Today, virtually everything in society has become atomized by the left/right, red/blue debate. Whether it’s culture, entertainment, politics, sports, science and health, all are shaped by how we see the liberal vs. conservative divide.
But rarely do we stop to try and understand the roots of all of this. Where did these terms come from, who were their intellectual fathers and how has their meaning morphed over decades and even centuries?
Conservative political analyst, and journalist Yuval Levin puts all of this in far greater perspective, in his new book The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left.
My conversation with Yuval Levin: