In Which I Talk to a Conservative about His Reactionary Mind

Corey Robin in his blog:

Book-coverDaniel Larison is just about one of the smartest conservatives around. He’s a writer and editor at The American Conservative*, has got a PhD from the University of Chicago and a sensibility that hearkens back to Peter Vierick and the Southern Agrarians: anti-imperial, leery of corporate capitalism, regionalist, and fiercely independent. He’s one of the most scathing critics of the Republican Party and contemporary conservatism around, and he’s not afraid to call people out on their foolishness, even when they’re (putatively) on his side. Yet he still manages to get high praise from his peers on the right.

So, naturally, when The New Inquiry—an online venture described by Jonathan Lethem as “evidence of book culture’s lastingly bright futureoffered to put me in dialogue with Daniel about my book, I leaped at the chance. What ensued was a free-wheeling and substantive—very substantive—exchange over the course of several weeks: about conservatism, counterrevolution, fascism, imperialism, and more.

More here.