You know, people talk about [Richard] Nixon's "madman theory." We don't really know much about that. It was in memoirs, by somebody else.

How many educated Americans can even remember the names of the assassinated Jesuit intellectuals of El Salvador, or would know where to find a word they wrote? The answers are revealing, particularly when we draw the striking - and historically typical - contrast to the attitudes towards their counterparts in enemy domains.

The U.S. has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the per capita costs, and some of the worst outcomes. It's also the only privatized system.

I think the use of language is a very important means by which this species, because of its biological nature, creates a kind of social space, to place itself in interactions with other people. It doesn't have much to do with communication in a narrow sense; that is, it doesn't involve transmission of information. There is much information transmitted but it is not the content of what is said that is transmitted.

American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a lot to answer for here. There's been a drift toward very fragmenting tendencies among left groups, toward this sort of identity politics.

It seems self-evident that we should want people to be free, to be able to play an active part in making decisions about matters of concern to them, to the largest possible extent.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself.