2. Lukacs was born in Hungary in 1924 to a mixed-faith family (Jewish & Catholic). He identified as Catholic but his Jewish heritage (shaped by grandparents he was close to) was important for making him wary of nationalism & faux-populism
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3. Lukacs was a conservative but of a type that is virtually extinct in America (& indeed in much of the world): a traditionalist wary of mass politics based on nationalism & scapegoating of minorities. He was for that reason properly scornful of American conservative movement.
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4. Lukacs' scorn for right-wing populism surfaced in the early 1950s. As a refugee from Hungary he was anti-communist, but still quick to detect & denounce the dangers of demagogues like Joseph McCarthy, who he feared would destablize society & incite war.
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5. I'm emphasizing Lukacs's anti-populist conservatism because its proved prophetic, especially in the Trump era. He long feared that populist-nationalist-authoritarian demagoguery was the wave of the future.
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7. Here's a Boston Globe article I wrote about how Lukacs' anti-populist conservatism put him in tension with George Bush's Republican politics: http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/03/06/the_anti_populist?pg=full …
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8. Lukacs in 1970: "Bismarck was supposed to have said that the most important fact of the twentieth century would be that Americans speak English; it is not impossible that the most important condition of the next hundred years might be that the Russians are, after all, white.”
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9. Aside from his valuable critiques of nationalist populism, Lukacs was an eloquent defender of historical consciousness as a distinct & valuable form of thinking, with his own work exemplifying how being steeped in history can help illuminate the present & future.
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For too long the underworld went underneath the radar, if you'll excuse the musical pun?
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This uninformed Brooklynite said the same thing. When everyone was cheering the dissolution of the SU, I was laughed at in my family for saying, "wait and see what happens" Ethnic strife and oligarchy would prevail.
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