Five Books interview with Brink Lindsey
Check out this fascinating interview with the Cato Institute’s Brink Lindsey:
I think the typical view of politics from inside a partisan mindset is to see politics as a battle of the good guys versus the bad guys. Maybe the good guys are on the left, maybe the good guys are on the right, but it’s this Manichean struggle and the way to get progress is for the good side to win and impose their will. Mill sees through that and sees that, in fact, politics is a dialectical process. At any given time truth is partly on one side and partly on the other. It’s more a battle of half-truths and incomplete truths than of good versus bad. The excesses of each side ultimately create opportunities for the other to come in and correct those excesses. Liberalism, in Mill’s view and in mine, provides the basic motive force of political change and progress. It will go astray, it will have excesses, it will make terrible mistakes – and a conservatism that is focused on preserving good things that exist now will be a necessary counterweight to that liberalism.
Brink also talks about the great books that influence modern classical liberalism in a very thoughtful and considered manner. Excellent stuff.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
I once saw a video with Brink Lindsey debating liberals on the topic of the common ground between libertarians & liberals.
I remember he came out in support of the Democrats in 2008 because as he said ‘I’d rather squabble with Democrats over economic matters then argue the toss with republicans over abortion & creationism’.
The other thing I remember about this guy is he came out strongly against Ron Paul describing him as a wackjob