberties features serious, independent, stylish, and controversial essays by significant writers and leaders throughout the world; new poetry; and, introduces the next generation of writers and voices to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of today’s culture and politics. This issue of Liberties includes: new work from Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa; drawings by Leonard Cohen published for the first time; Mamtimin Ala’s essay on China’s genocide of the Uyghurs; Jaroslaw Anders’ analysis of the crisis in Belarus; Cass R. Sunstein on liberalism inebriated; Richard Thompson Ford on what slavery does and does not explain; Sean Wilentz on the historical strategy of the Republican Party; Benjamin Moser writes about translation as a form of tourism in literary life; Jonathan Zimmerman on the scandal of college teaching; Mark Lilla on cults of innocence and their victims; Helen Vendler on Adrienne Rich; Holly Brewer on race and enlightenment; David Thomson asks, What shall we watch now?; Celeste Marcus (managing editor) on the legend of Alice Neel; Leon Wieseltier (editor) on Zionism’s beautiful stubbornness of survival; and new poetry from Ange Mlinko and Shaul Tchernikhovsky, translated by Robert Alter.

From one of the most internationally admired political thinkers, a controversial polemic on the failures of identity politics and what comes next for the left -- in America and beyond. Following the shocking results of the US election of 2016, public intellectuals across the globe offered theories and explanations, but few were met with such vitriol, panic, and debate as Mark Lilla's. The Once and Future Liberal is a passionate plea to liberals to turn from the divisive politics of identity and develop a vision of the future that can persuade all citizens that they share a common destiny. Driven by a sincere desire to protect society's most vulnerable, the left has unwittingly balkanized the electorate, encouraged self-absorption rather than solidarity, and invested its energies in social movements rather than party politics. Identity-focused individualism has insidiously conspired with amoral economic individualism to shape an electorate with little sense of a shared future and near-contempt for the idea of the common good. Now is the time to re-build a sense of common feeling and purpose, and a sense of duty to one another. A fiercely argued, important book, enlivened by acerbic wit and erudition, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our times.

For nearly 40 years, Ronald Reagan's vision--small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism--has remained America's dominant political ideology. The Democratic Party has offered no truly convincing competing vision. Instead, American liberalism has fallen under the spell of identity politics. Mark Lilla argues with acerbic wit that liberals, originally driven by a sincere desire to protect the most vulnerable Americans, have now unwittingly invested their energies in social movements rather than winning elections. This abandonment of political priorities has had dire consequences. But, with the Republican Party led by an unpredictable demagogue and in ideological disarray, Lilla believes liberals now have an opportunity to turn from the divisive politics of identity, and offer positive ideas for a shared future. A fiercely-argued, no-nonsense book, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our momentous times.

European history of the past century is full of examples of philosophers, writers, and jurists who, whether they lived in democratic, communist, or fascist societies, supported and defended totalitarian principles and horrific regimes. But how can intellectuals, who should be alert to the evils of tyranny, betray the ideals of freedom and independent inquiry? How can they take positions that, implicitly or not, endorse oppression and human suffering on a vast scale? In profiles of Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Alexandre Kojeve, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, Mark Lilla demonstrates how these thinkers were so deluded by the ideologies and convulsions of their times that they closed their eyes to authoritarianism, brutality, and state terror. He shows how intellectuals who fail to master their passions can be driven into a political sphere they scarcely understand, with momentous results for our intellectual and political lives. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.

We don't understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today's political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motivated by highly developed ideas. Lilla begins with three twentieth-century philosophers-Franz Rosenzweig, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss-who attributed the problems of modern society to a break in the history of ideas and promoted a return to earlier modes of thought. He then examines the enduring power of grand historical narratives of betrayal to shape political outlooks since the French Revolution, and shows how these narratives are employed in the writings of Europe's right-wing cultural pessimists and Maoist neocommunists, American theoconservatives fantasizing about the harmony of medieval Catholic society and radical Islamists seeking to restore a vanished Muslim caliphate. The revolutionary spirit that inspired political movements across the world for two centuries may have died out. But the spirit of reaction that rose to meet it has survived and is proving just as formidable a historical force. We live in an age when the tragicomic nostalgia of Don Quixote for a lost golden age has been transformed into a potent and sometimes deadly weapon. Mark Lilla helps us to understand why.

A brilliant account of religion's role in the political thinking of the West, from the Enlightenment to the close of World War II. The wish to bring political life under God's authority is nothing new, and it's clear that today religious passions are again driving world politics, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest-and its surprising role in shaping Western thought. Making us look deeper into our beliefs about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West's unique trajectory and how to remain on it. Illuminating and challenging, The Stillborn God is a watershed in the history of ideas.