Partial Readings: Exit Morality

Exit Morality
Michael Walzer on how to get out: “Even when you fight an unnecessary war…you acquire responsibilities in its course, so that when you start thinking about how to get out, as we are now doing, you have to make sure that you do it in ways that don’t put people needlessly at risk and in ways that recognize responsibilities that you have incurred.”

Left in the Limelight
Russell Jacoby on the glamorous exploits of BHL: “Wealthy and telegenic, BHL dresses to the nines and consorts with the rich and the beautiful…And yet in a period in which the left has lost its bearings, it can ill afford to brush aside even its most megalomaniac critics. Even a showman can sometimes show the way.”

An Establishment Man
George Packer on Obama: “What underlies so many of Obama’s decisions is an attachment to the institutions that hold up American society, a desire to make them function better rather than remake them altogether.”

Master and Slave
Geoff Mulgan on the financial crisis: “Just as monarchy moved from centre stage to become more peripheral, so capitalism will no longer dominate society and culture as much as it does today. Capitalism may, in short, become a servant rather than a master, and the slump will accelerate this change.”

Freewheelin’ Obama
Bob Dylan reads Dreams from My Father: “His writing style hits you on more than one level. It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do. He says profoundly outrageous things.”