Dwight Macdonald > Quotes

“Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion”
― Dwight MacDonald

“Lots of writers are fascinated by evil and write copiously about it, but they are bored by virtue; this not only limits their scope but prevents a satisfactory account of evil, which can no more be comprehended apart from good than light can be comprehended apart from darkness.”
― Dwight Macdonald, Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain

“There is nothing more vulgar than sophisticated kitsch.”
― Dwight Macdonald

“La cultura de masas no ofrece a sus clientes una catarsis emocional ni tampoco una experiencia estética, porque estas cosas requieren esfuerzo. La cultura de masas es, en la mejor de las hipótesis, un reflejo vulgarizado de la Alta Cultura y, en el peor, un íncubo moral, un Kulturkatzenjammer”
― Dwight Macdonald, Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain

“We must learn to live with contradictions, to have faith in skepticism, to advance toward the solution of a problem by admitting as a possibility that it may be insoluble.”
― Dwight Macdonald, The Root Is Man

“it is a terrible fact, but it is a fact, that few people have the imagination or the moral sensitivity to get very excited about actions which they don't participate in themselves.... and hence about which they feel no personal responsibility”
― Dwight Macdonald, Politics Past