“I discovered that the meaning of monuments changes with passing time and that they frequently say more about their creator than their subject. The unifying thread that connects controversial monuments around the world: imperial, Confederate, religious - is that they are physical embodiments of mythologies.”

 “Myths that turn defeats to victory, the celebration of lost causes, are durable and disturb the present in unexpected ways.”

 “In the popular mind the Civil War came to be about fighting for a bygone homeland, a genteel place, not a war for or against slavery. The mythical Robert E Lee existed before the man Robert E Lee was born and he was born again as an equestrian statue long after his death.”

“Orthodoxy makes us certain. Ignorance of history is often lamented, but we can know a history too well. Those responsible for building the statue of Cornwallis suffered this sort of myopia – they knew the official celebratory school-book story of the British Empire and suffered its bigotries and prejudices. Their jingoistic view of the world made them oblivious to those suffering on the margins and to believe that “all things good came from Britain”. Their embarrassed descendants of the lite-left share a new orthodoxy. They know a history that holds “nothing good came from Britain” and its corollary “and that goes for you too Shakespeare, and the rest of you old white men.”

“All things enlightened do not arise from liberal humanism. Not everything that comprises good governance flows from democracy. That conservatism has come to simply mean, old fashioned, ill-educated, reactionary or right-wing befogs the field of battle between those now entrenched on the right and the left of American politics.“

“The liberal intelligentsia failed to countenance these heretics on the right as their own … they must be recognized as a failure within liberalism. Instead of heaping scorn, liberal sophisticates should recognize their rough-hewn cousins as an organic gardener sees a heritage vegetable: not as smooth and processed as modern hybrid liberals, but the stubborn sort of individuals of whom republics are built.”

“The political morass through which Western democracies now slog has been decades in the making. The virtual un-person at the center of this dysfunctional moment is but a passing symptom not its cause.”

“Hectoring and shaming by social-theorists deepened entrenchment. Liberal nuggets strewn throughout the rhetoric of right-wing populists in the countryside and spent blue-collar towns were dismissed.”

“It puzzles me that conservative intellectuals in America, at least from William F. Buckley onward, accept small government, low taxation and unfettered markets as a doctrinal truth. These flow from our liberal impulse.”

“Each of us, yearns for the village. Part of us wants to belong and to submerse our individual selves into family, tribe, and community. That conservative impulse wants stability, moderation, decorum, civility and respect. It values social norms that shelter us from reckless individuals, nurtures sustaining mythologies and is fearful about the erosion of institutional authority.”

“The liberal sees this conservative view of human nature as pessimistic. This is a misunderstanding. The conservative side of our mind does not bow at the alter of individual liberty, it draws inspiration from society and its institutions. Like the liberal view, it can be hopeful and optimistic about human progress, but it puts the choir above the soloist. “

“The bullying braggarts who now strut the stage and their dissembling enablers are a throwback to those who drove my ancestors into the frozen north. But don’t get me wrong; “I think you had some very bad people in that group, but I think there is blame on both sides and you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”