I don't believe that one should have one-size-fits-all moral rules for international political action.
Tony JudtThe different American experience of the 20th Century is crucial because the lesson of the century for Europe, which essentially is that the human condition is tragic, led it to have a build a welfare system and a set of laws and social arrangements that are more prophylactic than idealistic. It's not about building perfect futures; it's about preventing terrible pasts. I think that is something that Europeans in the second half of the 20th century knew in their bones and Americans never did, and it's one of the big differences between the two Western cultures.
Tony JudtJudaism for me is a sensibility of collective self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling. I feel a debt of responsibility to this past. It is why I am Jewish.
Tony JudtAmerican social arrangements, economic arrangements, the degree of inequality in American life, the relatively small role played by the government in American public life and so forth, compares to exactly the opposite conditions in most of the European societies.
Tony JudtWords can make the illness a subject I can master, and not one that one simply emotes over.
Tony JudtThe 60s were a continuation of the 50s much more than people realized. Certainly in some countries, like Britain, there was still a culture of deference, whereas in the 70s we really are in a time of angry transition. The generation that came into young adulthood in the 70s couldn't find jobs; that wasn't true in my generation. They entered a time when two depressing things hit them both at the same time.
Tony Judt