A Quote by Jonah Goldberg

The search for a moral equivalent of war continues to define American liberalism to this day.

Jonah Goldberg

Quote Topics

American Day Define Equivalent Liberalism Moral Search This Day War

Quote Author

Jonah Goldberg
American - Journalist
Born: March 21, 1969

One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible.

William James

So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation.

William James

My main quarrel with liberalism is not that liberalism places great emphasis on individual rights - I believe rights are very important and need to be respected. The issue is whether it is possible to define and justify our rights without taking a stand on the moral and even sometimes religious convictions that citizens bring to public life.

Michael Sandel

The fundamental premise of liberalism is the moral incapacity of the American people.

Alan Keyes

Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this Nation. This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war, except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.

Jimmy Carter

Just as liberalism is the main force that drives conservatism and maintains its popularity in some quarters, conservatism is the reason liberalism continues to enjoy the traction that it does in our poor civilization.

L. Neil Smith

If you speak [ about violence against Israelis], you are in an unspeakable place, have become a Nazi or its moral equivalent (if there is a moral equivalent). It certainly terrifies, but perhaps also it is a linguistic permutation of state terrorism, an assault that stops one in one's tracks, and secures the continuing operation of the regime and its monopoly on politically intelligible speech.

Judith Butler

Being a moral realist I see normative ethics as a search of the truth about our obligations and a search of explanation; the idea is that moral principles can help us to a moral explanation of our particular obligations.

Torbjorn Tannsjo

Our planet's lands and oceans are already stretched to meet the demands of 7 billion people. The human population continues to grow. The search for sustainable solutions is an economic and a moral imperative if we are to create the future we want.

Ban Ki-moon

Both World War II and the subsequent Cold War gave America's involvement in world affairs a clear focus. The objectives of foreign policy were relatively easy to define, and they could be imbued with high moral content.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Racism and bigotry generally are the great driving engines of modern American liberalism. Even a remote hint of racism can trigger a kind of moral entrepreneurism.

Shelby Steele

While we cannot describe its appearance (the equivalent), we can define its function. When a photograph functions as an Equivalent we can say that at that moment, and for that person the photograph acts as a symbol or plays the role of a metaphor for something that is beyond the subject photographed.

Minor White

Even though the search for meaning is debunked today, the cries of the human heart can be smothered for only so long. In these yearnings, the search for significance and fulfillment continues.

Ravi Zacharias

...telephone operators now routinely use '80s-babble, chirping, "Have a nice day," the moral equivalent of the smile button.

Stefan Kanfer

There was one thing more than any other that turned this New York, liberal, Jewish, Columbia University graduate student away from modern liberalism: its use of moral equivalence to avoid confronting evil during the Cold War.